Chapter 2

Third, That it was impossible for you to pay the bill, you having no money, and receiving no greater income than 22 shillings per week, all of which was necessary to the maintenance of yourself and family. We regret again to call to your notice the Statute of 16 Eliz., entitled, "Concerning the Imprisonment of Insolvent Debtors," which we trust you will not oblige us to invoke in aid of our suffering client's rights. To be lenient and merciful is his inclination, and we are happy to communicate to you this most favorable tender for an acquittance of his claim. You shall render to us an order on the Steward of the Globe Theatre for 20 shillings per week of your stipend therein. This will leave to you yet 2 shillings per week, which, with prudence, will yield to you the comforts, if not the luxuries, of subsistence. In ten weeks the face of the bill will be thus repaid. For his forbearance in the matter of time, which hath most seriously inconvenienced him, he requires that you shall pay him the further sum of £2 as usury, and likewise that you do liquidate and save him harmless from the charges of us, his solicitors, which charges, from the number of grave and complicated questions which have become a part of this case and demanded solution, we are unable to make less than £4. We should say guineas, but your evident distress hath moved us to gentleness and mercy. These added sums are to be likewise embraced in the Steward's order, and paid at the same rate as the substance of the bill, and should you embrace this compassionate tender, in the brief period of sixteen weeks you will be at the end of this indebtedness.

The next letter is dated the following month, and is from Henry Howard, an apparent pawnbroker.

QUEER STREET, LONDON, 10 March, 1593.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Actor:

These presents are to warn you that the time has six days since passed in which you were to repay me 8 shillings, and thereby redeem the property in pledge to me; namely, one Henry VIII. shirt of mail and visor, and Portia's law book, and the green bag therefor. Be warned that unless the 8 shillings and the usance thereof be forthcoming, the town-crier shall notify the sale of the sundry articles named.

The next letter, and the last in this period of the poet's career (1593), is from Mordecai Shylock.

FLEET STREET, NEAR THE SIGN OF THE HOG IN ARMOR, NOV. 22, 1593.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

I have been active in the way you some days since besought me; namely, the procuring for you of a loan of £5, that you might retire a bill upon which you were a guarantor. As I then told you, I have no money myself, being very poor; but I have a friend who has money with which I can persuade him to relieve your wants. Had I myself the money, I should gladly meet your needs at a moderate usance, not more than twenty-five in the hundred; but my friend is a hard man, who exacts large returns for his means, and will be very urgent that repayment be made on the day named in the bill. He hath empowered me to take your bill at two months,--for him, mind you,--for £10, the payment to be assured, as you wished, by the pledge of your two new plays in manuscript,--"Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet,"--for which bill he will at my strong instance, and because you are a friend to me, give £5. My charge for services in this behalf, which hath consumed much time, will be £1, which I shall straightway pay out in the purchase of a new gown, much needed by my little daughter Jessica, who loves you and recalls often the pleasant tales you do repeat for her diversion.

The letters in the second period (1602) are nine years later than those just read. The first is from the same Mordecai Shylock, who, with the poet, seems to have prospered in worldly affairs, as his letters are dated in a more reputable portion of the city.

THREADNEEDLE STREET, LONDON, April 17, 1602.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

In January last past you purchased of Richard Burbage four shares of the stock of the Globe Theatre for £100, and inasmuch as you had not available the whole means to pay therefor, borrowed from me the £60 wanting, paying yourself £40 of such purchase price, and giving me in pledge for my £60 such four shares of stock. Owing to special attractions at Blackfriars' Theatre, the stock of the Globe hath greatly declined in value, and I fear these four shares may not longer be salable at the price of even £60, and I therefore must importune that you forthwith do make a payment of £20 on your said bill, or the four shares of stock will be sold at public vendue.

The next letter is from the same writer, and is dated nine days later.

THREADNEEDLE STREET, April 26, 1602.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

I acknowledge to have received from you by the hand of Henry Condell £5, and two of your own shares in the stock of the Globe Theatre in further pledge of your bill of £60, as was engaged between us yesterday. It pains me to make known to you that, owing to the great demands recently made upon the goldsmiths by her sacred Majesty, money hath become very dear; and as it was not my own lent you, I have been obliged to pay above the usance expected a further premium of seventeen in the hundred, which I pray you to presently repay me. I am told that shares in the Globe can now be bought at £15; and inasmuch as yours were bought at £25, should you acquire other shares at £15, it would serve to equate your havings.

The next letter, from the same broker, is written but a few days later.

THREADNEEDLE STREET, May 12, 1602.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

Acting as requested by you, I did one week ago buy for you three shares in the Globe Theatre for £15 each, using in such purchase the £15 given me by you, and £30, not of mine own, but which was furnished me by a goldsmith of repute. Yesterday I learned that shares were offered at £10 each, perchance from the efforts of forestallers, as also from the preaching of a dissenter, who fulminates that the end of the world is but three weeks away, which hath induced great seriousness among the people. Unless you can pay me, therefore, as much as £40, on the morrow I shall be constrained to offer such shares to the highest bidder at the meeting of the guild.

The next letter is also from the same Mordecai Shylock, and is dated four days later.

THREADNEEDLE STREET, May 16, 1602.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

My earnest epistle to thee of four days since having elicited no response, I did on the following day offer at the meeting of the Brokers' Guild some of the shares of the stock in the Globe pledged to me, and three shares were bidden at £9 each by my brother, Nehemiah Shylock. As I offered next all the rest, one Henry Wriothsley, Earl of Southampton, did ask to whom the shares belonged, and when he was enlightened, did straightway take all the shares and pay me the whole balance owing, and called me divers opprobrious names. I answered not his railing with railing, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe, but such slander is illy bestowed on one who has been your friend for long, and who was but striving to avert his own destruction.

The next letter in order is from one William Kempe, who would seem to be the business manager of the Globe Theatre, or the person having in charge the unskilled labor connected with the playhouse.

GLOBE PLAYHOUSE, EMPLOYMENT BUREAU, May 25, 1602.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

In much tribulation do I write thee as to the contention which hath arisen among our stock actors and supes of the Globe. Nicholas Bottom, whom you brought from the Parish workhouse in Stratford, is in ill humor with thee in especial. He says when he played with you in Ben Jonson's comedy, "Every Man in his Humor," he was by far the better actor and did receive the plaudits of all; despite which he now receives but 6 shillings each week, while you are become a man of great wealth, having gotten, as he verily believes, as much as £100. Vainly did I oppose to him that the reason you had money when he had none was in verity that you had labored when he was drunken, and that this was to his profit, since, had not you and the other holders of shares in the Globe saved somewhat of money, unthrifty groundlings of his ilk would starve, as there would be none to hire them at wages; but he avers that he is ground in the dust by the greed of capital, and hath so much prated of this that he hath much following, and accounteth himself a martyr. I said to him that at your especial order he was paid 6 shillings per week, which was double his worth, and that he should go elsewhere if he was not content, as I could daily get a better man for half his wages; but he will not go hence, nor will he perform, and has persuaded others to join with him, his very worthlessness having made him their leader, and they threaten, unless they may receive additional 4 shillings per week, and a groat each night for sack, they will have no plays performed, nor will they allow others to be hired in their stead. They do further demand that you shall write shorter plays; that you shall write no tragedies requiring them to labor more than three hours in the rendition; that you shall cut out as much as twelve pages each in "Richard III." and "Othello," and fifteen pages from "Hamlet," that they may not labor to weariness, and may have more hours to recreation and improvement at the alehouse. I know not what to do. If I yield them their demands, nothing will be left for the owners of shares in the Globe; and if I do not, I fear mobs and riots. Fain would I receive thy counsel, which shall have good heed.

The next letter is the last in the period under review, and bears date four days later than the one just quoted from William Kempe.

AT THE ELEPHANT & MAGPIE INN, LONDON, May 29, 1602.

TO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

This is written to thee by John Lely, a clerk, in behalf of Nicholas Bottom, who useth not the pen, and who says to me to tell William Shakespeare, fie upon him that he did order the aforesaid Bottom to be locked out of the Globe Playhouse. Hath he forgotten the first play he, William Shakespeare, did ever write, to wit, "Pyramus and Thisbe," when a boy at Stratford, which was played by himself and Nicholas Bottom and Peter Quince and others, in a barn, for the delectation of the townsmen? And is not this same play a part of his "Midsummer Night's Dream," which beggarly play he did sell for £10, and hath not Nicholas Bottom first and always been an ass therein? Doth he refuse to render to Nicholas Bottom 10 shillings per week when he can get £10 or even £11 for a beggarly play, which is nought unless it be acted? Many a time hath he paid me from a sponging house; often hath he given me groats for sack, and for purges when sack hath undone me; and did I ever insult him to offer to repay him a penny? Say to him, remembereth he not when the horses ridden by Duncan and Macbeth upon the stage did break through the floor, who, affrighted, did run howling away, whereby Burbage was aroused and did pick him, William Shakespeare, from among the horses' feet and save his life? And now, sweet Will, fie upon thee that thou didst frown upon thy townsman. Delay not to send me sundry shillings for the publican, who believes you will discharge, as often before, my reckoning. This, and much more of like tenor, saith Nicholas Bottom to William Shakespeare by your worship's humble servant,

JOHN LELY.

The letters in the third period bear date in 1609, seven years later than those last quoted. The first is from Rev. Walter Blaise, who appears to be the clergyman at Stratford-on-Avon.

STRATFORD, Feb. 23, 1609.

TO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

John Naps, of Greece, who did recently return to his home here from London, safely has delivered to Anne, your wife, the package entrusted to him for carriage. As your wife hath not the gift of writing, she does desire that I convey to you her thanks for the sundry contents of the hamper. She hath also confided to me as her spiritual adviser that she did diligently ply John Naps with questions as to his visit to you in London, and that said John Naps, under her interrogatories, has revealed to her much that doth make her sick at heart and weary of life.

_Item_. He doth report that you do pass among men as a bachelor, and, with sundry players and men of that ilk, do frequent a house of entertainment kept by one Doll Tearsheet, and do kiss the barmaid and call her your sweetheart.

_Item_. He doth also report that you did give to the daughter of the publican at whose house you do now abide, a ring of fine gold, and did also write to her a sonnet in praise of her eyebrows and her lips, and did otherwise wickedly disport with the said damsel.

_Item_. He doth further report of you that you did visit, with one Ben Jonson, on the Sabbath-day, a place of disrepute, where were cock-fights and the baiting of a bear, and that with you were two brazen women, falsely called by you the wife and sister of Ben Jonson.

These things do overmuch grieve Anne, who hath been to you a loyal wife and a true, and she desires that you do forthwith renounce your evil ways and return to the new house at Stratford, and in ashes and sackcloth repent of your wanderings from the straight and narrow way.

Thus far have I spoken to you as the mouthpiece and vicegerent of Anne, your wife, who is in sore affliction and deep grief by reason of your transgressions. But, beloved lamb of my flock, I should be unworthy my high and sacred calling did I not lift up also my rebuking voice as a pelican in the wilderness, and adjure you to beware of concupiscence and fleshly lust, which unceasingly do war upon the human soul. Thinkest thou to touch pitch and remain undefiled?

The next letter is from the firm of Coke & Dogberry, lawyers in London.

INNER TEMPLE, March 8, 1609.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

We have been retained by Mistress Anne Page as her solicitors to bring against you an action, for that you have not fulfilled and in sooth cannot fulfil with her a contract of marriage, and to seek against you under the laws of this realm heavy damages and an imprisonment of the body, in that you have in unholy ways trifled with her affections, contrary to the statute in such cases provided. She especially avers that you did, two days before Michaelmas, swear to her on a parcel gilt goblet that you did love her alone, and did then give to her a bracelet of price. But yesterday, as she was bargaining with a yeoman named Christopher Sly, from Stratford, for the purchase of a spotted pig of his own fattening, the said Sly did reveal to her that you were his friend, and that you had wife and children in your native town where he dwelt. We beg you to straightway name to us your solicitors, that we may confer with them and attend to the issuance of the writs.

I have aimed to select from the letters sent me only those bearing on some trouble tending to cause sleeplessness on the part of the poet, but make an exception in case of a letter of Sir Walter Raleigh, next in chronological order, which refers to matters of general interest.

The Mermaid, March 20, 1609.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

Full well do I know, my dearest Will, that often hast thou wondered of the fate of thy £50, which, with a hundred times as much of mine own, was adventured to found an empire in America. Great were our hopes, both of glory and of gold, in the kingdom of Powhatan. But it grieves me much to say that all hath resulted in infelicity, misfortune, and an unhappy end. Our ships were wrecked, or captured by the knavish Spaniards. Our brave sailors are perished. As I was blameworthy for thy risk, I send by the messenger your £50, which you shall not lose by my over-hopeful vision. For its usance I send a package of a new herb from the Chesapeake, called by the natives tobacco. Make it not into tea, as did one of my kinsmen, but kindle and smoke it in the little tube the messenger will bestow. Be not deterred if thy gorge at first rises against it, for, when thou art wonted, it is a balm for all sorrows and griefs, and as a dream of Paradise. And now, my sweet Will, whom my soul loveth, why comest thou not as of yore to the "Mermaid," that I may have speech with thee? Thou knowest that from my youth up I have adventured all for the welfare and glory of our Queen Elizabeth. On sea and on land and in many climes have I fought the accursed Spaniards, and am honored recognize thy supreme merit, for daily and hourly are sung to her the praises of this loveliness until the story is as a tale that is told and a weariness to the understanding; but thy commendations of her wisdom will be as fresh and fragrant incense, nor will their truthfulness be too closely scanned.

Thou knowest that I have taken all knowledge to be my province, and therefore have I oft and longingly gazed into the flowery fields of that divine art where to-day in our much-loved England thou art disporting thyself supremely and alone. But when I consider thy tragedies, throughout which is diffused the inmost soul of poesy, my crude yet labored metres seem to me as the body of a maiden, not indeed devoid of a certain comeliness and grace, yet into whose waiting bosom hath not yet been breathed the spirit of life.

In thy tragedies thou hast the majestic grace which in the Attic ages belonged to Sophocles alone; thou hast the stately march and music of Aeschylus, without in thy themes his ceaseless iteration of predestined woe which ranks his heroes outside humanity; yet the sombre hand of fate hath not more inflexibly driven the gentle Iphigenia to her doom than it hath followed Macbeth to his foreshadowed crime and end. But in thy canticles it is not an o'ershadowing, mysterious, and tragic fate, but a gracious and loving Providence which, as thyself hath phrased it,

"Holds in His hands the shears of destiny, And has commandment on the pulse of life."

In comedy, Aristophanes is not thy master, yet must I greatly choose thy tragedies as monuments of thy abiding fame. Funeral dolors rather than bridal carols inspire even the harp of David, beloved of the Lord; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost toucheth ever the shadowed phases of our earthly lives.

I am minded to now advert to another topic from the tale told me by Southampton that thou wert presently to publish a volume of thy sugared sonnets. May I pray thee that this collection compass not the two sonnets written by thee for me in laud of our Queen Elizabeth, and the one of this morning? As thou knowest, these first were presented to our gracious Sovereign as mine own, and did so pleasure her as to chiefly prosper my advancement. Were the true author now known it might sadly mar my fortunes. In the vastness of thy riches, the absence of these gems shall not be noted. The loss of a star dims not the splendor of the constellations. The glorious sun seeks not to reclaim the lustre his rays have given to the tiny dewdrop. Withal I have rendered to thee somewhat of recompense as I have spoken at sundry times to her gracious Majesty and to our present anointed Sovereign of thy dramas, and fostered as best I might thy interests when they crossed not mine own. So I trust this boon may be awarded me, and that my borrowed splendors may not be stripped away. Thy immeasurable superiority, as again evidenced in the sonnet to the Lady Mary, has fixed anew my resolve as to my predestined field of labor. Not for my brow shall be woven the Poet's garland of bays. Yet abundant self-confidence is mine, and I augur that in the great work for which I would fain believe the ages are waiting, will be made clear my award to be the high priest of Nature. Exact sciences not yet born shall be my servitors and the augmenters of my fame. By the methods I have discerned shall mankind discover and apply those beneficent innovations which are the chiefest births of time. Yet even this hope hath its flavor of bitterness, as thus guided my pupils may far overpass me and my memory be lost. But the love of beauty and melody in poesy is of perennial life, and thy memory shall survive the mutations of time, and shall be the Nation's heritage while fancy and imagination dwell in the souls of men.

Anew do I now discern that the meditation of Nature and her laws, mysterious yet exact, consorteth not with the airy fancies of the Poet's vision, and that our paths are diverse, yet each guiding to what is useful and divine.

Farewell! and until the dolors of death are mine shall I remember thy sweet, loving kindness, and admire thy shining genius where wit and wisdom guide the flight of a sovereign imagination.

Ever thy friend, FRANCIS BACON.

One special point is notable in this letter from Bacon. His ordinary correspondence is thickly sprinkled with quotations in the ancient tongues. As he was well acquainted with Shakespeare, this omission of his customary Latin phrases would indicate that he recognized Shakespeare's lack of a thorough classical education.

The next, and the last letter in the collection which seems to have a bearing upon the sleeplessness of Shakespeare, is also from Rev. Walter Blaise.

STRATFORD, April 3, 1609.

TO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: