hope, & yo" shall nott need to feare; butt with all hartie thanckfullnes I wyll holde my tyme & content yo" frend, & yf we Bargaine farther, yo" shall be the paie mr your selfe. My tyme biddes me to hasten to an ende, & soe I comitt thys [to] yo" care & hope of your helpe. I feare I shall nott be backe this night ffrom the Cowrte. haste. the Lorde be wth yo" & with us all. From the Bell in Carter Lane, the 25 october 1598.

amen.

66

"Yours in all kyndenes,

"RYC. QUYNEY.”

This letter is addressed "To my loveing good ffrend and countreyman Mr. Wm. Shackespere delr thees."

It is impossible to disguise the fact that Quiney offers an approved indorsed note to the author of Hamlet; but it is gratifying to observe that he applies to him as a friend. The motive which he touches is not interest, but the helping him out of trouble; and though the sum was not a small one, half the price of New Place, -he plainly feels that Shakespeare had both the ability and the willingness to spare it. There is another letter of this period, dated November 4th, 1598, addressed to the same Richard Quiney by Abraham Sturley again. The first part, with which only we have concern, begins, "All health happiness of suites and wellfare be multiplied unto u and ur labours in God our ffather by Christ our Lord," and ends, with no less fervor, "O howe can you make dowbt of monei who will not bear xxx-tie or xl. s towardes sutch a match!" But its chief in

terest to us is, that the writer of these beatitudes has heard that "our countriman Mr. Wm. Shak. would procure us monei, wc. I will like of." It is pleasant thus to see that Shakespeare's townsmen, even the staid and sober men among them, respected and looked up to him, and leaned confidently upon the support of his influence and his purse. And this marvellous "Mr. Wm. Shak." then had real property in London, as well as in Stratford, besides his theatrical possessions; for in October of 1598 he was assessed on property in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, £5 13s. 4d.

In 1598 Ben Jonson's first and best comedy, Every Man in his Humour, was produced at the Black-friars, and the author of King Henry the Fourth and Romeo and Juliet might have been seen for twopence by any London prentice who could command the coin, playing an inferior part, probably that of Knowell, in the new play. But, according to tradition, Shakespeare not only played in Jonson's comedy, he obtained Ben his first hearing before a London audience. The play had been thrown aside at the Black-friars with little consideration, as the production of an unknown writer; but Shakespeare's attention having been drawn to it, he read it through, admired and recommended it, and then and thereafter took pains to bring the author's works before the public. Jonson's honest love for

Shakespeare may well have had its spring in gratitude for this great service, which having been performed by one dramatic author for another, who was his junior, indicates both kindness and magnanimity.

The year 1598 was one of great professional triumph to Shakespeare. We may safely accept the tradition first mentioned by John Dennis a century later, that in that year he was honored with a command from Queen Elizabeth to let her see his Falstaff in love, which he obeyed by producing in a fortnight The Merry Wives of Windsor in its earliest form. In that year, too, the greatness and universality of his genius received formal recognition at the hands of literary criticism. Francis Meres published in 1598 a book called Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, which was a collection of sententious comparisons, chiefly upon morals, manners, and religion. But one division or chapter is "A comparative discourse of our English Poets with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian Poets." Meres was a Master of Arts in both Universities, a theological writer, and the author of poetry which has been lost. His comparative discourse makes no pretence to analysis or æsthetic judgment. Indeed, according to the modern standard, it can hardly be regarded as criticism;

* See this tradition, and the facts which bear upon it, discussed in the Introduction to The Merry Wives of Windsor, in the author's edition of Shakespeare's Works.

but it may be accepted as a record of the estimation in which Shakespeare was held by intelligent and cultivated people when he was thirty-four years old, and before he had written his best plays. In this book Shakespeare is awarded the highest place in English poetical and dramatic literature, and is ranked with the great authors of the brightest days of Greece and Rome. It is true that other poets and dramatists are compared by Meres to Pindar, Æschylus, and Aristophanes, to Ovid, Plautus, and Horace, and that, like all who have judged their contemporaries, he bestows high praise upon men whose works and names have perished from the world's memory. But in his comprehensive eulogy Shakespeare has this distinction, that while he shares equally all other praise, it is said of him, that, "as Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage." "'* There is ample evidence

* The following are all the passages of this chapter of the Palladis Tamia in which Shakespeare's name appears. They have never been all reprinted before.

"As the Greekes tongue is made famous and eloquent by Homer, Hesiod, Euripedes, Eschylus, Sophocles, Pindarus, Phyloclides, and Aristophanes; and the Latine tongue by Virgile, Ouid, Horace, Sicilius Italius, Lucanus, Lucretius, Ausonius, and Claudianus, so the English tongue is mightily enriched and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments by sir Philip Sidney, Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow, and Chapman."

that this appreciation of Shakespeare was general, and that, although his contemporaries could hardly have suspected that his genius would overshadow all others in our literature, they regarded

"As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to liue in Pythagoras, so the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakespeare; witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred sonnets among his priuate friends," &c.

"As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines: so Shakespeare among yo English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witnes his Getleme of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost, his Loue labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, & his Merchant of Venice: for Tragedy his Richard the 2. Richard the 3. Henry the 4. King Iohn, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and Juliet."

"As Epius Stolo said, the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue, if they would speak Latin; so I say the Muses would speak with Shakespeare's fine-filed phrase, if they would speak English."

"And as Horace saith of his, Exegi monumentu ære perennius, Regaliq; situ pyramidum altius; Quod non imber edax; Non Aquilo impotens possit diruere, aut innumerabilis annorum series et fuga temporum; so say I severally of Sir Philip Sidneys, Spencers, Daniels, Draytons, Shakespeares, and Warner's workes."

"As Pindarus, Anacreon, and Callimachus among the Greekes, and Horace and Catullus among the Latines, are the best lyrick poets; so in this faculty the best amōg our poets are Spencer (who excelleth in all kinds), Daniel Drayton, Shakespeare, Brettō."

"As these tragicke poets flourished in Greece, Eschylus, Euripedes, Sophocles, Alexander Aetolus, Achæus Erithriæus, Astydamas Atheniesis, Apollodorus Tarsensis, Nicomachus Phrygius, Thespis Atticus, and Timon Apolloniates; and these among the Latines, Accius, M. Attilius, Pomponius Secundus and Seneca; so these are our best for tragedie; the Lord Buck.