Shakespeare, whom you and ev'ry playhouse bill he not only expressed the traditional belief of his own day, but one which later researches have unerringly verified. With all Shakespeare's gentleness of disposition and amiable qualities, it is evident from the records that there was very little of the merely sentimental in his nature; that is to say, of such matters as a desire for posthumous fame, or the excitable sympathy which is so often recklessly appeased without thought of results. In the year now under consideration, 1598, he appears not only as an advancer of money, but also one who negotiated loans through other capitalists. The comedy of The Merchant of Venice, the plot of which was either grounded on that of an older drama, or formed out of tales long familiar to the public, was represented with success in London in or before the month of July, 1598. It then had another title, being "otherwise called The Jew of Venice," and a bookseller named Roberts was anxious to secure the copyright, but the registrars of Stationers' Hall withheld their consent until he had obtained the sanction of the Lord Chamberlain, in other words, that of the author and his colleagues; and upwards of two years elapsed before the earliest editions of the comedy appeared. 'It continued for a long time to be one of the acting plays of Shakespeare's company, and,, as lately as 1605, it attracted the favorable notice of James I, who was so much pleased with one performance that he ordered a repetition of it two days afterward. One of the most interesting of the recorded events of Shakespeare's life occurred in the present year. In September, 1598, Ben Jonson's famous comedy of Every Man in his Humor was produced by the Lord Chamberlain's company, and there is every probability that both writer and manager were indebted for its acceptance to the sagacity of the great dramatist, who was one of the leading actors on the occasion. "His acquaintance with Ben Jonson," observes Rowe, "began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good nature; Mr. Jonson, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players in order to have it acted, and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakespeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the public." The statement that Rare Ben was then absolutely new to literature is certainly erroneous, however ignorant the Burbages or their colleagues may have been of his primitive efforts; but he was in a state of indigence, rendering the judgment on his manuscript of vital consequence, and the services of a friendly advocate of inestimable value. He had been engaged in dramatic work for Henslowe some months before the appearance of the new comedy, but about that time there seems to have been a misunderstanding between them, the latter alluding to Jonson simply as a bricklayer, not as one of his company, in his record of the unfortunate duel with Gabriel. There had been, in all probability, a theatrical disturbance resulting in the last named event, and in Ben's temporary secession from the Rose. Then there are the words of Jonson himself, who, unbiased by the recollection that he had been defeated in, at all events, one literary skirmish with the great dramatist, speaks of him in language that would appear hyperbolical had it not been sanctioned by a feeling of gratitude for a definite and important service,-“I loved the man and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any." This was a personal idolatry, not one solely in reference to his works, moderately adverse criticisms upon which immediately follow the generous panegyric. It may, then, fairly be said that the evidences at our disposal favor, on the whole, the general credibility of the anecdote narrated by Rowe. In the same month in which Shakespeare was acting in Ben Jonson's comedy,-September, 1598,-there appeared in London the Palladis Tamia, a work that contains more elaborate notices of the great dramatist than are elsewhere to be found in all contemporary literature. Its author was one Francis Meres, a native of Lincolnshire, who had been educated at Cambridge, but for some time past resident in the metropolis. Although his studies were mostly of a theological character, he was interested in all branches of literature, and had formed intimacies with some of its chief representatives. He had been favored with access to the unpublished writings of Drayton and Shakespeare, and had either seen a manuscript, or witnessed a representation, of Rare Ben's earliest tragedy. In the important enumeration of Shakespeare's plays given by Meres, four of them,-The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love Labors Won, The Midsummer Night's Dream, and King John-are mentioned for the first time. There can be no doubt that the first of these dramas had been written some years previously, and Love Labors Won, a production which is nowhere else alluded to, is one of the numerous works of that time which have long since perished, unless its graceful appellation be the original or a secondary title of some other comedy. Neither King John nor The Two Gentlemen of Verona was printed during the author's lifetime, but two editions of The Midsummer Night's Dream appeared in the year 1600. This last-mentioned circumstance indicates the then popularity of that exquisite but singular drama, the comic scenes of which appear to have been those specially relished by the public. One little fragment of the contemporary stage humor, displayed in the representation of this play, has been recorded. When Thisbe killed herself, she fell on the scabbard, not on the trusty sword, the interlude doubtlessly having been acted in that spirit of extreme farce which was naturally evolved from the stupidity and nervousness of the clowns. It is in the Palladis Tamia, 1598, that we first hear of those remarkable productions, the Sonnets. "As the soul of Euphorbus," observes Meres in that quaint collection of similitudes, "was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honeytongued Shakespeare; witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared Sonnets among his private friends," etc. These last-mentioned dainty poems were clearly not then intended for general circulation, and even transcripts of a few were obtainable with difficulty. A publisher named Jaggard who, in the following year, 1599, attempted to form a collection of new Shakesperean poems, did not manage to obtain more than two of the Sonnets. The words of Meres, and the insignificant result of Jag gard's efforts, when viewed in connection with the nature of these strange poems, lead to the inference that some of them were written in clusters, and others as separate exercises, either being contributions made by their writer to the albums of his friends, probably no two of the latter being favored with identical compositions. There was no tradition adverse to a belief in their fragmentary character in the generation immediately following the author's death, as may be gathered from the arrangement found in Benson's edition of 1640; and this concludes the little real evidence on the subject that has descended to us. It was reserved for the students of the last century, who have ascertained so much respecting Shakespeare that was unsuspected by his own friends and contemporaries, to discover that his innermost earnest thoughts, his mental conflicts, and so on, are revealed in what would then be the most powerful lyrics yet given to the world. But the victim of spiritual emotions that involve criminatory reflections does not usually protrude them voluntarily on the consideration of society; and, if the personal theory be accepted, we must concede the possibility of our national dramatist gratuitously confessing his sins and revealing those of others, proclaiming his disgrace and avowing his repentance, in poetical circulars distributed by the delinquent himself among his most intimate friends. There are no external testimonies of any description in favor of a personal application of the Sonnets, while there are abundant difficulties arising from the reception of such a theory. Among the latter is one deserving of special notice, for its investigation will tend to remove the displeasing interpretation all but universally given of two of the poems, those in which reference is supposed |