Shakespeare's Lost Years in London by Arthur Acheson (audio ebook reader .txt) 📕

With idly iterating oft one thing,
A new fought combat, an affair at sea,
A marriage or progress or a plea.
No news but fits them as if made for them,
Though it be forged but of a woman's dream."

The plays of no other dramatist of that period match the description of the subjects of the plays given here. The "progress," mentioned by Chapman, is undoubtedly a reference to _Love's Labour's Lost_; "A marriage," _Midsummer Night's Dream_; "a plea," _The Merchant of Venice_; "A new fought combat," _Henry V._--as a reflection of the military services of Southampton and Essex in Ireland in 1599; "an affair at sea," _Twelfth Night_, _The Merchant of Venice_, etc.

In the second scene of _Histriomastix_, to Peace, the Arts, and Chrisoganus, come Mavortius and a group of his friends representing the nobility whom the academicians endeavour to win to their attendance and support. Mavortius and his followers refuse to cultivate Chrisoganus and the Arts, preferring a life of dalliance and pleasure, and to patronise plays and players instead. Other characters are introduced representing the Law, the Army, and Merchandise, who also neglect the Arts and live for pastime and sport.

The company of players patronised by Mavortius performs under the licence of Sir Oliver Owlet, and under the leadership of Posthaste, an erstwhile ballad maker, who writes plays for the company and who threatens to return to ballad making when playing proves unprofitable.

One of Mavortius' followers, Landulpho, an Italian lord, criticises the play presented by Posthaste and his fellows, and lauds the Italian drama.

A period of peace and prosperity, during which Chrisoganus and the Arts are neglected by the extravagant and pleasure-seeking lords and populace, is followed by war with an aftermath of poverty when Sir Oliver Owlet's company of players is disrupted, and the actors are compelled to "pawn their apparel for their charges."

_Enter_ CONSTABLE.]

HOST. Master Constable, ho! these players will not pay their shot.

POST. Faith, sir, war hath so pinch'd us we must pawn.

CONST. Alas, poor players! Hostess, what comes it to?

HOST. The Sharers dinners sixpence a piece. The hirelings--pence.

POST. What, sixpence an egg, and two and two an egg?

HOST. Faith, famine affords no more.

POST. Fellows, bring out the hamper. Chose somewhat out o'th stock.

_Enter the Players._

What will you have this cloak to pawn? What think you its worth?

HOST. Some fewer groats.

ONIN. The pox is in this age; here's a brave world fellows!

POST. You may see what it is to laugh at the audience.

HOST. Well, it shall serve for a pawn.

The further development of this narrative will make it evident beyond any reasonable doubt that Posthaste, the poet-actor, is intended to caricature Shakespeare, and Sir Oliver Owlet's company and its misfortunes to reflect the Earl of Pembroke's company in similar circumstances in 1593; that Mavortius is the young Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated _Venus and Adonis_ in 1593, and _Lucrece_ in the year following; that Landulpho, the Italian lord, represents John Florio, who, in 1591, in his _Second Fruites_, criticised English historical drama and praised Italian plays, and who, at about the same time as teacher of languages entered into the pay and patronage of the Earl of Southampton, a connection which his odd and interesting personality enabled him to hold thereafterwards for several years. The part which Landulpho takes in the play was somewhat developed by Marston in 1599, at which time it shall later on be shown that the relations between Florio and Shakespeare had reached a heated stage. The play of _The Prodigal Child_, which was the play within the play acted by Posthaste and his fellows in the earlier form of _Histriomastix_, did not, in my opinion, represent the English original of the translated German play of _The Prodigal Son_ which Mr. Simpson presents as the possible original, but was meant to indicate Shakespeare's _Love's Labours Won_, which was written late in the preceding year as a reflection of Southampton's intimacy with Florio, and the beginning of his affair with Mistress Davenant,[25] the Oxford tavern keeper's wife. The expression _The Prodigal Child_ differs from that of _The Prodigal Son_ in meaning, in that the word "Child" at that period meant a young nobleman. There is nothing whatever suggestive of Shakespeare's work in the translated German play, and it was merely the similarity of title that led Mr. Simpson to propose it as the play indicated. The play satirised by Chapman under the title of _The Prodigal Child_ was undoubtedly written by Shakespeare, and it is no more likely that Chapman would use the actual name of the play at which he points than that he would use the actual names of the various persons or of the company of players whose actions and work he caricatures.

In 1594 George Chapman published _Hymns to the Shadow of Night_, and in 1595 his _Ovid's Banquet of Sense_ and _A Coronet for his Mistress Philosophy_, dedicating both publications to his friend Matthew Roydon. The dedication of these poems to Roydon was an afterthought; they were not primarily written with Roydon in mind.[26] It has been made evident that Chapman had first submitted these poems to the Earl of Southampton in an endeavour to win his patronage, and failing to do so dedicated them to Roydon and attacked Shakespeare in the dedications, where he refers to him in the capacity of reader to the Earl of Southampton, and imputes to his adverse influence his ill-success in his attempt. In the dedication to _The Shadow of Night_ he writes:

"How then may a man stay his marvailing to see passion-driven men
reading but to curtail a tedious hour and altogether hidebound with
affection to great men's fancies take upon them as killing censures
as if they were judgements butchers or as if the life of truth lay
tottering in their verdicts.

"Now what supererogation in wit this is to think skill so mightily
pierced with their loves that she should prostitutely shew them her
secrets when she will scarcely be looked upon by others but with
invocation, fasting, watching; yea not without having drops of their
souls like an heavenly familiar. Why then should our _Intonsi
Catones_ with their profit ravished gravity esteem her true favours
such questionless vanities as with what part soever thereof they seem
to be something delighted they queamishly commend it for a pretty
toy. Good Lord how serious and eternal are their idolatrous plats
for riches."

The expression "passion-driven," as applied by Chapman to Shakespeare in 1594, especially in a dedication written to Matthew Roydon,--who in this same year published _Willobie his Avisa_,--plainly refers to Shakespeare's relations at that time with Mistress Davenant, who was the original for the figure now known as the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, as well as for the Avisa of _Willobie his Avisa_. The words "reading but to curtail a tedious hour and altogether hidebound with affection to great men's fancies," refer to Shakespeare in the capacity of reader to the Earl of Southampton. In an attack which John Florio makes upon Shakespeare in 1598, he also makes a similar reference to him in this capacity. The expression "judgements butcher," like Nashe's "killcow," indicates Shakespeare's father's trade of butcher.

It was the obvious parallel between Chapman's, "when she will scarcely be looked upon by others but with invocation, fasting, watching; yea not without having drops of their souls like an heavenly familiar," and Shakespeare's allusion, in Sonnet 86, to a poet who attempted to supplant him in Southampton's favour--

"He nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence:
But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine"--

that led Professor Minto to suggest Chapman as the rival poet of the Sonnets. In a former essay I have demonstrated the truth of Professor Minto's suggestion.

Chapman's _Intonsi Catones_, or "Unshorn Catos," refers to the peculiar manner in which Shakespeare wore his hair, which Greene describes as "harsh and curled like a horse-mane," and is also a reference to his provincial breeding and, presumed, lack of culture.

There are a number of indications in the few facts we possess of Shakespeare's life in 1594, and also in his own and contemporary publications, to warrant the assumption that the Earl of Southampton bestowed some unusual evidence of his bounty upon him in this year. If ever there was a period in his London career in which Shakespeare needed financial assistance more than at other times it was in this year. Lord Strange's company had now been acting under Henslowe's management for two years. The financial condition of both Burbage and Shakespeare must at this time have been at a low ebb. The plague had prevented Pembroke's company playing in London for nearly a year, and we have seen that their attempts to play in the provinces had resulted in failure and loss. In about the middle of 1594, however, Lord Strange's players (now the Lord Chamberlain's men) return to Burbage and the Theatre, when Shakespeare becomes not only a member of the company, but, from the fact that his name is mentioned with that of Kempe and Richard Burbage in the Court records of the payment for performances in December 1594, it is evident that he was then also a leading sharer in the company.

In parting from Henslowe and reorganising under Burbage in 1594 it is apparent that the reorganisers of the Lord Chamberlain's men would need considerable capital if we may judge the financial affairs of this company by those of the Lord Admiral's company (subsequently Lord Nottingham's men) while under Henslowe's management. On 13th October 1599 Henslowe records in his _Diary_: "Received with the company of my Lord of Nottingham's men to this place, beinge the 13th of October 1599, and it doth appeare that I have received of the debte which they owe unto me three hundred fifty and eight pounds." This was only a partial payment of this company's debt, which evidently was considerably in excess of this amount. It is unlikely, then, that Lord Strange's company was free of debt to him at the end of their term under his management.

Shakespeare's earliest biographer, Nicholas Rowe, records, on the authority of Sir William Davenant, "that my Lord Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to." Whatever truth there may be as to the amount of money here mentioned, it is apparent that Southampton evidenced his bounty to Shakespeare in 1594 in some substantial manner, which quickly became noised abroad among the poets and writers who sought patronage. Several of these poets in approaching Southampton refer inferentially to his munificence to Shakespeare. In 1594 Barnabe Barnes writes:

"Vouchsafe right virtuous Lord with gracious eyes