previously to the serious commencement of his work, is an artifice which has only been laid aside in comparatively recent years.

In February, 1603, Roberts, one of the Shakespearean printers, attempted to obtain a license for an impression of the play of Troilus and Cressida, then in the course of representation by the Lord Chamberlain's servants. The subject had been dramatized by Decker and Chettle for the Lord Admiral's servants in 1599, but although the two companies may have been then, as in former years, on friendly terms, there is no probability that their copyrights were exchangeable, so that the application made by Roberts is not likely to refer to the jointly-written drama. When that printer applied for a license for the publication of the new tragedy, he had not obtained, nor is there any reason for believing that he ever succeeded in procuring, the company's sanction to his projected speculation. At all events, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida was not printed until early in the year 1609, when two other publishers, Bonian and Walley, having surreptitiously procured a copy, ventured on its publication, and, in the hope of attracting purchasers, they had the audacity to state, in an unusual preface, that it had never been represented on the stage. They even appeared to exult in having treacherously obtained a manuscript of the tragedy, but the triumph of their artifices was of brief duration. The deceptive temptation they offered of novelty must have been immediately exposed, and a pressure was no doubt exerted upon them by the company, who probably withdrew their opposition on payment of compensation, for, by January 28, the printers had received a license from the Lord Chamberlain for the pub

lication. The preface was then entirely canceled, and the falsity of the assertion that Troilus and Cressida had never been acted was conspicuously admitted by the reissue professing to appear "as it was acted by the King's Majesty's Servants at the Globe," when is not stated. The suppressed preface could hardly have been written had the drama been one of the acting plays of the season of 1608-1609, and, indeed, the whole tenor of that preamble is against the validity of such an assumption. There can be little doubt that Troilus and Cressida was originally produced at the Globe in the winter season of 1602-1603.

The career of the illustrious sovereign, who had so highly appreciated the dramas of our national poet, was now drawing to an end. Shakespeare's company, who had acted before her at Whitehall on December 26, 1602, were summoned to Richmond for another performance on the following Candlemas Day, February 2, 1603. The Queen was then in a very precarious state of health, and this was the last occasion on which the poet could have had the opportunity of appearing before her. Elizabeth died on March 24, but, among the numerous poetical tributes to her memory that were elicited by her decease, there was not one from the pen of Shakespeare.

The poetical apathy exhibited by the great dramatist on this occasion, although specially lamented by a contemporary writer, can easily be accounted for in more than one way; if, indeed, an explanation is needed beyond a reference to the then agitated and bewildered state of the public mind. The company to which he belonged might have been absent, as several others were at the time, on a provincial tour. Again, they were no doubt intent

on obtaining the patronage of the new sovereign, and may have fancied that too enthusiastic a display of grief for Elizabeth would have been considered inseparable from a regret for the change of dynasty. However that may be, James I arrived in London on May 7, 1603, and ten days afterwards he granted, by bill of Privy Signet, a license to Shakespeare and the other members of his company to perform in London at the Globe Theater, and, in the provinces, at town-halls or other suitable buildings. They itinerated a good deal during the next few months, records of their performances being found at Bath, Coventry, Shrewsbury, and Ipswich. It was either in this year, or early in the following one, and under this license, that the company, including the poet himself, acted at the Globe in Ben Jonson's new comedy of Sejanus.

The King was staying in December, 1603, at Wilton, the seat of one of Shakespeare's patron's, William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, and on the second of that month the company had the honor of performing before the distinguished party then assembled in that noble mansion. In the following Christmas holidays, 1603-1604, they were acting on several occasions at Hampton Court, the play selected for representation on the first evening of the new year being mentioned by one of the audience under the name of Robin Goodfellow, possibly a familiar title of The Midsummer Night's Dream. Their services were again invoked by royalty at Candlemas and on Shrove Sunday, on the former occasion at Hampton Court before the Florentine ambassador, and on the latter at Whitehall. At this time they were prohibited from acting in or near London, in fear that public gatherings might imperil the diminution of the pestilence,

the King making the company on that account the then very handsome present of thirty pounds.

Owing in some degree to the severe plague of 1603, and more perhaps to royal disinclination, the public entry of the King into the metropolis did not take place until nearly a year after the death of Elizabeth. It was on March 15, 1604, that James undertook his formal march from the Tower to Westminister, amid emphatic demonstrations of welcome, and passing every now and then under the most elaborate triumphal arches London had ever seen. In the royal train were the nine actors to whom the special license had been granted the previous year, including of course Shakespeare and his three friends, Burbage, Hemmings, and Condell. Each of them was presented with four yards and a half of scarlet cloth, the usual dress allowance to players belonging to the household. The poet and his colleagues were termed the King's Servants, and took rank at Court among the Grooms of the Chamber.

Shortly after this event the poet made a visit to Stratford-on-Avon. It appears, from a declaration filed in the local court, that he had sold in that town to one Philip Rogers several bushels of malt at various times between March 27 and the end of May, 1604, and that the latter did not, or could not, pay the debt thus incurred, amounting to £1. 15s. 10d. Shakespeare had sold him malt to the value of £1. 19s. 10d., and, on June 25, Rogers borrowed two shillings of the poet at Stratford, making in all £2. 1s. 10d. Six shillings of this were afterwards paid, and the action was brought to recover the balance.

In the following August the great dramatist was in London, there having been a special order, issued in that

month by desire of the King, for every member of the company to be in attendance at Somerset House. This was on the occasion of the visit of the Spanish ambassador to England, but it may be perhaps that their professional services were not required, for no notice of them has been discovered.

The tragedy of Othello, originally known under the title of The Moor of Venice, is first heard of in 1604, it having been performed by the King's players, who then included Shakespeare himself, before the Court, in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, on the evening of Hallowmas day, November 1. This drama was very popular, Leonard Digges speaking of the audiences preferring it to the labored compositions of Ben Jonson. In 1609, a stage-loving parent, one William Bishop, of Shoreditch, who had perhaps been taken with the representation of the tragedy, gave the name of Othello's perfect wife to one of his twin daughters. A performance at the Globe in the April of the following year, 1610, was honored with the presence of the German ambassador and his suite, and it was again represented at Court before Prince Charles, the Princess Elizabeth, and the Elector Palatine, in May, 1613. These scattered notices, accidentally preserved, doubtlessly out of many others that might have been recorded, are indicative of its continuance as an acting play; a result that may, without disparagement to the author, be attributed in some measure to the leading character having been assigned to the most accomplished tragic actor of the day, Richard Burbage. The name of the first performer of Iago is not known, but there is a curious tradition, which can be traced as far back as the close of the seventeenth century, to the effect that the part was