and, as Mr. Collier observes, it is by At the commencement of his first "I should begin by stating, that the most interesting of them are derived from the manuscripts of Lord Ellesmere, whose name is of course well known to every reader of our history, as keeper of the great seal to Queen Elizabeth, and lord-chancellor to James I. They are preserved at Bridgewater House; and Lord Francis Egerton gave me instant and unrestrained access to them, with permission to make use of any literary or historical information I could discover. The Rev. H. J. Todd had been there before me, and had classed some of the documents and correspondence; but large bundles of paper, ranging in point of date between 1581, when Lord Ellesmere was made solicitor-general, and 1616, when he retired from the office of lord-chancellor, remained unexplored; and it was evident that many of them had never been opened from the time when, perhaps, his own hands tied them together." Amongst these, huddled amidst ancient legal documents, it was that Mr. Collier succeeded in ferreting out his new facts. After laying down some preliminary matters, he states, in conclusion, from them: "It is not likely that Shakespeare joined James Burbage's company until seven or eight years subsequent to 1579. He came to London for that purpose in 1586 or 1587, according to the most probable conjecture; and did not begin to write for the stage, even by the alteration of older plays, until 1590 or 1591. The earliest date at which his name has hitherto been mentioned, in connexion with the Black Friars' Theatre, is 1596, in a petition to the privy-council, which I first printed in the History of Dramatic Poetry, i. 298. But the MSS. at Bridgewater House now enable me to furnish not only the name of Shakespeare, but the names of the whole company of sharers, seven years earlier, and only two or three years after our great dramatist made his first appearance in the metropolis. Shakespeare, in Nov. 1589, had made such way in his profession, as to establish himself a sharer, with fifteen others-eleven of whose names precede his in the list, and only four follow. They stand thus; and the numeration, on other accounts, is remarkable:-James Burbage, Richard Burbage, John Laneham, Thomas Greene, Robert Wilson, John Taylor, Anthony Wadeson, Thomas Pope, George Peel, Augustine Phillips, Nicholas Towley, William Shakespeare, William Kempe, William Johnson, Baptist Goodall, Robert Armyn. "This information seems to me to give a sufficient contradiction to the idle story of Shakespeare having commenced his early career by holding horses at the playhouse door. Had such been the fact, he would hardly have risen to the rank of a sharer in 1589; as it indisputably appears he was, on the authority of the subsequent document, which must have been transmitted to Lord Ellesmere, with others, of which I shall speak hereafter." The document is then quoted at length, and is quite satisfactory upon the matter. For our own parts, we never Ient the slightest credence to the absurd story of Shakespeare's menial condition; his soul was too high and too gentle to have ever been soiled by servitude. Nor can we, on the other hand, bring ourselves to believe that he was destitute of education, in the best sense of the word, as some of his commentators would fain persuade us, upon the authority of Ben Jonson. In a subsequent part of his letter, Mr. Collier, referring to the pecuniary means of Shakespeare, observes: "It is known that, in 1605, Shakespeare gave 4401. for the lease of a moiety of the great and small tithes of Stratford; so that the author of the anonymous tract called Ratsey's Ghost(printed without date, but not earlier than 1606) might well tell his hero, the poor itinerant player, in ob vious reference to the success of Shake. speare, When thou feelest thy purse well lined, buy thee some place of lordship in the country, that, growing weary of playing, thy money may there bring thee to high dignity and reputation; for I have heard, indeed, of some that have gone to London very meanly, and have come in time to be exceeding wealthy.' Shakespeare came to London a penniless fugitive, and returned, weary of playing' and of plays, to spend his last years in his birth-place, comparatively in high dignity and reputation,' and, if not 'exceeding wealthy,' with a very comfortable independence. In a previous part of the same paragraph, the author of Ratsey's Ghost clearly refers to Burbage as the original performer of Hamlet (a Collier on Shakespeare. point now beyond dispute, to the rejec- This is presumed to be a letter ad- entire. My verie honored lord,-The manie good offices I have received at your lordship's hands, which ought to make me backward in asking further favours, onely imbouldens me to require more in the same kinde. Your lordship will be warned howe hereafter you graunt anie suche, seeing it draweth on more and greater demaunds. This which now presseth is to request your lordship, in all you can, to be good to the poore players of the Black Fryers, who call themselves by authoritie the servaunts of his majestie, and aske for the protection of their most graceous maister and sovereigne in this the time of their trouble. threatened by the lord maior and alder. They are men of London, never freindly to their calling, with the destruction of their means of livelihood, by the pulling down of theire plaiehouse, which is a private theatre, and hath never given occasion of anger by anie disorders. These bearers are two of the chiefe of theire companie. One of them, by name Richard Burbidge, who humblie sueth for youre lordship's kinde helpe, for that he is a man famous as our English Roscius-one who fitteth the action to the word and the word to the action most admirably. By the exercise of his qualitye, industry, and good [May, the Black Fryer's Playhouse, which hath been employed for plays sithence it was builded by his father, now nere fifty yeres ago. The other is a man no whitt lesse deserving favor, and my especial friend, till of late an actor of good account in the companie, now a sharer in the same, and writer of some of our best English playes, which, as your lordship knoweth, were most singularly liked of Queen Elizabeth, when the companie was called uppon to perform before her majestie at court, at Christmas and Shrovetide. His most gracious majestie King James, alsoe, since his coming to the crowne, hathe extended his royall favour to the companie in divers waies and at sundrie tymes. This other hath to name William Shakespeare; and they are both of one countie, and, indeed, almost of one towne. famous in their qualityes; though it Both are right longeth not to your lordship's gravitie and wisedom to resort unto the places were they are wont to delight the publique eare. Their trust and sute now is not to be molested in their waye of life, whereby they maintain themselves and their wives and families (being both married and of good reputation), as well as the widows and orphanes of some of their dead fellows. "Your Lo. most boundin at comm. "H.S." There are several other curious documents quoted in the letter, all of which tend to shew that, even in his own time, Master William Shakespeare did, as every man of genius knows he must, enjoy high and pure fame. The second pamphlet, but just published, relates to his works. In the advertisement, Mr. Collier describes the matters upon which he has to touch. He says of the latter It relates to some of the most important of Shakespeare's dramatic works, Richard II., Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, Macbeth, the Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, Othello, &c.; and as signs to him poems, recently discovered, and only existing in manuscripts. The information thus supplied the author apprehends is entirely new.' He informs us that he came by the materials after the following fashion: "When I was at Oxford, six or seven years ago, looking for materials for the History of Dramatic Poetry and the Stage, I heard of the existence, in the Bodleian Library, of a manuscript containing notes on the performance of some of Shakespeare's plays, written by a person who the lic the poet. These would have been a great prize to me; and I made long and repeated searches for them, but without success. The fact is, that I was accidentally put upon a wrong scent; and, had I been put upon a right one in that immense receptacle of rarities, I might easily have failed in making the wishedfor discovery. They are contained in the Ashmolean volume, No. 208, and bear the following title: The Booke of Plaies, and Notes therof, P. Formans for common Pollicie;' and they were written by Dr. Simon Forman, the cele brated physician and astrologer, who lived in Lambeth, the same parish in which Elias Ashmole afterwards resided. Forman was implicated in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury; but he died in 1611, before the trial, the register of his burial in Lambeth churchyard being dated on the 12th September in that year. The last date in his Book of Plays' is the 15th May, 1611; so that he was a frequenter of the theatres until a short period before his sudden decease in a boat on the Thames." We have critiques, or rather reports, of the several plays mentioned by Collier in the advertisement, from which we shall select one, not only because it is the most quaint as a production, the most curious intrinsically, but also because it relates to a play in which all lovers of Shakespeare must take a peculiar interest, as one of the grand philosophical and psychological poems with which he has enriched the world, -Macbeth! It is, at the worst, curious as a specimen of ancient dramatic criticism; and serves to shew that men who might in alchemy, astrology, and the like, by which they humbugged themselves and others- vain arts, by which and for which they lived -- have been supposed to be quite occupied, did nevertheless find leisure to be enthusiastic about the mimic sports of the theatre. It is strange enough. Muratori, we all know, delighted in witnessing the facetious labours of the puppet-shows; but it has not yet been discovered by any Italian Collier that he kept a chronicle of them. Forman, however, had the real histrionic " enthusimusy." Here is his account of Macbeth, as an exemplar of his style and labours: "In Macbeth, at the Globe, 1610, the 20th April, Saturday, there was to be observed first how Macbeth and Banquo, two noblemen of Scotland, riding through a wood, there stood before them three women, fairies or nymphs, and saluted Macbeth, saying three times unto him, 'Hail, Macbeth, king of Codor! for thou shalt be a king, but shalt beget no kings,' &c. Then said Banquo, What! all to Macbeth, and nothing to me?' Yes,' said the nymphs, hail to thee, Banquo! thou shalt beget kings, yet be no king.' And so they departed, and came to the court of Scotland, to Duncan, king of the Scots. And it was in the days of Edward the Confessor. And Duncan bad them both kindly welcome; and made Macbeth forthwith prince of Northumberland, and sent him home to his own castle; and appointed Macbeth to provide for him, for he would sup with him the next day at night; and he did so. And Macbeth contrived to kill Duncan; and, through the persuasion of his wife, did that night murder the king in his own castle, being his guest. And there were many prodigies seen that night and the day before. And when Macbeth had murdered the king, the blood on his hands could not be washed off by any means, nor from his wife's hands, which handled the Among the Bridgewater MSS. is a curious letter from Thomas Bone to Sir John Egerton, giving an account of the arraignment and trial of Mrs. Turner and others; and containing the following passage, which shews the manner in which Forman was posthumously implicated:Divers other letters, written with her (the Countess of Essex's) owne hand, one to the lieutenant himself, one to Mrs. Turner, and one to Mr. Dr. Forman, which was long after his death found by great chance in the pocket of his hose (and which letter she hath acknowledged to the lords to be her hand), which it is impossible for the witt of man to answere with a cleer conScience, were publiquely read this day. In that letter to Forman she begins thus: Sweet father, I must still crave your helpe. shall be most miserable. The world forsakes me, and the heavens are against me. pray the Lord sure vnto mee, else I And for my lord (meaning the Earle of Essex), hee is still lusty and merry, and as dogged to me as ever he was.' This honest and honourable lord was present this day in court, with many other noble auditors of both sexes. The ladye's private and sundry runnings to Dr. Forman, &c., and her other lascivious meetings with the Earl of Somerset, at Mrs. Turner's and elsewhere, I pass over now; and so they were at the arraignment without any contradiction.' Weldon says, that Chief Justice Cope, who presided, found his own wife's name on the first leaf of the book in which Forman entered his visitors." bloody daggers in hiding them, by which means they became both much amazed and affronted. "The murder being known, Duncan's two sons fled, the one in England, the [other to] Wales, to save themselves: they being fled, were supposed guilty of the murder of their father, which was nothing so. "Then was Macbeth crown'd king; and then he, for fear of Banquo his old companion, that he should beget kings, but be no king, he contrived the death of Banquo, and contrived him to be murdered on the way that he rode. The night, being at supper, with him noblemen whom he had bid to a feast (to which also Banquo should have come) he began to speak of noble Bunquo, and to wish that he were there. And as he thus did, standing up to drink a carouse to him, the ghost of Banquo came and sat down in his chair behind him. And he, turning about to sit down again, saw the ghost of Banquo; which fronted him so, that he fell into a great passion of fear and fury, uttering many words about his murder; by which, when they heard that Banquo was murdered, they suspected Macbeth. "Then Macduff fled to England, to the king's son; and so they raised an army and came into Scotland, and at Dunston Anyse overthrew Macbeth. In the meantime, while Macduff was in England, Macbeth slew Macduff's wife and children; and after, in the battle, Macduff slew Macbeth. "Observe also how Macbeth's queen did rise in the night, in her sleep, and walk, and talked, and confessed all, and the doctor noted her words." Collier has some curious and wise remarks upon the evidence which this document furnishes: and there are new matters, as bearing upou the other plays brought forward, which are highly interesting. We cannot quote further, however, upon this subject: if a man were to do justice to any one of the subjects treated, he should not abate one word that has been written by Mr. Collier. Every body who loves Shakespeare will never be content until he shall have read the pamphlets for himself. We now pass to some verses which it is thought may be attributed to Shakespeare. The reasons which might induce the supposition are thus stated : "We have thus seen the company of players, of whom Shakespeare was one, and for which he wrote all his dramas, employed by Sir Thos. Egerton in 1602. MSS. preserved at Bridgewater House, are several which belonged to her among them the Masque at Ashby, by John Marston, with an autograph dedi. cation, and a pastoral poem at the end in his handwriting. There exists a poetical relic, of which I am now about to speak, and which, although I believe it to be his, I have some hesitation in assigning to Shakespeare. It is subscribed W. Sh., as I read it; but there is a slight indentation in the middle of the last stroke of the letter h, which gives it something of the appearance of a k. But I take it to have been produced by a trifling want of firmness in the hand that held the pen. The main body of the production seems to me to hear a resemblance to the writing of Shakespeare, as we have it only in the extant specimens, although the sig nature is different. I have no doubt that Shakespeare wrote a good clear hand, such as that of the MS. in question; for, in his Hamlet (act v. sc. ii., Caldecott's edition), he ridicules the affectation of not writing plainly : 'I sat me down ; Devised a new commission; wrote it fair. I once did hold it, as our statists do, A baseness to write fair.' Supposing the signature to be W. Sk., there is no known author of the time to whom such an abbreviation can apply; and the only contemporary poet whose initials accord with those of Shakespeare is Wentworth Smith, whose handwriting occurs more than once in Henslowe's Diary. In the MS. to which I refer, we have the additional and distinctive letter h-not merely W. S., but W. Sh. The versification is certainly that of a practised writer; and it possesses as much merit as can well belong to a piece of the kind. The "The exact nature of the complimentary performance in which it was employed cannot now be distinctly ascertained, but it seems to have been a species of lottery; and possibly the very one, the box for which we have seen, was brought to Harefield by Mr. Lyllye's man,' in August, 1602, when the company of actors to which Shakespeare belonged played one of his own dramas. connexion, therefore, between our great poet and Harefield was obvious. From the MS., we may collect that hearts were hung as fruits upon an artificial tree, each lady of the company gathering one, and finding a poetical motto within or upon it, applicable to the individual. In his remarks upon amusements of this kind, Flecknoe says that all the wit and art is to contrive the lots as may // <a analities of every one and speare in this instance. The paper has no date nor title, but runs literatim as follows." There are a great number of verses, wherefrom we select the following: "La Hunsdon. O be not proude! though wyse and faire; Beautie's but earth, wytt ys but ayre: As youe ar virtuous, be not cruell; Accept good will more then a jewell. La Berckley. Wyttie, prettie, vertuous, and faire, What may be saide of youe and youres? La Fielding. Fye! never let it make youe sadd, With respect to the verses, Mr. Collier, in our opinion, justly says: "Whether this production be or be not Shakespeare's, it is certainly worth preserving; and I see no reason for disbelieving it to be his, excepting, as has often been remarked, that he appears from early life to have devoted himself to the theatre only, and not to have sought employment of masques, shows, or entertainments for private societies. However, after all that has been discovered and written, we really know so little about him, that it is almost impossible to arrive at what even approaches certainty upon any point, excepting that he was the greatest dramatic poet that ever lived." We have already made such copious extracts, that we feel it improper to go further, and must therefore conclude; for it would be presumptuous in us to attempt a comment hastily upon that which is in itself a well-considered comment upon a few facts. It would be a sort of sacrilege, too, speaking generally as to the tendency of the work, to disturb theories which we should all wish to see established. If Mr. Collier had published with any other object than that of increasing our knowledge with respect to our greatest poet-if he had any mercantile or personal object in view we should consider ourselves guilty of an injury towards him in drawing so largely from his works: but as it is, in giving further publicity, and calling attention to the discoveries he has made, we feel that we are acting only in his own spirit, and endeavouring humbly to follow forth his proper wishes. We rejoice to find that the world has yet much to expect from his researches. He concludes thus: "When I sat down to write, I intended to include within the compass of this communication all I had to produce about Shakespeare that is new; but this letter is quite long enough: and the ballad on the same story as the Tempest, some curious particulars about Pericles, and other matters respecting our great dramatist, his minor poems and his connexion with his contemporaries, must be postponed to a future occasion." We shall look anxiously for the next letter, SOME FURTHER PARTICULARS OF THE LATE PROCEEDINGS IN OUR PARISH. OUR new parish-officers, having hit upon the idea of establishing what they call "Commissions of Inquiry," seem determined to go on with them. The fact is, that, being unused to "habits of business," they have endeavoured in vain, after a fashion of their own, to adjust certain small balances arising out of former lawsuits between us and some of the neighbouring parishes. Moreover, they more than once took upon themselves to decide upon questions of boundary between the said parishes, and talked very loudly about the abominable injustice and illiberality that would be committed by adopting any other line than that which they marked out. Such nonsensical bravado was, of course, treated with contempt, particularly as they took especial care to be always repeating that they would never go to law about trifles, as they affirmed their predecessors had done. "It's very odd!" exclaimed one of them, "there's only the next parish |