"snob" did not exist. Henry VIII., who defied the Pope, could be a frequent guest at the table of simple Sir Thomas More, and afterward behead him. Queen Elizabeth could on one day complain to a proud Earl, when he saluted her, that he did not put his knee well to the ground, and on another go in state to dine with the rough sailor Francis Drake, in his little ship, the Golden Hind. She could do the one because she could do the other. If the Earl had left Shakespeare a thousand pounds by will, no objection would have entered any mind; and must a man die before he can do another a substantial service? Does dignity require us to insist that a friend shall lose the pleasure of benefiting us, and we be released from the obligation of gratitude? Does one friend ever lower himself by accepting freely what another freely gives, and can afford to give, for friendship's sake? In countries where land and wealth and privilege pertain to a comparatively small class, such gifts are but noble, though inadequate, attempts to do away some of the wrongful consequences of established inequality; and although it is more manly and independent to enjoy rights, than to receive compensation for the lack of those rights by way of favor, we must judge Southampton's literary friends by the social canons of an aristocracy in the sixteenth century, and not by those of a democracy in the nineteenth.

Between 1592 and 1596 Shakespeare produced, in addition to his Lucrece, King Richard the Third, A Midsummer-Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, King Richard the Second, and some of his Sonnets; probably also Romeo and Juliet and (with the name "Love's Labor's Won") All's Well that Ends Well, in earlier forms than those in which they have come down to us; works, which, although none of them exhibited his genius. in its full height and power, effectually established his supremacy among his contemporaries as a poet and a dramatist. England now began to ring with his praises. His brother dramatists made their lovers long for his Venus and Adonis by which to court their mistresses; other poets made their chaste heroines compare themselves to the Lucretia whom he had "revived to live another age"; they sung of his "hony-flowing vein," and that he had given new immortality even to the goddess of love and beauty; and some of them paid him the unequivocal compliment of plagiarism.* Even Spenser, then at the height of his fame and his court favor, having in mind Shakespeare's two

* See Willoughby's Avisa, 1594; Drayton's Matilda, 1594; Barnefield's Poems in Divers Humors, 1598; Heywood's Fair Maid of the Exchange, 1607, but written some years before; Phillis and Flora, by R. S., 1598; and Nicholson's Acolastus his Afterwitte, 1600. In "A Letter from England to her Three Daughters," reprinted in the British Bibliographer, (Vol. I. pp. 274-285,) and which forms the second part of a book called Polimanteia, published in 1595, there is a marginal note, "All praise worthy Lucretia Sweete Shakespeare.”

martial histories and his name, generously paid the young poet this pretty compliment in Colin Clout's come Home again, written in 1594:

"And there, though last not least, is Ætion;
A gentler Shepheard may no where be found;
Whose muse full of high thought's invention
Doth, like himselfe, heroically sound."*

Nay, in this interval Colin Clout's mistress, the imperial Elizabeth herself, distinguished him by her favor, won, or acknowledged, by the exquisite compliment in A Midsummer-Night's Dream. For we know upon Ben Jonson's and Henry Chettle's testimony, and from tradition, that she did delight in him; and it is not in mortal woman, least of all was it in Elizabeth, to know of such a compliment, and not to hear it and be captivated.†

* It may be worth while to say, that if Shakespeare's name had been Shaksper or Shakspere, as some would have it, this compliment would have been impossible.

†These well-known lines are from Jonson's verses in memory of Shakespeare, which were published in the folio of 1623:— "Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appeare,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza and our James."

On the death of Queen Elizabeth, Chettle, in his England's
Mourning Garment, thus reproached Shakespeare that his verse
had not bewailed his own and England's loss:·
: -

"Nor doth the silver-tongued Melicert

Drop from his honied Muse one sable tear,
To mourne her death that graced his desert,
And to his lines opened her royal eare.

Shepheard remember our Elizabeth,

And sing her rape done by that Tarquin, Death."

Having this evidence of his reputation, and other of an equally pleasing and satisfactory character as to his increase in wealth, we can afford to be very indifferent in regard to the trustworthiness of a document about which there has been much ado, and the only interest of which consists in the fact that it enumerates Shakespeare among the owners of the Black-friars Theatre, and names him fifth among eight; but which, after a life of thirty years of antiquarian glory, has been "done to death by envious tongues" as spurious.* A like fate has befallen a memoran

* This document exists in the State Paper Office at Westminster. (London.) It was brought to public notice by Mr. Collier in his History of English Dramatic Poetry, &c., 1831. (Vol. I. p. 297.) It professes to be an answer to a remonstrance by thirty inhabitants of the Liberty of the Black-friars, "some of them of honor," against the repairing of the Black-friars Theatre. The remonstrance was said by Mr. Collier to be "preserved in the State Paper Office"; but it is not to be found there. This reply is so genuine in appearance, that it was given in fac-simile even by Mr. Halliwell, in his great folio edition of Shakespeare's Works, although that gentleman was one of the first to pronounce many of the Collier Shakespeare MSS. spurious. It is as follows:"To the right honorable the Lords of her Maties most honorable privie Counsell.

"The humble petition of Thomas Pope Richard Burbadge John Hemings Augustine Phillips Willm Shaksepeare Willim Kempe Willim Slye Nicholas Tooley and others, seruaunts to the right honorable the L. Chamberlaine to her Matie.

"Sheweth most humbly that yor petitioners are owners and players of the priuate house or theater in the precinct and libertie of the Blackfriers, wch hath beene for manie yearse vsed and occupied for the playing of tragedies commedies histories enter

dum which would otherwise show us that at this time Shakespeare lived in the part of London called Southwark. Malone speaks of a certain.

ludes and playes. That the same by reason of hauing beene soe long built hath falne into great decaye and that besides the reparation thereof it hath beene found necessarie to make the same more conuenient for the entertainement of auditories comming thereto. That to this end yor petitioners haue all and eche of them putt downe sommes of money according to their shares in the saide theater and whch they haue justly and honestlie gained by the exercise of their qualitie of Stage-players but that certaine persons (some of them of honour) inhabitants of the said precinct and libertie of the Blackfriers have as yor petitioners are enfourmed besought yor honorable Lps not to permitt the saide priuate house anie longer to remaine open but hereafter to be shut vpp and closed to the manifest and great injurie of yor petitioners who have no other meanes whereby to maintaine their wiues and families but by the exercise of their qualitie as they have heretofore done. Furthermore that in the summer season yor petitioners are able to playe at their newe built house on the Bankside callde the Globe but that in the winter they are compelled to come to the Blackfriers and if yor honorable Lps giue consent vnto that whch is prayde against yor petitioners thay will not onely while the winter endureth loose the meanes whereby they nowe support them selues and their families but be vnable to practise them selues in anie playes or enterluds when calde upon to performe for the recreation and solace of her Matie and her honorable Court, as they have beene heretofore accustomed. The humble prayer of yor petitioners therefore is that your honble Lps will graunt permission to finishe the reparations and alterations they have begunne and as your petitioners have hitherto been well ordred in their behauiour and just in their dealinges that yor honorable Lps will not inhibit them from acting at their aboue named priuate house in the precinct and libertie of the Blackfriers and your petitioners as in dutie most bounden will ever praye for the increasing honour and happinesse of yor honorable Lps."