life, and thus gave offence to the noble family with whom his father had been so intimately connected. In 1623 Massinger published his Bondman,' dedicating it to the second of the Herberts, Philip Earl of Montgomery. The dedication shows that he had been an alien from the house in the service of which his father lived and died: "However I could never arrive at the happiness to be made known to your Lordship, yet a desire, born with me, to make a tender of all duties and service to the noble family of the Herberts, descended to me as an inheritance from my dead father, Arthur Massinger. Many years he happily spent in the service of your honourable house, and died a servant to it." There is something unintelligible in all this; though we may well believe with Gifford that "whatever might be the unfortunate circumstance which deprived the author of the patronage and protection of the elder branch of the Herberts, he did not imagine it to be of a disgraceful nature; or he would not, in the face of the public, have appealed to his connexions with the family." It is difficult to trace the course of Massinger's poetical life. The Virgin Martyr,' in which he was assisted by Dekker, was the first printed of his plays; and that did not appear till 1622. But there can be little doubt that it belongs to an earlier period; for in 1620 a fee was paid to the Master of the Revels on the occasion of "New reforming The Virgin Martyr." The Bondman' was printed within a year after it was produced upon the stage; and from that period till the time of his death several of his plays were published, but at very irregular intervals. It would appear that during the early portion of his career Massinger was chiefly associated with other writers. To the later period belong his great works, such as The Duke of Milan,' The City Madam,' and the New Way to pay Old Debts.' Taken altogether, Massinger was perhaps the worthiest successor of Shakspere; and this indeed is praise enough. Nat Field, the writer of the letter to Henslow, was a player, as we learn by Introduction to the Works of Massinger.

6

6

that letter. The same document shows that he was a player in the service of Henslow. But he is mentioned in the first folio edition of Shakspere's plays, as one of the principal actors in them. The best evidence of the genius of Field is his association with Massinger in the noble play of The Fatal Dowry.' He probably was not connected with Shakspere's company during Shakspere's life; but he is named in a patent to the actors at the Blackfriars and Globe in 1620. Robert Daborne, who was associated with Field and Massinger in their "extremity," was either at this period, or subsequently, in holy orders.

Thomas Middleton was a contemporary of Shakspere. We find him early associated with other writers, and in 1602 was published his comedy of 'Blurt Master-Constable.' Edward Phillips describes him as "a copious writer for the English stage, contemporary with Jonson and Fletcher, though not of equal repute, and yet on the other side not altogether contemptible." He continued to write on till the suppression of the theatres, and the opinion of Phillips was the impression as to his powers at the period of the Restoration. Ford,-who has truly been called "of the first order of poets"-Rowley, Wilson, Hathway, Porter, Houghton, Day, Tourneur, Taylor, arose as the day-star of Shakspere was setting. Each might have been remarkable in an age of mediocrity, some are still illustrious. The great dramatic literature of England was the creation of half a century only; and in that short space was heaped up such a prodigality of riches that we regard this wondrous accumulation with something too much of indifference to the lesser gems, dazzled by the lustre of the

NOTE ON THE CONVEYANCE TO SHAKSPERE IN 1613.

THE Counterpart of the original conveyance, and a mortgage-deed connected with it, in addition to the information which they furnish us as to Shakspere's life, exhibit two out of the six undoubted examples of his autograph.* The person disposing of the property is "Henry Walker, citizain of London and minstrel of London." William Shakspere is the purchaser, for the sum of 1407.; but there are other parties to the deed, namely, William Johnson, John Jackson, and John Heminge. It appears, by an assignment executed after Shakspere's death by these parties, that they held this property in trust, and surrendered it to the uses of Shakspere's will. It seems to us probable that this tenement was purchased by Shakspere for some object connected with the property in the theatre, for this reason: On the day after the purchase, the 11th of March, he and the other parties execute a mortgage-deed to Henry Walker, the vendor (in the form of a lease of a hundred years at a pepper-corn rent) of the property so purchased, with a covenant that if William Shakspere shall pay the sum of 607. on the 29th of September next coming, to the said Henry Walker, the lease shall be null and void. It thus appears that Shakspere was not in a condition on the 10th of March to pay the whole of this purchase-money; but that he could rely upon the receipt of the difference within the next six months. It would appear unlikely that he would purchase a tenement in London, being straitened in the means of paying for it, if he had disposed of his theatrical property in the Blackfriars the year previous; or that he would have bought it at all unless with some reference to the advantage of that theatrical property. At the date of the indenture the premises appear to have been untenanted. They were now or late in the occupation of one William Ireland." But according to Shakspere's will, three years afterwards," one John Robinson" dwelt in the messuage "in the Blackfriars in London, near the Wardrobe." Richard Robinson was one of the principal actors in Shakspere's plays-the "Dick Robinson" of Ben Jonson. John Robinson was probably also connected with the theatre.

66

* See Note on Shakspere's Autographs at the end of Chapter XII.

EVERY one agrees that during the last three or four years of his life Shakspere ceased to write. Yet we venture to think that every one is in error. The opinion is founded upon a belief that he only finally left London towards the close of 1613. We have shown, from his purchase of a large house at Stratford, his constant acquisition of landed property there, his active engagements in the business of agriculture, the interest which he took in matters connected with his property in which his neighbours had a common interest, that he

must have partially left London before this period. There were no circumstances, as far as we can collect, to have prevented him finally leaving London several years before 1613. But his biographers, having fixed a period for the termination of his connexion with the active business of the theatre, assume that he became wholly unemployed; that he gave himself up, as Rowe has described, to "ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends." His income was enough, they say, to dispense with labour; and therefore he did not labour. They have attained to "a perfect conviction, that when Shakspere bade adieu to London, he left it predetermined to devote the residue of his days exclusively to the cultivation of social and domestic happiness in the shades of retirement." These are Dr. Drake's words, who repeats what he has found in Malone and the other commentators. Mr. De Quincey, a biographer of a higher mark, gives a currency to a very similar opinion:-" From 1591 to 1611 are just twenty years, within which space lie the whole dramatic creations of Shakspeare, averaging nearly one for every six months. In 1611 was written The Tempest, which is supposed to have been the last of all Shakspeare's works."* The Tempest has been held by some to be Shakspere's latest work; as Twelfth Night was held by others to be the latest. The conclusion in the case of the Twelfth Night has been proved to be far wide of the truth. There was poetry, at any rate, in the belief that he who wrote “I'll break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book,"

was "inspired to typify himself;" +-for ever to renounce the spells by which he had bound the subject mind. This is, indeed, poetical; but it is opposed to all the experience of the course of a great intellect. Shakspere had to abjure no "rough magic," such as his Prospero abjured. His "potent art" was built on the calm and equal operations of his surpassing genius. More than half of his life had been employed in the habitual exercise of this power. The strong spur, first of necessity, and secondly of his professional duty, enabled him to wield this power, even amidst the distractions of a life of constant and variable occupation. But when the days of leisure arrived, is it reasonable to believe that the mere habit of his life would not assert its ordinary control; that the greatest of intellects would suddenly sink to the condition of an every-day man-cherishing no high plans for the future, looking back with no desire to equal and excel the work of the past? At the period of life when Chaucer began to write the 'Canterbury Tales,' Shakspere, according to his biographers, was suddenly and utterly to cease to write. We cannot believe it. Is there a parallel case in the career of any great artist who had won for himself competence and fame? Is the mere applause of the world, and a sufficiency of the goods of life, "the end-all and the be-all" of the labours of a mighty mind? These attained, is the voice of his spiritual being to be heard no more? Are the Encyclopædia Britannica '-Article, Shakspeare." Campbell-Preface to Moxon's Edition of Shakspeare.

* 6

6