Part 14 (1/2)

But it was as an actor that at an early date he acquired a genuinely substantial and secure income There is abundance of contee was for an efficient actor an assured avenue to comparative wealth In 1590 Robert Greene describes in his tract entitled 'Never too Late' awith a player whoreat living' and a 'substantialof his career travelled on foot, bearing his theatrical properties on his back, but he prospered so rapidly that at the ti apparel would not be sold for 200 pounds' Ahbours 'where he dwelt' he was reputed able 'at his proper cost to build a windmill' In the university play, 'The Return from Parnassus' (1601?), a poor student enviously complains of the wealth and position which a successful actor derived froabonds, That carried erst their fardles on their backs, Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets, Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits, And pages to attend theirwords that better wits had framed, They purchase lands and now esquires are hwayman Gamaliel Ratsey extorted a free performance in 1604, were represented as men with the certainty of a rich competency in prospect {199b} An efficient actor received in 1635 as large a regular salary as 180 pounds The lowest known valuation set an actor's wages at 3s a day, or about 45 pounds a year

Shakespeare's emoluments as an actor before 1599 are not likely to have fallen below 100 pounds; while the remuneration due to performances at Court or in noblemen's houses, if the accounts of 1594 be accepted as the basis of reckoning, added some 15 pounds

Thus over 130 pounds (equal to 1,040 pounds of to-day) would be Shakespeare's average annual revenue before 1599 Such a sue inco to the author of 'Ratseis Ghost,' the actor, who may well have been ality, and there seems no reason why Shakespeare should not have been able in 1597 to draw fros 60 pounds ith to buy New Place His resources ht well justify his fellonsmen's opinion of his wealth in 1598, and suffice between 1597 and 1599 tothe barns with grain, and conducting various legal proceedings

But, according to tradition, he had in the Earl of Southaave hih with' a purchase to which he had a ains, leaves nothing unaccounted for in Shakespeare's financial position before 1599

Financial position after 1599

After 1599 his sources of incoreatly increased In 1635 the heirs of the actor Richard Burbage were engaged in litigation respecting their proprietary rights in the two playhouses, the Globe and the Blackfriars theatres The docuh not very detailed, information of Shakespeare's interest in theatrical property {200} Richard Burbage, with his brother Cuthbert, erected at their sole cost the Globe Theatre in the winter of 1598-9, and the Blackfriars Theatre, which their father was building at the time of his death in 1597, was also their property

After co the Globe they leased out, for twenty-one years, shares in the receipts of the theatre to 'those deserving s, Condell, Philips, and others' All the shareholders nae, active members of Shakespeare's company of players The shares, which nuation of providing for the expenses of the playhouse, and were doubtless in the first instance freely bestowed Hamlet claims, in the play scene (III

ii 293), that the success of his iet him 'a fellowshi+p in a cry of players'--a proof that a successful draht reasonably expect such a reward for a conspicuous effort In 'Hamlet,' moreover, both a share and a half-share of 'a fellowshi+p in a cry of players' are described as assets of enviable value (III ii

294-6) How inally fell to Shakespeare there is no est that they did not exceed two The Globe was an exceptionally large and popular playhouse

It would accommodate some two thousand spectators, whose places cost the between twopence and half a crown The receipts were therefore considerable, hardly less than 25 pounds daily, or so to the documents of 1635, an actor-sharer at the Globe received above 200 pounds a year on each share, besides his actor's salary of 180 pounds Thus Shakespeare drew from the Globe Theatre, at the lowest estimate, more than 500 pounds a year in all

His interest in the Blackfriars Theatre was comparatively unimportant, and is less easy to estimate The often quoted documents on which Collier depended to prove hi been proved to be forgeries The pleas in the lawsuit of 1635 show that the Burbages, the owners, leased the Blackfriars Theatre after its establish term of years to the ht out the lessee at the end of 1609, and then 'placed' in it 's, Condell, Shakespeare, etc' To these and other actors they allotted shares in the receipts, the shares nuht in all The profits were far smaller than at the Globe, and if Shakespeare held one share (certainty on the point is impossible), it added not more than 100 pounds a year to his income, and that not until 1610

Later income

His remuneration as dramatist between 1599 and 1611 was also by no means contemptible Prices paid to dramatists for plays rose rapidly in the early years of the seventeenth century, {202} while the value of the author's 'benefits' greith the growing vogue of the theatre The exceptional popularity of Shakespeare's plays after 1599 gave hiher rates of pecuniary reward in all directions, and the seventeen plays which were produced by him between that year and the close of his professional career in 1611 probably brought hie return of 20 pounds each or 340 pounds in all--nearly 30 pounds a year

At the same time the increase in the number of Court performances under James I, and the additional favour bestowed on Shakespeare's coiven that source of income the enhanced value of 20 pounds a year {203}

Thus Shakespeare in the later period of his life was earning above 600 pounds a year in e a professional incoement, have completed those purchases of houses and land at Stratford on which he laid out, between 1599 and 1613, a total sue of 70 pounds These properties, it must be remembered, represented investments, and he drew rent froricultural produce There is nothing inherently improbable in the statement of John Ward, the seventeenth-century vicar of Stratford, that in his last years 'he spent at the rate of a thousand a year, as I have heard,' although we eration in the round figures

Incomes of fellow-actors