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

"And thou, Menalcas, that by treacheree
Didst underfong my lasse to waxe so light,
Shouldest well be known for such thy villanee.
But since I am not as I wish I were,
Ye gentle Shepheards, which your flocks do feede,
Whether on hylls, or dales, or other where,
Beare witnesse all of thys so wicked deede:
And tell the lasse, whose flowre is woxe a weede,
And faultlesse fayth is turned to faithlesse fere,
That she the truest shepheards hart made bleede,
That lyves on earth, and loved her most dere."

The very unusual word "underfong" which Spenser uses in these verses, and the gloss which he appends to the verses of _The Shepheards Calendar_ for June, were not lost upon Shakespeare. Spenser, in the glossary, writes: "Menalcas, the name of a shephearde in Virgile; but here is meant a person unknowne and secrete, against whome he often bitterly invayeth. _Underfonge_, undermyne, and deceive by false suggestion." The immoral flippancy of the remarkable dialogue between the disreputable Parolles and the otherwise sweet and maidenly Helena, in Act I. Scene i. of _All's Well that Ends Well_, has often been noticed by critics as a peculiar lapse in dramatic congruity on the part of Shakespeare. This is evidently one of several such instances in his plays where he sacrificed his objective dramatic art to a subjective contingency, though by doing so undoubtedly adding a greater interest to contemporary presentations not only by the palpable reflection of Spenser's point at Florio in the play on the word "undermine" in a similar connection, but also as reflecting the wide latitude his Italianate breeding and manners and his Mediterranean unmorality allowed him and his type to take in conversing with English gentlewomen at that period.

The Rev. J.H. Halpin was not far from the truth in saying that "Florio was beset with tempers and oddities which exposed him more perhaps than any man of his time to the ridicule of his contemporaries"; and that "he was in his literary career, jealous, vain, irritable, pedantic, bombastical, petulant, and quarrelsome, ever on the watch for an affront, always in the attitude of a fretful porcupine."

Florio became connected as tutor of languages with the Earl of Southampton some time before the end of April 1591, when he issued his _Second Fruites_ and dedicated it to his recent patron, Nicholas Saunder of Ewell. In this publication there is a passage which not only exhibits the man's unblushing effrontery, but also gives us a passing glimpse of his early relations with his noble patron, the spirit of which Shakespeare reflects in Falstaff's impudent familiarity with Prince Hal. This passage serves also to show that at the time it was written, the last of April 1591, Florio had entered the pay and patronage of the Earl of Southampton. He introduces two characters as follows, and, with true Falstaffian assurance, gives them his own and the Earl of Southampton's Christian names, Henry and John. Falstaff invariably addresses the Prince as Hal.

HENRY. Let us make a match at tennis.

JOHN. Agreed, this fine morning calls for it.

HENRY. And after, we will go to dinner, and after dinner we will see a play.

JOHN. The plaies they play in England are neither right comedies nor right tragedies.

HENRY. But they do nothing but play every day.

JOHN. Yea: but they are neither right comedies nor right tragedies.

HENRY. How would you name them then?

JOHN. Representations of history, without any decorum.

It shall later be shown that Chapman also noticed Florio's presumption in this instance, and that he recognised the fact, or else assumed as a fact, that Florio's stricture on English historical drama was directed against Shakespeare.

We may judge from the conversation between Henry and John that Southampton, in attaining a colloquial knowledge of French and Italian, entered into intimate relations with Florio, and from the interest that he displayed in dramatic affairs in later years, that during his first year in London he would be likely frequently to witness the performance of plays in the public theatres. It is probable, then, that he would have seen performances by both Pembroke's and Strange's companies in this year.

It is evident that an acquaintance between the Earl of Southampton and Shakespeare was not formed previous to Southampton's coming to Court in November 1590. A first acquaintance undoubtedly had its inception between that date and Southampton's departure for France early in 1592. I shall now develop evidence for my belief that their first acquaintance was made upon the occasion of the Queen's progress to Cowdray and Tichfield House in August and September 1591.

I find no record in the State Papers concerning Southampton between the date of his departure from home for the Court in October 1590, and 2nd March 1592 (new style), when he wrote from Dieppe to the Earl of Essex. We may, however, infer that he was still in England on 15th August 1591, the date of the arrival of the Queen and Court at Cowdray House. _It is evident also that the progress would not have proceeded a week later to his own county seat, Tichfield House, unless he was present._ We have evidence in the State Papers that the itineraries of the Queen's progresses were usually planned by Burghley; the present progress to Cowdray and Tichfield was undoubtedly arranged _in furtherance of his matrimonial plans for his granddaughter and Southampton_. The records of this progress give us details concerning the entertainments for the Queen, which were given at some of the other noblemen's houses she visited; the verses, masques, and plays being still preserved in a few instances, even where she tarried for only a few days. The Court remained at Cowdray House for a full week. No verses nor plays recited or performed upon this occasion, nor upon the occasion of her visit, a week later, to the Earl of Southampton's house at Tichfield, have been preserved in the records. It is very probable, however, in the light of the facts to follow, _that our poet and his fellow-players attended the Earl of Southampton, both at Cowdray House and at Tichfield, during this progress_. In the description of the Queen's entertainment during her stay at Cowdray, I find a most suggestive resemblance to much of the action and plot of _Love's Labours Lost_. The Queen and Court arrived at Cowdray House at eight o'clock on Saturday evening, 15th August. That night, the records tell us, "her Majesty took her rest and so in like manner the next, which was Sunday, being most royally feasted, the proportion of breakfast being 3 oxen and 140 geese." "The next day," we are informed, "she rode in the park where a delicate bower" was prepared and "a nymph with a sweet song delivered her a crossbow to shoot at the deer of which she killed three or four and the Countess of Kildare one." In _Love's Labour's Lost_ the Princess and her ladies shoot at deer from a coppice.

PRINCESS. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murderer in?

FOR. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

In Act IV. Scene ii., Holofernes makes an "extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer," which is reminiscent of the "sweet song" delivered to the Queen by "the nymph."

HOL. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death
of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call I the deer the
princess killed a pricket.

* * * * *

I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.

The preyful princess pierced and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket;
Some say a sore, but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting.
The dogs did yell; put L to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket;
Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.
If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores one sorel.
Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.

_In a former publication I have shown that an antagonism had developed between Shakespeare and Chapman as early as the year 1594, and in a more recent one have shown Matthew Roydon's complicacy with Chapman in his hostility to Shakespeare, and also Shakespeare's cognizance of it._ I have displayed Shakespeare's answers to the attacks of these scholars in his caricature of Chapman as Holofernes, and of the curate Roydon as the curate Nathaniel. Chapman's attack upon Shakespeare in 1593 in the early _Histriomastix_ and his reflection of the Earl of Southampton as Mavortius give evidence that his hostility owed its birth to Shakespeare's success in winning the patronage and friendship of Southampton; unless Chapman and Roydon had already solicited this nobleman's patronage, or had at least come into contact with him in some manner, and considered themselves displaced by Shakespeare, both the virulence of their opposition to our poet, and the manner and matter of Chapman's slurs against him in _Histriomastix_, and in the dedications of his poems to Matthew Roydon in 1594-95, are unaccountable.

It is likely that Matthew Roydon was one of the theological poets--who wrote anonymously for the stage--mentioned by Robert Greene in the introduction to _The Farewell to Folly_, which was published in 1591. It is probable also that Roydon is referred to as a writer for the stage in Greene's _Groatsworth of Wit_, where, after indicating Marlowe, Peele, and Nashe, he says:

"In this I might insert two more who have both writ against (for)
these buckram gentlemen."

Now seeing that both Roydon and Chapman are satirised by Shakespeare in _Love's Labours Lost_, it occurs to me that the "preyful Princess" verses quoted above (which display parody in every line) are intended by Shakespeare to caricature the known work of the author of the sweet song delivered to the Queen by the nymph, and consequently that this song was from the pen of one of this learned couple. As I have already noticed, in the records of the Queen's stay at the other noblemen's houses that she visited on this progress, many verses and songs appear which were written specially for these occasions, while no songs, nor verses, have been preserved from the Cowdray or Tichfield festivities, occasions when they would be likely to have been used, considering Southampton's interest in literary matters and the court paid to him