finished. And thus the oppression of an artisan player caused the erection, in 1575, of the First English Theatre, — indeed the first modern theatre; for, setting aside the ruined structures of antiquity, in no other country at this time had there been built a house for the especial purpose of dramatic performances. Burbadge's house was called inevitably "The Theatre." It had no other name; and no other was needed. The enterprising dramatic carpenter's venture proved so profitable, that, resolving, like a Yankee showman of world-wide notoriety, to be his own opposition, he built within a year another theatre in Moorfields, which he called "The Curtain"; and to these two he added, in 1576, a third, destined to immortal fame. This was in the liberties of the late dissolved monastery of the Blackfriars. Like "The Theatre," it was constructed by the alteration of dwelling-houses. Its site is now in the heart of London, near Printing-House Square; and even then, though outside the city proper, it was one of the most thickly-built quarters of the `town, and one inhabited by the better sort of folk, and even by the nobility. These people, aided by the Mayor of London, did all they could to get the Privy Council to forbid the erection of the new theatre in their elegant and orderly neighborhood. But it is worthy of special notice that all this aristocratic and high official influence failed of the object to which it was directed. The love

of the whole people for the drama was too strong and too vivid in its manifestation to make it politic, even in those days of arbitrary power, to restrict that individual liberty of which our race is so jealous, in favor of the few who were averse to stage plays or annoyed by the surroundings of a play-house. In 1586 the houses above named were the principal theatres of London; but there were three or four other buildings, near the bank of the river, one of which was called "The Rose," which were used by players, tumblers, mountebanks, and bear-baiters promiscuously. Paris Garden, which some time afterward became a theatre, was entirely devoted to the cruel sports of the baiting ring.

These theatres were occupied by companies of players, each of which was under the patronage and protection of some distinguished nobleman. The most esteemed of these companies were the Queen's, the Earl of Leicester's, the Lord Admiral's (Earl of Nottingham), the Earl of Pembroke's, the Earl of Sussex's, and the Children of the Royal Chapel and of St. Paul's. The company which played at the Blackfriars, and of which James Burbadge was the leading man, was the Earl of Leicester's. This company had played at Stratford several times in Shakespeare's boyhood. The playwrights whose works were then most in vogue, and who were all attached to one or other of these companies, and were actors of

more or less repute, were George Peele, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Lodge, Henry Chettle, and Anthony Munday. Of these only the first four possessed any marked superiority over their fellows; and of the four only Marlowe's pen obtained for him any other place in the world's memory than that of having been a contemporary of Shakespeare.

Tradition and the custom of the time concur in assuring us that Shakespeare's first connection with the stage was as an actor; and an actor he continued to be for twenty years or more. But although Aubrey tells us that "he did act exceeding well," he seems never to have risen high in this profession. Betterton, or perhaps Rowe, heard that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet; and Oldys tells a story, that one of his younger brothers, who lived to a great age, being questioned as to William, said that he remembered having seen him act the part, in one of his own comedies, of a long-bearded, decrepit old man, who was supported by another person to a table, where they sat among other company, one of whom sang a song. If this were true, Shakespeare played Adam in As You Like It. And it is consistent with all that we know of him that he should play such parts as this and the Ghost, which required judgment and intelligent reading rather than passion and lively simulation.

It is not probable that Shakespeare, when he had found that he could labor profitably in a less public walk of his calling, ever strove for distinction or much employment as an actor. We know from one of his sonnets how bitter the consciousness of his position was to him, and that he cursed the fortune which had consigned him to a public life.* If he ever had comfort on the stage it must have been in playing kingly parts, which are assigned to him in the lines of Davies.†

But although Shakespeare began his London life as a player, it was impossible that he should long remain without writing for the stage; and so it happened. With what company he became first connected, there is no direct evidence; but his earliest dramatic employment seems to have been as a co-worker with Greene, Marlowe, and Peele for the Earl of Pembroke's players. There are good reasons for believing that, in conjunction with one or more of these playwrights, he labored on The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster, The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, A Pleasant Conceited History of the Taming of a Shrew, Titus Andronicus, an early form of Romeo and Fuliet, of which there are some remains in the quarto edition of 1597, and probably some other pieces which have been lost. It would have *Sonnet CXI. † See page 138. See the Essay on the Authorship of King Henry the Sixth,

been strange, indeed almost unprecedented, if a young adventurer going up to London had immediately found his true place, and taken firm root therein. But little as we know of Shakespeare's period of trial and vicissitude, we do know that it was brief, and that within about three years from the time when he left his native place he attached himself to the Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon's company (previously known as the Earl of Leicester's), of which the Burbadges, father and son, were prominent members, and that he became a shareholder in this company, and remained an active member of it until he finally retired to Stratford.

Shakespeare immediately showed that unmistakable trait of a man organized for success in life, which is so frequently lacking in men who are both gifted and industrious, the ability to find his work, and to settle down quickly to it, and take hold of it in earnest. He worked hard, did everything that he could turn his hand to,— acted, wrote, helped others to write, and seeing through men and things as he did at a glance, he was in those early years somewhat over-free of his criticism and his advice, and, what was less endurable by his rivals, too ready to illustrate his principles of art successfully in practice. He came soon to be regarded, by those who liked and

Vol. VII., and the Introduction to Titus Andronicus, Vol. IX., The Taming of the Shrew, Vol. IV., and Romeo and Juliet, Vol. X. of the author's edition of Shakespeare's Works.