Part 1 (1/2)

A Life of William Shakespeare

by Sidney Lee

PREFACE

This work is based on the article on Shakespeare which I contributed last year to the fifty-first voluraphy'

But the changes and additions which the article has undergone during my revision of it for separate publication are so nuarded as an independent venture In its general aims, however, the present life of Shakespeare endeavours loyally to adhere to the principles that are inherent in the scheraphy' I have endeavoured to set before reat dramatist's personal history as concisely as the needs of clearness and coht to provide students of Shakespeare with a full record of the duly attested facts and dates of their master's career I have avoided merely aesthetic criticism My estimates of the value of Shakespeare's plays and poeation that lies on the biographer of indicating succinctly the character of the successive labours which oven into the texture of his hero's life AEsthetic studies of Shakespeare abound, and to increase their nuation But Shakespearean literature, as far as it is known to me, still lacks a book that shall supply within a brief coed statement of the facts of Shakespeare's career, achievement, and reputation, that shall reduce conjecture to the sive verifiable references to all the original sources of infor Elizabethan literature, history, and bibliography for ht, without exposingin the way of filling this gap, and that I uide-book to Shakespeare's life and work that should be, within its limits, complete and trustworthy How far my belief was justified the readers of this volume will decide

I cannot pro revelations But uities which puzzled ht on one or two topics that have hitherto obscured the course of Shakespeare's career Particulars that have not been before incorporated in Shakespeare's biography will be found insubjects: the conditions under which 'Love's Labour's Lost'

and the 'Merchant of Venice' ritten; the references in Shakespeare's plays to his native town and county; his father's applications to the Heralds' College for coat-armour; his relations with Ben Jonson and the boy actors in 1601; the favour extended to his work by James I and his Court; the circumstances which led to the publication of the First Folio, and the history of the dramatist's portraits I have somewhat expanded the notices of Shakespeare's financial affairs which have already appeared in the article in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' and a fe facts will be found in my revised estimate of the poet's pecuniary position

In my treatment of the sonnets I have pursued what I believe to be an original line of investigation The strictly autobiographical interpretation that critics have of late placed on these poerapher, to submit them to a very narrow scrutiny My conclusion is adverse to the clairaphical documents, but I have felt bound, out of respect to writers froive in detail the evidence on which I base aciously laid down the maxim that 'the criticism which alone can ards Europe as being, for intellectual and artistic {vii} purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a co principle that is especially applicable to the vast sonnet-literature which was produced by Shakespeare and his contemporaries It is criticism of the type that Arnold recommended that can alone lead to any accurate and profitable conclusion respecting the intention of the vast sonnet-literature of the Elizabethan era In accordance with Arnold's suggestion, I have studied Shakespeare's sonnets coland, France, and Italy at the time he wrote I have endeavoured to learn the view that was taken of such literary endeavours by contehout Europe My researches have covered a very sh, I think, to justify the conviction that Shakespeare's collection of sonnets has no reasonable title to be regarded as a personal or autobiographical narrative

In the Appendix (Sections III and IV) I have supplied a memoir of Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton, and an account of the Earl's relations with the contemporary world of letters Apart from Southampton's association with the sonnets, he proe of the dramatist's career, and I can quote the authority of Malone, who appended a sketch of Southaraphy of Shakespeare (in the 'Variorue of Southae of Shakespeare's I have also printed in the Appendix a detailed statement of the precise circumstances under which Shakespeare's sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609 (Section V), and a review of the facts that seem to me to confute the popular theory that Shakespeare was a friend and _protege_ of William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, who has been put forward quite unwarrantably as the hero of the sonnets (Sections VI, VII, VIII) {ix} I have also included in the Appendix (Sections IX and X) a survey of the voluminous sonnet-literature of the Elizabethan poets between 1591 and 1597, hich Shakespeare's sonnetteering efforts were very closely allied, as well as a bibliographical note on a corresponding feature of French and Italian literature between 1550 and 1600

Since the publication of the article on Shakespeare in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' I have received froestions which have enabled me to correct some errors But a few of enuous a faith in those forged docued references to his works, which were proated chiefly by John Payne Collier o, that I have attached a list of the raphical Information' in the Appendix (Section I) I believe the list to be fuller than any to be met with elsewhere

The six illustrations which appear in this volurounds of practical utility rather than of artisticas the frontispiece the newly discovered 'Droeshout'

painting of Shakespeare (now in the Shakespeare Meathered froive on pages 288-90 I have to thank Mr Edgar Flower and the other members of the Council of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford for permission to reproduce the picture The portrait of Southampton in early life is now at Welbeck Abbey, and the Duke of Portland not only perraved for this voluative from which the plate has been prepared The Coraph the interesting bust of Shakespeare in their possession, {x} but, owing to the fact that it is ative could be obtained; the engraving I have used is froinal bust, now in the Meraphs of Shakespeare's signature--all that exist of unquestioned authenticity--appear in the three renatures on the will have been photographed froinal document at Somerset House, by permission of Sir Francis Jenne, President of the Probate Court; the autograph on the deed of purchase by Shakespeare in 1613 of the house in Blackfriars has been photographed froinal document in the Guildhall Library, by permission of the Library Coraph on the deed ofto the saraphed froinal document in the British Museum, by permission of the Trustees Shakespeare's coat-of-arms and motto, which are stas in the e

The Baroness Burdett-Coutts has kindly giventhe two peculiarly interesting and valuable copies of the First Folio {xi} in her possession Mr Richard Savage, of Stratford-on-Avon, the Secretary of the Birthplace Trustees, and Mr W Salt Brassington, the Librarian of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford, have courteously replied to the many inquiries that I have addressed to them verbally or by letter Mr Lionel Cust, the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, has helped me to estimate the authenticity of Shakespeare's portraits I have also benefited, while the work has been passing through the press, by the valuable suggestions of , and I have to thank Mr Thomas Secco the final proofs

_October_ 12, 1898

I--PARENTAGE AND BIRTH

Distribution of the name

Shakespeare caes by residents in very land--at Penrith in cumberland, at Kirkland and Doncaster in Yorkshi+re, as well as in nearly all the nificance, i of the spear {1a} Its first recorded holder is John Shakespeare, who in 1279 was living at 'Freyndon,' perhaps Frittenden, Kent {1b} The great uild of St Anne at Knohoseinhabitants of Warwickshi+re, was joined by many Shakespeares in the fifteenth century

{1c} In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the surname is found far more frequently in Warwickshi+re than elsewhere The archives of no less than twenty-four towns and villages there contain notices of Shakespeare families in the sixteenth century, and as es were inhabited by Shakespeare fa theton, twelve miles to the north of Stratford, and in the same hundred of Barlichway, one of the most prolific Shakespeare families of Warwickshi+re resided in the sixteenth century, and no less than three Richard Shakespeares of Rowington, whose extant wills were proved respectively in 1560, 1591, and 1614, were fathers of sons called Willia the period a resident in Rowington As a consequence, the poet has beento one or other of his numerous contemporaries ere identically named

The poet's ancestry