A Life of William Shakespeare Part 14

But it was as an actor that at an early date he acquired a genuinely substantial and secure income. There is abundance of contemporary evidence to show that the stage was for an efficient actor an a.s.sured avenue to comparative wealth. In 1590 Robert Greene describes in his tract ent.i.tled 'Never too Late' a meeting with a player whom he took by his 'outward habit' to be 'a gentleman of great living' and a 'substantial man.' The player informed Greene that he had at the beginning of his career travelled on foot, bearing his theatrical properties on his back, but he prospered so rapidly that at the time of speaking 'his very share in playing apparel would not be sold for 200 pounds.' Among his neighbours 'where he dwelt' he was reputed able 'at his proper cost to build a windmill.' In the university play, 'The Return from Parna.s.sus' (1601?), a poor student enviously complains of the wealth and position which a successful actor derived from his calling.

England affords those glorious vagabonds, 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 their masters.h.i.+ps; With mouthing words that better wits had framed, They purchase lands and now esquires are made. {199a}

The travelling actors, from whom the highwayman 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 n.o.blemen'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 sum would be regarded as a very large income in a country town. According to the author of 'Ratseis Ghost,' the actor, who may well have been meant for Shakespeare, practised in London a strict frugality, and there seems no reason why Shakespeare should not have been able in 1597 to draw from his savings 60 pounds wherewith to buy New Place. His resources might well justify his fellow-townsmen's opinion of his wealth in 1598, and suffice between 1597 and 1599 to meet his expenses, in rebuilding the house, stocking the barns with grain, and conducting various legal proceedings.

But, according to tradition, he had in the Earl of Southampton a wealthy and generous friend who on one occasion gave him a large gift of money to enable 'him to go through with' a purchase to which he had a mind. A munificent gift, added to professional gains, leaves nothing unaccounted for in Shakespeare's financial position before 1599.

Financial position after 1599.

After 1599 his sources of income from the theatre greatly 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 doc.u.ments relating to this litigation supply authentic, although 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 completing the Globe they leased out, for twenty-one years, shares in the receipts of the theatre to 'those deserving men Shakespeare, Hemings, Condell, Philips, and others.' All the shareholders named were, like Burbage, active members of Shakespeare's company of players. The shares, which numbered sixteen in all, carried with them the obligation 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 improvised tragedy deserved to get him 'a fellows.h.i.+p in a cry of players'--a proof that a successful dramatist might reasonably expect such a reward for a conspicuous effort. In 'Hamlet,' moreover, both a share and a half-share of 'a fellows.h.i.+p in a cry of players' are described as a.s.sets of enviable value (III. ii.

294-6). How many shares originally fell to Shakespeare there is no means of determining. Records of later subdivisions suggest 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 them sums varying between twopence and half a crown. The receipts were therefore considerable, hardly less than 25 pounds daily, or some 8,000 pounds a year. According to the doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments on which Collier depended to prove him a substantial shareholder in that playhouse have long been proved to be forgeries. The pleas in the lawsuit of 1635 show that the Burbages, the owners, leased the Blackfriars Theatre after its establishment in 1597 for a long term of years to the master of the Children of the Chapel, but bought out the lessee at the end of 1609, and then 'placed' in it 'men-players which were Hemings, Condell, Shakespeare, etc.' To these and other actors they allotted shares in the receipts, the shares numbering eight 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' grew with the growing vogue of the theatre. The exceptional popularity of Shakespeare's plays after 1599 gave him the full advantage of higher 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 him an average 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 company, may well have given 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 money of the period. With so large a professional income he could easily, with good management, have completed those purchases of houses and land at Stratford on which he laid out, between 1599 and 1613, a total sum of 970 pounds, or an annual average of 70 pounds. These properties, it must be remembered, represented investments, and he drew rent from most of them. He traded, too, in agricultural 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 may reasonably make allowance for exaggeration in the round figures.

Incomes of fellow-actors.

Shakespeare realised his theatrical shares several years before his death in 1616, when he left, according to his will, 350 pounds in money in addition to an extensive real estate and numerous personal belongings.

There was nothing exceptional in this comparative affluence. His friends and fellow-actors, Heming and Condell, ama.s.sed equally large, if not larger, fortunes. Burbage died in 1619 worth 300 pounds in land, besides personal property; while a contemporary actor and theatrical proprietor, Edward Alleyn, purchased the manor of Dulwich for 10,000 pounds (in money of his own day), and devoted it, with much other property, to public uses, at the same time as he made ample provision for his family out of the residue of his estate. Gifts from patrons may have continued occasionally to augment Shakespeare's resources, but his wealth can be satisfactorily a.s.signed to better attested agencies. There is no ground for treating it as of mysterious origin. {204a}

Formation of the estate at Stratford 1601-10.

Between 1599 and 1611, while London remained Shakespeare's chief home, he built up at Stratford a large landed estate which his purchase of New Place had inaugurated. In 1601 his father died, being buried on September 8. He apparently left no will, and the poet, as the eldest son, inherited the houses in Henley Street, the only portion of the property of the elder Shakespeare or of his wife which had not been alienated to creditors. Shakespeare permitted his mother to reside in one of the Henley Street houses till her death (she was buried September 9, 1608), and he derived a modest rent from the other. On May 1, 1602, he purchased for 320 pounds of the rich landowners William and John Combe of Stratford 107 acres of arable land near the town. The conveyance was delivered, in the poet's absence, to his brother Gilbert, 'to the use of the within named William Shakespere.' {204b} A third purchase quickly followed. On September 28, 1602, at a court baron of the manor of Rowington, one Walter Getley transferred to the poet a cottage and garden which were situated at Chapel Lane, opposite the lower grounds of New Place. They were held practically in fee-simple at the annual rental of 2s. 6d. It appears from the roll that Shakespeare did not attend the manorial court held on the day fixed for the transfer of the property at Rowington, and it was consequently stipulated then that the estate should remain in the hands of the lady of the manor until he completed the purchase in person. At a later period he was admitted to the copyhold, and he settled the remainder on his two daughters in fee. In April 1610 he purchased from the Combes 20 acres of pasture land, to add to the 107 of arable land that he had acquired of the same owners in 1602.

The Stratford t.i.thes.

As early as 1598 Abraham Sturley had suggested that Shakespeare should purchase the t.i.thes of Stratford. Seven years later, on July 24, 1605, he bought for 440 pounds of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the t.i.thes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe. The moiety was subject to a rent of 17 pounds to the corporation, who were the reversionary owners on the lease's expiration, and of 5 pounds to John Barker, the heir of a former proprietor. The investment brought Shakespeare, under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, no more than an annuity of 38 pounds, and the refusal of persons who claimed an interest in the other moiety to acknowledge the full extent of their liability to the corporation led that body to demand from the poet payments justly due from others. After 1609 he joined with two interested persons, Richard Lane of Awston and Thomas Greene, the town clerk of Stratford, in a suit in Chancery to determine the exact responsibilities of all the t.i.the-owners, and in 1612 they presented a bill of complaint to Lord-chancellor Ellesmere, with what result is unknown. His acquisition of a part-owners.h.i.+p in the t.i.thes was fruitful in legal embarra.s.sments.

Recovery of small debts.

Shakespeare inherited his father's love of litigation, and stood rigorously by his rights in all his business relations. In March 1600 he recovered in London a debt of 7 pounds from one John Clayton. In July 1604, in the local court at Stratford, he sued one Philip Rogers, to whom he had supplied since the preceding March malt to the value of 1 pound 19s. 10d, and had on June 25 lent 2s. in cash. Rogers paid back 6s., and Shakespeare sought the balance of the account, 1 pound 15s. 10d. During 1608 and 1609 he was at law with another fellow-townsman, John Addenbroke. On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare, who was apparently represented by his solicitor and kinsman Thomas Greene, {206a} obtained judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the payment of 6 pounds, and 1 pound 5s. costs, but Addenbroke left the town, and the triumph proved barren. Shakespeare avenged himself by proceeding against one Thomas Horneby, who had acted as the absconding debtor's bail. {206b}

XIII--MATURITY OF GENIUS

Literary work in 1599.

With an inconsistency that is more apparent than real, the astute business transactions of these years (1597-1611) synchronise with the production of Shakespeare's n.o.blest literary work--of his most sustained and serious efforts in comedy, tragedy, and romance. In 1599, after abandoning English history with 'Henry V,' he addressed himself to the composition of his three most perfect essays in comedy--'Much Ado about Nothing,' 'As You Like It,' and 'Twelfth Night.' Their good-humoured tone seems to reveal their author in his happiest frame of mind; in each the gaiety and tenderness of youthful womanhood are exhibited in fascinating union; while Shakespeare's lyric gift bred no sweeter melodies than the songs with which the three plays are interspersed. At the same time each comedy enshrines such penetrating reflections on mysterious problems of life as mark the stage of maturity in the growth of the author's intellect. The first two of the three plays were entered on the 'Stationers' Registers' before August 4, 1600, on which day a prohibition was set on their publication, as well as on the publication of 'Henry V' and of Ben Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour.' This was one of the many efforts of the acting company to stop the publication of plays in the belief that the practice was injurious to their rights. The effort was only partially successful. 'Much Ado,' like 'Henry V,' was published before the close of the year. Neither 'As You Like It' nor 'Twelfth Night,' however, was printed till it appeared in the Folio.

'Much Ado.'

In 'Much Ado,' which appears to have been written in 1599, the brilliant and spirited comedy of Bened.i.c.k and Beatrice, and of the blundering watchmen Dogberry and Verges, is wholly original; but the sombre story of Hero and Claudio, about which the comic incident revolves, is drawn from an Italian source, either from Bandello (novel. xxii.) through Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques,' or from Ariosto's 'Orlando Furioso'

through Sir John Harington's translation (canto v.) Ariosto's version, in which the injured heroine is called Ginevra, and her lover Ariodante, had been dramatised before. According to the accounts of the Court revels, 'A Historie of Ariodante and Ginevra was showed before her Majestie on Shrovetuesdaie at night' in 1583. {208} Throughout Shakespeare's play the ludicrous and serious aspects of humanity are blended with a convincing naturalness. The popular comic actor William Kemp filled the role of Dogberry, and Cowley appeared as Verges. In both the Quarto of 1600 and the Folio of 1623 these actors' names are prefixed by a copyist's error to some of the speeches allotted to the two characters (act iv. scene ii.)

'As You Like It.'

'As You Like It,' which quickly followed, is a dramatic adaptation of Lodge's romance, 'Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie' (1590), but Shakespeare added three new characters of first-rate interest--Jaques, the meditative cynic; Touchstone, the most carefully elaborated of all Shakespeare's fools; and the hoyden Audrey. Hints for the scene of Orlando's encounter with Charles the Wrestler, and for Touchstone's description of the diverse shapes of a lie, were clearly drawn from a book called 'Saviolo's Practise,' a manual of the art of self-defence, which appeared in 1595 from the pen of Vincentio Saviolo, an Italian fencing-master in the service of the Earl of Ess.e.x. None of Shakespeare's comedies breathes a more placid temper or approaches more nearly to a pastoral drama. Yet there is no lack of intellectual or poetic energy in the enunciation of the contemplative philosophy which is cultivated in the Forest of Arden. In Rosalind, Celia, Phoebe, and Audrey, four types of youthful womanhood are contrasted with the liveliest humour.

'Twelfth Night.'

The date of 'Twelfth Night' is probably 1600, and its name, which has no reference to the story, doubtless commemorates the fact that it was designed for a Twelfth Night celebration. 'The new map with the augmentation of the Indies,' spoken of by Maria (III. ii. 86), was a respectful reference to the great map of the world or 'hydrographical description' which was first issued with Hakluyt's 'Voyages' in 1599 or 1600, and first disclosed the full extent of recent explorations of the 'Indies' in the New World and the Old. {210a} Like the 'Comedy of Errors,' 'Twelfth Night' achieved the distinction, early in its career, of a presentation at an Inn of Court. It was produced at Middle Temple Hall on February 2, 1601-2, and Manningham, a barrister who was present, described the performance. {210b} Manningham wrote that the piece was 'much like the "Comedy of Errors" or "Menechmi" in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called "Inganni."' Two sixteenth-century Italian plays ent.i.tled 'Gl' Inganni' ('The Cheats'), and a third called 'Gl' Ingannati,' bear resemblance to 'Twelfth Night.' It is possible that Shakespeare had recourse to the last, which was based on Bandello's novel of Nicuola, {210c} was first published at Siena in 1538, and became popular throughout Italy. But in all probability he drew the story solely from the 'Historie of Apolonius and Silla,' which was related in 'Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession' (1581). The author of that volume, Barnabe Riche, translated the tale either direct from Bandello's Italian novel or from the French rendering of Bandello's work in Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques.' Romantic pathos, as in 'Much Ado,'

is the dominant note of the main plot of 'Twelfth Night,' but Shakespeare neutralises the tone of sadness by his mirthful portrayal of Malvolio, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Fabian, the clown Feste, and Maria, all of whom are his own creations. The ludicrous gravity of Malvolio proved exceptionally popular on the stage.

'Julius Caesar,' 1601.