IN the preface to a book published in 1903, entitled Shakespeare and the Rival Poet of the Sonnets, I suggested certain lines of Shakespearean investigation which seemed to promise more definite knowledge of Shakespeare the man, and, through the more intimate conception thus possibly to be gained of his personality, a clearer understanding of his life's work than had yet been realised either by textual criticism or antiquarian research. In that preface I wrote as follows:

"The research of text-students of the works of Shakespeare, undertaken with the object of unveiling the mystery which envelops the poet's life and personality, has added little or nothing of actual proof to the bare outlines which hearsay, tradition, and the spare records of his time have given us. It has, however, resulted in evolving several plausible conjectures, which, if followed and carried to the point of proof, would lend some form and semblance of his personality to these outlines, and materially assist in visualising for us the actual man. In this class of conjectural knowledge I would place the following questions: The question of the personal theory of the Sonnets, with its attendant questions of order and chronology, and the indentity of the three or four figures, the "Patron," "The Rival Poet," "The Dark Lady," and "The Mr. W. H." of the Dedication.

"Lastly, in this class and linked with the sonnet questions I would place the questions of the satirical intention and authorship of the poem called Willobie his Avisa. If any one or two of these things were actually proved, a new keynote to research would be struck, but at present these are all still matters of opinion and dispute."

In Shakespeare and the Rival Poet I followed a suggestion made in 1873 by Professor Minto, regarding George Chapman as "The Rival Poet" of the Sonnets, and, I believe, definitely proved Chapman's identity as that figure. My findings of that time are now generally accepted by Shakespearean scholars. Shortly after the publication of that book, I found convincing evidence that Willobie his Avisa actually was directed against Shakespeare, and that the conditions depicted in that poem concerning "H. W.," "W. S." and "Avisa" reflected, or caricatured, the state of affairs displayed in certain of the Sonnets which exhibit the involved relations of Shakespeare, his patron, and the Dark Lady. This I ascertained by identifying the previously unknown author of this poem as Mr. Matthew Roydon, George Chapman's intimate friend and associate. With this added knowledge, before long I achieved also the quest of the Dark Lady; whom I now identify as Mistress Davenant, afterwards hostess of the Crown Inn at Oxford.

The light thrown upon the Sonnets by the identification of the "Rival Poet" and the Dark Lady, entirely disposed of any question regarding their personal nature and also clearly indicated Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, as the patron to whom the larger number of them were addressed.

A careful examination of the sequential order of the Sonnets, made in the light of the new facts I had found regarding their personal nature, disclosed much contextual incoherence in Thorpe's order and made it plain that those written to Southampton were originally written at different periods and in seven books; each book containing twenty Sonnets, and not, as has hitherto been supposed, in one or two long sequences. The task of giving them contextual order and rearranging them in their original books was made difficult by the fact that, of the original one hundred and forty Sonnets in the seven books, thirteen are now lost. Three of the original books are, however, still intact. Three more each lack two Sonnets, and one lacks seven for completion.

The attainment of these things, which had before been the goal of my endeavours, opened up such interesting possibilities of further discoveries in the plays, when considered from a subjective point of view, that I decided to defer publication of any portion of my evidence until I had fully investigated the plays of the Sonnet period. After about ten years of intermittent research, I have now carried my investigations down to the year 1601 and the death of Essex, the imprisonnment of Southampton, and the complete ruin of their faction. This catastrophe marks the end of Shakespeare's period of Comedy.

The subject has expanded so widely and involves such an intimate consideration of the social and political conditions of that period, that some time may elapse before I have leisure to bring my investigations down to the close of Shakespeare's theatrical career. I have, therefore, decided to publish now, certain portions of my findings by which I claim to establish the identity of Matthew Roydon as the author of Willobie his Avisa, and of Mistress Davenant as the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's Sonnets.

While I defer publication of the results of my investigations of the plays made from a personal point of view, and also of my complete rearrangement of the Sonnets into their original books, for the guidance of the reader in following the present argument, I shall in this preface give a brief chronological outline of my fuller theory, without advancing detailed evidence in its support. This, for the present, the reader may, if he wishes, regard merely as a working hypothesis. Whether he does so or not--in the light of the evidence I adduce regarding Shakespeare's connection with the Earl of Southampton, Matthew Roydon, Mistress Davenant, and others--will depend largely upon the intimacy of his own first-hand knowledge of Shakespeare and of the literary and political history of the reigns of Elizabeth and James.

The logical development of the evidence I possess regarding the personal nature of Shakespeare's Sonnets, when correlated with the underlying subjective interest in the plays of the Sonnet period, and with ascertainable facts concerning the lives of the several persons involved in the Sonnet story, makes it evident that the production of the Sonnets extended over a period of about seven years, beginning late in the year 1591, and ending late in 1598 or early in 1599. During these years the following poems and plays -- all of which in a greater or less degree reflect incidents or conditions of the lives of Shakespeare and his friends--were also originally composed, and in approximately the order given:

Edward III, Richard III, The Comedy of Errors, King John, Love's Labour's Lost, Love's Labour's Won, (All's Well That Ends Well in its earliest form), Venus and Adonis, The First Book of Sonnets, Richard II, Second Book of Sonnets, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Lucrece, Third Book of Sonnets, Henry IV, Part I, Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Fourth Book of Sonnets; about six months later the Fifth Book of Sonnets, The Merchant of Venice, Sixth Book of Sonnets, The Lover's Complaint, Troilus and Cressida, Henry IV, Part II, Seventh Book of Sonnets, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry V, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night.

While the revelations of the Sonnets suggest the original composition of these plays in the order named, many were revised and some of them practically rewritten in later years. Where these revisions were made within the Sonnet period, the subjective evidence often accounts for the revision as well as for the original production of the play, and also makes it apparent that in the three years intervening between the composition of Romeo and Juliet, late in 1594, and the composition of The Merchant of Venice, late in 1597, Shakespeare produced no new play, and that his dramatic work during this period consisted wholly in the revision of his earlier work. It is demonstrable that the following plays were drastically revised during this period: Richard III, King John, Richard II, Love's Labour's Lost, Henry IV, Part I, Midsummer Night's Dream.

In Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, and the three parts of Henry VI, I find no subjective significance. These plays were originally written by other hands, anterior to the beginning of Shakespeare's Sonnet period, and, becoming the property of the theatrical company to which Shakespeare was attached, were revised by him and others who preceded and succeeded him in the capacity of reviser and adapter for his company.

Titus Andronicus, while credited to Shakespeare by Meres, reveals little, if any, of his work. The Taming of the Shrew shows early as well as late revision by Shakespeare, and also gives evidence of still later revision by Fletcher or others, who, after Shakespeare had retired from London, succeeded him as adapter for his company. Shakespeare's revisionary work in the three parts of Henry VI, was evidently all done in or later than the year 1592, with the object of linking these plays dramatically and historically with his own English historical dramatisations. In the form in which they have come down to us in the Folio, the three parts of Henry V contain not only the revisionary work of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and possibly others, but also a large amount of the original matter which the revisers intended to delete.

An adequate interpretation of the poems and plays of the Sonnet period can be attained only by keeping constantly in mind the facts of Shakespeare's personal relations during those years with the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and also with the Earl of Southampton, and his consequent political sympathies with the Court faction led by the Earl of Essex, with which Southampton was so closely affiliated. I can adduce good evidence that Shakespeare first made his patron's acquaintance in about September, 1591, upon the occasion of the Queen's progress to Cowdray House in Surrey, the home of Southampton's maternal grandfather.

It is probable that Shakespeare and his company were engaged by the Earl of Southampton, or Sir Thomas Heneage, Vice-Chamberlain of the Court, to entertain the Queen upon that occasion, and also upon her visit a week later to Tichfield House, Southampton's Hampshire residence. Within a few months of this progress, with its experiences still in mind, Shakespeare composed Love's Labour's Lost, which palpably reflects incidents of the Queen's stay at Cowdray Park. At about the same period he also composed Love's Labour's Won (All's Well That Ends Well, in its early form), which in turn reflects incidents and conditions of her visit to Tichfield. This latter play was revised and its title changed late in 1598, again reflecting phases of Southampton's life at the later period.

During the engagement of Shakespeare and his company at Cowdray and Tichfield, our poet received inspiration for the composition of Venus and Adonis; which, with his first book of Sonnets, was written in 1592 for the Earl of Southampton, with the intention of inclining his mind towards the match planned for him by Lord Burghley with his granddaughter, Elizabeth Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford. The Queen's progress to Cowdray and Tichfield was undoubtedly arranged by Burghley with the intention of forwarding the consummation of this engagement. It is likely that Shakespeare made the acquaintance of Arthur Golding upon the occasion of this progress, or at least that Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses was brought to his notice at this time. All critics are agreed that the 10th Book of Golding's translation was Shakespeare's source for the composition of Venus and Adonis; but it has never before been noticed in this connection that Golding was Elizabeth Vere's granduncle and tutor. It is probable that he accompanied his grandniece and pupil upon this important occasion. A comparison of Venus and Adonis with the first book of Sonnets -- the bulk of which are numbered from one to seventeen in Thorpe's order -- shows that both poems were written at about the same period and with the same object in view.

Late in 1591, or early in 1592, Shakespeare, at the instigation of the Earl of Southampton, or the Earl of Essex, rewrote or transposed the old play of The Troublesome Raigne of King John into the play now known as King John. The old play, by an unknown author, was written in about 1588, at the time of the Armada, when anti-Catholic feeling was high. Its intention was to arouse sympathy for the cause of Sir John Perrott, a natural son of King Henry VIII, and Queen Elizabeth's half-brother, who, in this year, was recalled in disgrace from the Vice-Royalty of Ireland, through the influence of his bitter enemy Sir Christopher Hatton. Perrott was committed to the charge of Lord Burghley and was practically a prisoner at his house until the year 1591, when his enemies had so skilfully substantiated the charges against him that he was removed to the Tower on a charge of high treason. The old play of The Troublesome Raigne of King John was published at this time, and evidently with the same intention as that with which it was originally written.

Sir John Perrott's son, Sir Thomas Perrott, had a short time before eloped with, and married, Dorothy Devereaux, sister of the Earl of Essex. It is apparent then that the sympathies of Essex and his faction would be with Perrott.

In his transposition of the old play, Shakespeare, to reinforce its subjective purpose, exalts and magnifies the character of Falconbridge; strongly accentuating his loyalty to his sovereign, and making him substantially the protagonist of the action. In the vivid and striking picture of Falconbridge, the personality and character of Perrott are plainly to be recognized. Perrott died in the Tower while under sentence of death, pronounced by a subservient council on this trumped-up charge of treason. It was rumored that the Queen intended to pardon him had he lived.

In the autumn of 1592 -- just one year after Southampton and Shakespeare had been drawn together -- Southampton's affair with the Dark Lady of September had its inception. In the month of September he accompanied the Queen and Court on a progress to Oxford. In view of the crowded condition of accommodations in that city during the stay of the Court, it is evident that many of the younger courtiers would lodge at the better inns, and likely that Southampton rested at the George Inn on Cornmarket Sreet, which, at that period, was conducted by John Davenant and his attractive wife. In 1604 they removed to the Crown Inn, which also was situated on Cornmarket Street, a short distance away. I have reason to believe that Southampton was accompanied upon this visit to Oxford by John Florio, who for a year had been connected with the young Earl in the capacity of tutor of languages.

A period of about a year now intervened before Shakespeare and his patron again resumed their intimacy. During this estrangement Shakespeare composed Richard II, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Rape of Lucrece, and Henry IV, Part I. Both Richard II and Henry IV were, however, afterwards materially revised. At this same period he also revised Edward III, introducing the King and the Countess act and a few other linking portions. This play is, I believe, in its entirety the work of Shakespeare; its earliest form, however, antedates his acquaintance with Southampton. The second book of Sonnets pertains also to this time. All of the poems and plays mentioned reveal Shakespeare's dissatisfaction with affairs at this period. The melancholy of Richard II is re-echoed in the second book of Sonnets. The treachery of Proteus to Valentine depicts Southampton's unfaithfulness to Shakespeare. As Venus and Adonis, a year or so earlier, was intended to incite the mind of his patron to amatory considerations, with the intention of forwarding his marriage; so now, Lucrece is intended to depict for his benefit the stultifying effect of unbridled lust.

The revision of Edward III, with the incorporation of the King and the Countess act, was made with a similar object. In Henry IV, Part I, the relations of the Prince and Falstaff reflect Southampton's intimacy with the witty but unprincipled Florio. "My hostess of the tavern" is the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Mistress Davenant of the George Inn. Though this play was very thoroughly revised for publication in 1598, at the same period that Henry IV, Part II was in process of composition, it is significant that the hostess in the later play is an old and garrulous widow. In the earlier play she is a young and beautiful married woman; yet she is "Mistress Quickly" in both plays. The developed history will fully account for the change in portrayal.

All of the poems and plays mentioned above were composed between the end of 1592, and the early months of 1594. The second book of Sonnets was composed after May, 1593, while Shakespeare travelled with his company in the provinces, owing to the closing of the theatres in London on account of the plague, which was then prevalent there.

Though I do not intend at present to publish my entire rearrangement of the Sonnets, I will give some of the complete books, in order that the interested reader may compare their sequential sense with the comparative lack of it in Thorpe's arrangement.

Shortly after the composition of the second book of Sonnets, Shakespeare became fully cognizant of Southampton's entanglement with the Dark Lady. In the light of this knowledge he composed The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Lucrece, and the third book of Sonnets: the play and poem mentioned adumbrate the actual confession and revelations of this book of Sonnets. I am convinced that all of Shakespeare's Sonnets, both those addressed to the Earl of Southampton and those written to the Dark Lady, were originally written in sequences of twenty. Of the third book written to Southampton, only twelve Sonnets have come down to us. Being the most crucial and intimate of the seven books written to his patron (which we know were passed amongst Southampton's friends to be read), it is likely that the missing Sonnets were detached by their recipient and withheld from circulation, or else purposely destroyed.

The third book of Sonnets was undoubtedly written before May, 1594, at which time Southampton and Shakespeare had again resumed confidential relations. Lucrece, with its friendly dedication, was published in this month, and Midsummer Night's Dream was presented for the first time upon May 2d, at the marriage festivities of Sir Thomas Heneage and Lady Southampton, for which occasion it was written. It was revised, in or about, 1596, shortly after the attempted second publication of Willobie his Avisa, and again revised about February, 1599, for presentation at the festivities planned at that time for the marriage of the Earl of Rutland to Lady Elizabeth Sidney, stepdaughter of the Earl of Essex. This marriage, however, was deferred until the autumn of that year, when Shakespeare's dramatic aid was again invoked; when he composed Much Ado About Nothing, which reflects in its action the deferred marriage, and the return of Essex and his friends from the inglorious Irish campaign.

While cordial relations were resumed between Shakespeare and his patron in the early Summer of 1594, they were not much together until late in the Autumn of that year. In about May, 1594, Southampton appears to have met and fallen in love with Elizabeth Vernon, a cousin of his friend the Earl of Essex. His engagement to Lord Burghley's granddaughter was disrupted at, or shortly before, this time, as Elizabeth Vere became engaged in April or May to the young Earl of Derby, to whom she was married in December of the same year. It is obvious that much of the Queen's subsequent opposition to Southampton's marriage to Elizabeth Vernon arose from Burghley's influence. It is not probable that he would soon forgive Southampton's treatment of his favourite granddaughter.

A portion of the interval of separation between Southampton and Shakespeare, from May to December, 1594, was spent by Southampton in Hampshire, where he became involved in the resurgence of a family feud that existed between two of his neighbors. A duel between Sir Henry Long and Sir Charles Danvers developed before its close into a fight between the relations and retainers of the principals, in which Sir Henry Long was slain by Sir Henry Danvers; who, with his brother, took refuge with the Earl of Southampton at Bitely Lodge, where he was living at that time. By Southampton's assistance, the Danvers succeeded in passing over into France before a warrant for their arrest could be served. The origin of this feud is unknown, but its activity at this time arose from a haphazard quarrel between the retainers of the two families, in which a servant of the Danvers was slain. I cannot learn where this incident occurred, but it was evidently in London in the preceding Winter, as we have record that Sir Henry Danvers was confined in the Marshalsea at that time nursing a wound in his hand received in a recent brawl.

Late in the year 1594, Shakespeare composed his fourth book of Sonnets, celebrating the renewal of his friendship with Southampton; and -- still continuing to suggest phases of his patron's life in his dramatic work -- produced also Romeo and Juliet, which, in the factional quarrels between the Montagues and Capulets, reproduces the spirit and reflects the incidents and persons of the feud between the Danvers and the Longs. The prototypes for the dashing and fiery characters of Mercutio and Benvolio, which are entirely lacking in both the Italian original and the English translations of the story from which Shakespeare worked, are palpable in the persons of Sir Charles and Sir Henry Danvers. Southampton is Romeo; Juliet is Elizabeth Vernon; the dark eyed Rosaline is the Dark Lady of the Sonnets. A comparison of Shakespeare's play with the Italian story, or with Brooke's translation, will show that his divergences were all the result of these subjective influences. This play was first produced upon December 7, 1594, at the Savoy Palace, the official residence of Sir Thomas Heneage, where he and his wife, the Countess of Southampton, entertained the Queen on that date. It was written with the object of softening the Queen's opposition to the marriage of Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon, by depicting the disastrous possibilities in a case where the love of a youthful, impetuous and high-spirited couple is stemmed in its natural course by the unsympathetic exercise of arbitrary power. In the next and following years the influence of Essex and others of their friends was brought to bear upon the Queen to obtain her consent, but without avail. Her continued obduracy resulted in much unhappiness to the lovers and finally drove them to a clandestine marriage in 1598. Their fortunes in the meantime are reflected in the revision and composition of other of Shakespeare's poems and plays, which I shall outline in due course.

The composition of Romeo and Juliet and the fourth book of Sonnets marks the happiest stage of Shakespeare's relations with his patron. Towards the end of 1591, and continuing through 1592, the countenance and friendship of this charming and accomplished young aristocrat had given its first inspiration to Shakespeare's previously dormant genius, which, however, was soon clouded and chilled by his friend's misbehaviour, under the malign influence of Florio. In the following Sonnet Shakespeare expressed his early happiness and his ensuing disappointment

The time described in these lines as "one hour" was the interval between the Cowdray progress, in September, 1591, and Southampton's visit to Oxford one year later, when, evidently through Florio, he made the acquaintance of Mistress Davenant.

By the month of May, 1594, Southampton's temporary infatuation for the Dark Lady was ended and his affections were now centered upon Elizabeth Vernon. He and Shakespeare had become reconciled by this time; Lucrece, with its cordial and grateful dedication, being entered upon the Stationer's Registers in this month.

During the early months of 1594, while our poet and his patron were still estranged, George Chapman, at the instigation and with the help of his friend, John Florio, made his first poetical advances towards Southampton's favor. His Hymns to the Shadow of Night were submitted to the young Earl in the hope of winning his patronage. In the meantime Lucrece was published, and Shakespeare and Southampton were reunited. Chapman's poems in manuscript were read and criticised by Shakespeare, and Southampton's sponsorship for their publication evidently refused. Chapman, thereupon, published them, dedicating them to his friend and fellow scholar, Matthew Roydon. In this dedication he savagely attacked Shakespeare, to whom he refers in the capacity of "reader" to a nobleman. I have convincing evidence that Shakespeare had read these poems of Chapman's and their glossary at the time he composed Midsummer Night's Dream. He must, therefore, have read them in manuscript, as they were not published until late in the year 1594. While this is the earliest record I can trace of hostility between Chapman and Shakespeare, it appears probable that Roydon and Shakespeare had come at odds, as early as the date of the Cowdray progress in 1591. The publication of Chapman's poems, dedicated to Roydon, for the present gave Shakespeare full assurance of his patron's fidelity. From certain expressions in the dedication of Lucrece and coincident evidence in the fourth book of Sonnets and elsewhere, I am of the opinion that Southampton bestowed some signal mark of his favour upon Shakespeare at about the time of their reconciliation. The fame of his bounty to Shakespeare at this time drew many poets to Southampton's shrine and so aroused the jealousy of Chapman and Roydon, that they planned a further attack upon our poet, with the object of disrupting his relations with his patron; while Chapman at the same time prepared new matter with which to appeal to Southampton's taste and favour.

Willobie his Avisa was written some time between May and September, 1594, and entered upon the Stationer's Registers in September of that year. Its publication was made before December, in which month Romeo and Juliet was first performed. Several passages in Romeo and Juliet give evidence, that at the time of its composition, Shakespeare had read Willobie his Avisa.

Though this poem was entered upon the Stationer's Registers in September, 1594, and issued from the press before the end of the year, the scandal had not become fully disseminated, nor its ill effects been felt by Shakespeare, at the time he produced Romeo and Juliet and the fourth book of Sonnets. These two compositions bespeak the happiness and exhilaration experienced by Shakespeare in his restored relations with Southampton, and also evidence in the fullest degree the inspiration to his poetic genius exerted by his affection and admiration for this princely youth. The remarkable resemblance in diction and spirit between portions of Romeo and Juliet and several of the Sonnets in this book, has frequently been noticed by critics, who had no hope that an identical date for their composition might be demonstrated. The fourth book of Sonnets, which follows, was written late in the Autumn of 1594. Two Sonnets are lacking to make this book a complete twenty Sonnet sequence. I am of the opinion that the lost Sonnets were the first and second of the sequence, which, lacking them, now begins somewhat abruptly. The lines,

It was suggested by Gerald Massey, that the fifteenth Sonnet in this book, (Thorpe 107), was a single gratulatory poem written by Shakespeare in 1603, to celebrate Southampton's liberation from the Tower, upon the accession of James I. A very casual examination of its relations to the contexts I have given it, will show it to be an integral portion of the book. If this Sonnet was written in 1603, the remainder of the sequence must also have been written at that time. Gerald Massey assumes that the allusion to "the mortal moon" having endured an eclipse, is to the death of Queen Elizabeth. Dr. Tyler suggested that this Sonnet was written in 1598, and that it referred to the recent escape of Elizabeth from an attempt upon her life, and that it also made reference to the Peace of Vervins established in that year. I can prove both of these opinions untenable, and can give convincing evidence for the date I assign to the sequence. The allusion to the escape of the Queen from a recent peril, and also to a rumored peace, aptly fits the facts regarding domestic and international happenings late in 1594.

The publication of Willobie his Avisa, partially accomplished the purpose had in mind regarding Shakespeare by Roydon and his fellow conspirators. Though they did not succeed permanently in estranging the peer and the poet, or in winning Southampton's patronage for themselves, they at least put an end for a period to his public intimacy with Shakespeare. Southampton was at this time upon an equivocal footing at Court, and could ill afford the publication of a scandal, linking his name with that of a play actor, and with an innkeeper's wife, under the conditions depicted in the story recently published. He had lately jilted the favourite granddaughter of the Prime Minister, and was now endeavouring to win the Queen's consent to a marriage with a cousin of that Minister's principal political opponent. Several fruitless attempts to gain the Queen's sanction were made in 1595. Under these circumstances, Southampton or his friends apparently thought it advisable that he should forego his intimacy with Shakespeare for a time.

Finding that the publication of Roydon's poem had apparently succeeded in estranging Southampton from Shakespeare, and assuming that it was the amorous or erotic nature of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece that had attracted Southampton, and won his liberal patronage, Chapman, who had previously condemned Shakespeare's supposed eroticism, now attempted to suit Southampton's tastes and pander to his imagined libidinousness by writing several poems of a lascivious nature. Late in 1594, or early in 1595, he composed Ovid's Banquet of Sense, The Amorous Zodiac and A Coronet for his Mistress Philosophy. These poems, as in the case of The Hymns to the Shadow of Night, were submitted for Southampton's approval, and being again refused, were published in 1595, and, as in the case of the earlier poems, also dedicated to his friend Roydon. Both in these poems and their dedication, Chapman casts slurs at Shakespeare, of a still more open and indicative nature than those contained in his earlier publication.

Shakespeare, though separated from Southampton, becoming cognizant of his enemies' attempts upon his favour, now produced his fifth book of Sonnets, in which he definitely indicates Chapman as his rival. In this book we again have a complete twenty Sonnet sequence. The sequential coherence of these verses is very palpable.

This book of Sonnets was written late in 1595, or early in 1596, as Shakespeare's personal appeal to his patron against his rival's advances. At the same time he publicly answered Roydon and Chapman by his first revision of Love's Labour's Lost, in which play he caricatured Chapman as Holofernes, and Matthew Roydon as the Curate Nathaniel. John Florio is also glanced at in the character of Armado. The additions made to the play at this period may readily be distinguished, as well as a few later additions, made shortly before its publication in 1598-99. The personal application of Shakespeare's ridicule was quickly recognised by his learned antagonists, and was answered within a few months by an attempted re-issue of Willobie his Avisa. No copies of the poem of this date are now known to exist. Its issue was prevented by the censor evidently before any copies had gone into circulation. In order more plainly to make known the object of his satire in Willobie his Avisa, Roydon, in this same year, published another poem entitled Penelope's Complaint, under the pseudonym of Peter Colse. In the preface and certain appendices to this poem he refers to Willobie his Avisa and the satire it contains, in such a manner as to make it clear that his intention is to arouse interest in its underlying personal significance.

In answer to Roydon's latest attack, Shakespeare now revised Midsummer Night's Dream, introducing or enlarging the play within the play, enacted by Bottom and his "rude mechanicals." The parody of Roydon's verses in this portion of the play is very palpable. That this parody was introduced into the play as late as, or later than 1596 -- the date of the publication of Penelope's Complaint -- is evidenced by Shakespeare's reflection of the ballad maker "Peter Colse" in the character of the "base mechanical" ballad maker "Peter Quince."

Whatever other effect these poetical and dramatic recriminations may have had at this time, it is evident that they must have given greater publicity to the scandal regarding our poet and Mistress Davenant, and involving the Earl of Southampton. Both Love's Labour's Lost, and Midsummer Night's Dream, were originally written in the interests of the Earl of Southampton and his friends, and were primarily intended for private presentation. In their revised form, they were no doubt exhibited upon the public boards. While the underlying personal reflections in them might not be recognised by the public, they were plain to the initiated.

For the next two years Southampton saw little of Shakespeare, but seems at this period to have come much in contact with and under the influence of John Florio. In 1596, he was absent from England for several months with the fleet, on the expedition to Cadiz. Shortly after his return from this adventure, he travelled for a few months on the Continent; Florio probably accompanying him. His travels were interrupted by the preparations being made in England for another attack upon Spain. He returned to England before June, 1597, and sailed with Essex upon the Island Voyage in that month, returning again to England early in October, 1597. Between the Spring of 1596, and the Autumn of 1597, Shakespeare, while not actually estranged from Southampton, as in 1592-94, was yet neglected by his patron. Lacking the inspiration of this companionship and friendship, as well as Southampton's demand for his work for private performance, our poet now devoted himself to the revision of his earlier work for public purposes. Richard II, King John and Midsummer Night's Dream were all revised during 1596; Love's Labour's Lost in 1595, Richard III and Henry IV Part I in 1597.

In September, 1596, Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, died. In July, 1597, The Theatre (where his company had now performed for some time) was closed by order of the authorities and was never afterwards reopened. During this same period he also became deeply involved with the Dark Lady. The resultant depression and remorse engendered by those adverse moral influences and material conditions, found expression, towards the end of 1597, in the composition of the sixth book of Sonnets; following the return of Southampton from the Island Voyage. The Merchant of Venice, which echoes the spiritual dejection of this book of Sonnets, was composed at the same period. Shakespeare is Antonio; Southampton, his preoccupied friend Bassanio, intent on winning Portia--Elizabeth Vernon. This play, like all his early Comedies, was written for Southampton and for private presentation. In the interval between the closing of The Theatre in July, 1597, and the opening of The Globe in the summer of 1599, Shakespeare and his company, when in London, performed almost exclusively at The Blackfriars, and for select audiences. Their lease of these premises was obtained on the condition that it be maintained as a private theatre. Though the terms of this lease were infringed in later years by other companies to whom the Burbages leased The Blackfriars after the opening of The Globe, I have fair evidence to show that the Lord Chamberlain's company lived up to its requirements while they performed there between the Winter of 1597-8 and the Summer of 1599.

The Autumn and Winter of 1597-98 marks a temporary renewal of intimate relations between Shakespeare and Southampton. All of the plays revised or composed at this time, and for a year later, were written and improved for private performance either at The Blackfriars, the Court, or the houses of Southampton and his friends. All of them also reflect our poet's connection with Southampton and the Essex faction, or his antagonism to Chapman and his clique.

In the same year that The Theatre was closed and Shakespeare and his company were temporarily compelled to travel in the provinces, he purchased New Place in Stratford. This purchase, and the financial loss involved in the closing of The Theatre, evidently straitened our poet's means and curtailed his income for a period. I advance the opinions, that the publication of several of his plays in this, and the following year, were, to a large extent, the result of pecuniary considerations, and that all but one of these Quartos were published with his cognizance. None of his plays were published before 1597. Richard II, Richard III, and Henry IV Part I, were published in 1597-98, and in practically the same form that they later appeared in the Folio. They all show careful editing and were all fathered by the same publisher, Andrew Wise. It is probable that the ready sale which these apparently authorised publications met, (Richard II running into two editions in one year), led to the surreptitious issue of Romeo and Juliet at this time. The fact that the Quarto of 1597, of this play, differs so materially from that of 1599, and that it was issued by John Danter, while the more carefully edited publications of the same year were all issued by Andrew Wise, give good grounds for the assumption that it was published without Shakespeare's knowledge. The second Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, much enlarged and evidently carefully edited for publication, was issued by Cuthbert Burby in 1599. That this latter issue had Shakespeare's sanction appears evident from the fact that Love's Labour's Lost, in its latest and most complete form, was issued by this same publisher a few months earlier. I have convincing evidence to show that the Quarto publication of this latter play in 1598-99 was made at Shakespeare's instigation.

Though the publication of Richard II, Richard III, and Henry IV, in 1597-98, was probably due to financial reasons, certain of the plays issued at and following this period, were published aggressively or defensively against his antagonists, Florio, Chapman, Roydon and others, who in time rallied to their standard. The revision and publication of Henry IV Part I, in the beginning of 1598, with the character of Oldcastle changed to Falstaff, was directed against John Florio, who at once recognised Shakespeare's intention and replied to him abusively in his preface to The Worlde of Wordes, which was published later in the same year and dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. To Florio's abuse Shakespeare replied, by continuing the history of this reign and further developing the character of Falstaff. Henry IV Part II, was undoubtedly composed in, or about, December, 1598.

In this same year Chapman challenged the approval of the literary world with more important matter than any he had yet published. Early in 1598, he published his Seaven Bookes of Homer's Iliades, dedicating it most fulsomely to the Earl of Essex; whereupon Shakespeare composed Troilus and Cressida, in which he travestied Homer and ridiculed Chapman. This play was never acted upon the public stage, in the form in which it was first produced. It was presented at least once, privately, at the Blackfriars, before a company composed of the Earl of Essex and his friends. Its performance was discontinued at Essex' request. While Shakespeare frequently indulged in double meanings of a political nature in the plot and action of his plays, in none is the parallel he draws so palpable as in this play, which, while primarily intended as ridicule of Chapman, was used incidentally as a warning to the Earl of Essex. The whole of Ulysses' speech in Act III, Scene III, beginning:--

Troilus and Cressida was produced before Essex and his friends at the Blackfriars, or at the house of some of Essex' adherents, some time in December, 1598. Within a few weeks of this performance, Shakespeare produced for the first time, and at the same place, The Second Part of Henry IV. In the epilogue to this play he apologises to his auditors for Troilus and Cressida in the following words: "Be it known to you as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play to pray your patience for it and to promise you a better. I meant indeed, to pay you with this." The evidence I possess for the date of production I assign to Troilus and Cressida and to the Second Part of Henry IV, is both interesting and conclusive, but is not pertinent to this sketch. The subsequent history and metamorphosis of Troilus and Cressida, into its present form, will be outlined in the course of this narrative.

Slightly earlier in the year 1598, Shakespeare composed the poem entitled The Lover's Complaint. Like Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, the Sonnets, and most of the plays of the Sonnet period, this poem also inferentially portrays phases in the life of the Earl of Southampton. The young Earl is the recreant lover, Elizabeth Vernon the distressed maiden, Shakespeare the sympathetic shepherd. The description of Southampton's personality is most palpable and the facts of the story, fancifully told and slightly embellished, match the actual circumstances in the relations subsisting between Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon in this year.

In extant letters of the time we learn that in January, 1598, Southampton's relations with Elizabeth Vernon gave rise to Court gossip. Ambrose Willoughby, a court attendant, and evidently an adherent of the Cecil faction, becoming cognisant of clandestine meetings between these lovers and interfering in his capacity of squire of the body, became embroiled in a personal encounter with Southampton, in which that nobleman lost some of his "browny locks." An investigation of the affray becoming necessary, the Lord Chamberlain and the Earl of Essex examined into it, and in the interest of the good name of the lady implicated (Essex' cousin, Elizabeth Vernon), endeavoured to silence the scandal by reporting the matter as merely the result of a dispute over a game of cards. Southampton, however, was commanded to absent himself from the Court, and is reported as being "full of discontentments at the Queen's strangest usage of him." Within a few days he obtained leave to travel, and left England, in company with Sir Robert Cecil for the French Court. Elizabeth Vernon is reported as "weeping out her fairest eyes" at his departure. It was also rumored at the time that a secret marriage had taken place before he left England. On March 17th, Cecil presented Southampton to Henry IV, of France, at the camp at Angiers, with the assurance that the Earl had "come with determination to do him service." Within a few weeks of Southampton's arrival at the French camp, a truce was declared and Southampton departed for Paris, where gossip reports him as living somewhat freely for several months. One letter tells of his losing eighteen hundred crowns at tennis, and other letters hint at affairs of a tenderer nature. In his own letters to Cecil and Essex, he intimates his intention of leaving Paris and of travelling into Italy, yet he lingered on for months in Paris. At this time he renewed his acquaintance with his old friends, Sir Charles and Sir Henry Danvers, who were still in exile, but who succeeded in August, 1598, in compromising their difference with the Longs by a large payment of money, and also in having their sentence of banishment revoked. Upon the departure of the Danvers for England, Southampton entrusted Sir Henry with a letter to Cecil in which he begged Cecil to expedite the bearer's return to Paris, in order that he might accompany him on his Italian travels. This letter was merely a ruse to blind Cecil to the fact, that he himself had left Paris for London. Disguising himself he accompanied the Danvers to England, and upon his arrival in London, wrote Essex acquainting him of his return and asking for a private meeting. He remained in London three or four days, and during his stay was secretly married to Elizabeth Vernon; whose condition had shortly before caused her dismissal from the Court. He returned to France before knowledge of these facts had become public. The Queen expressed the deepest anger against Southampton, Essex, and everyone engaged in the affair. She even threatened to commit the new Countess to the Fleet. Orders were immediately issued commanding Southampton to return at once upon his allegiance. By the advice of his friends the young Earl wisely deferred his return until the heat of her virgin Majesty's displeasure had time to cool. He wrote to Cecil assuring him of his sincere desire to return and cast himself upon her Majesty's mercy, but protesting also his utter inability to do so from lack of funds. Upon his return, early in November, he was committed to the Fleet, but was liberated within a few days. He was never afterwards, however, admitted to the Queen's presence. Late in October the new Countess gave birth to a daughter.

The Lover's Complaint was written while Southampton was still in France and before his secret return to England in August. It exhibits Shakespeare's sympathy with Elizabeth Vernon, and his opinion of Southampton's behaviour, and shows also that he was not wholly in Southampton's confidence at this time.

All's Well that Ends Well, owes its present title to the outcome of these lovers' troubles, and in its revised portions depicts the spirit and incidents of their lives in this year. I believe I can demonstrate December, 1598, as the date of its final revision and change from Love's Labour's Won to its later title.

Southampton's early liberation from the Fleet in November, 1598, was not due to Elizabeth's condonement or forgiveness of his offence. His freedom was granted in order to placate Essex and hasten his acceptance of the command of the Irish Expedition, then in course of preparation. Several months had been wasted in negotiations between the Court and Essex regarding the scope of his powers as general of the forces, and the personnel, strength and equipment of the army. Both Essex, and his more judicious followers, realised the dangerous responsibility that Cecil was now endeavouring to foist upon him, and suspected occult and sinister motives in the little Secretary's eagerness to remove him from the Court, and to embark him in such a doubtful enterprise. They remembered how disastrous Ireland had hitherto proved to military reputations. Cecil's attempt to deprive him of the credit for the success of the Cadiz Expedition in 1596, was yet fresh in Essex' mind; while the strained relations -- resulting from his failure in the Island Voyage in 1597 -- that still subsisted between his faction and the Court, he also knew to be due largely to Cecil's machinations.

Between the end of November, 1598, and April, 1599, when Southampton sailed with Essex to Ireland, his relations with Shakespeare became more intimate than they had been at any time since the Winter of 1594-95, when the first publication of Willobie his Avisa had interrupted their friendship, or at least the outward appearance of it. The seventh and last book of Sonnets, which was composed during these months, expresses our poet's gratification at his reunion with his patron. It also reflects the political conditions of this period, and answers certain slurs cast against him by Chapman, in a poem addressed to his friend Thomas Harriots, and appended to Achilles' Shield, which was published late in 1598.

The "bewailed guilt" acknowledged in the third Sonnet of this book, refers to Shakespeare's relations with the Dark Lady. The "vulgar scandal" mentioned in the fifth Sonnet, alludes to the publication of Willobie his Avisa, and other means taken by his opponents to give publicity to the affair; in which they succeeded so well that it is evident a disruption of his friendship with the Dark Lady took place at this time. Florio and Roydon were both Oxford graduates, and no doubt, habitu�s of the George Inn, and on tavern terms with its sprightly hostess. In some manner they succeeded in obtaining from her, two Sonnets that Shakespeare had written to her, which they published a few months later, along with a miscellany of poems written by different persons, under the title of The Passionate Pilgrim. They included also several songs taken from Love's Labour's Lost, in order to give a colorable excuse for using Shakespeare's name as author upon the title page. The publication of this book was intended to synchronise with a new issue of Willobie his Avisa, and also to serve as a key to its hidden meaning; as Penelope's Complaint was meant to be to the issue of 1596. We have record that the publication of Willobie his Avisa in 1599, was prevented by the public censor. From the fact that no copies of the edition of 1596 are known to be extant, it appears evident that it also was condemned. The issue of 1605, is mentioned as the "Fourth" issue upon the title page, and contains "An Apologie," reprinted from the edition of 1596, which did not appear in the issue of 1594.

The remorse and bitterness expressed in the seventh book of Sonnets, is re-echoed in Troilus and Cressida. In the delineation of the sensuous and faithless Cressida, Shakespeare reflects his impressions of the Dark Lady at this period. It is evident that much of his disgust and bitterness, was due to his belief that she had wilfully betrayed him to his antagonists, in giving them the Sonnets he had written her.

The first five lines of the Sonnet, numbered as the 17th in this sequence (Thorpe 124):

The seventh and eighth lines of this Sonnet,

The ninth and tenth lines,

The concluding lines of this Sonnet,

The last Sonnet in this sequence alludes to Essex' adverse relations with Elizabeth, to his past victories, and his failure in the Island Voyage, which had resulted in his present disfavor. This was the last book of Sonnets written by Shakespeare to the Earl of Southampton. It was finished in December, 1598.

In the early months of 1599, while Southampton and Essex were still in England, Shakespeare composed The Merry Wives of Windsor. A well-authenticated tradition, ascribes the composition of this play to the command of Queen Elizabeth, who, it is said, had been so entertained by the character of Falstaff in Henry IV., that she desired to see the same character depicted in love. I can adduce convincing evidence that Henry IV. Part II. was composed in December, 1598. It is evident then, that it would be included in the number of the plays acted before the Queen during the Christmas, New Year's, or Twelfth Night festivities. If there is any truth in the tradition of the Queen's command regarding The Merry Wives of Windsor, it is likely that her desire would be expressed while her interest in Henry IV. was fresh or newly aroused. The development of this chronological outline will show the extreme unlikelihood of the composition of The Merry Wives, at a period subsequent to March, 1599, and internal evidence of style as well as all metrical tests negative an earlier date.

I am convinced that in the characters of "Master Fenton," and "Sweet Anne Page," Shakespeare reflects the persons of Lord Compton and Elizabeth Spencer, who, in spite of the most strenuous opposition on the part of the father of the latter, eloped and were married, towards the end of March, 1599. Lord Compton had for several years been an intimate friend of Southampton, as Fenton is represented as having been of the wild Prince. The proposed marriage and the angry opposition of the wealthy Sir John Spencer, (who used most extraordinary means in his endeavors to prevent it), were common gossip in Court circles during February and March, 1599. This new evidence, in conjunction with known facts, indicates that this play was presented for the first time within a few days of Essex' and Southampton's departure for Ireland, in April, 1599.

This play was revised shortly after the accession of James I. I suggest that its revision was made for presentation at festivities incident to an installation of the Garter. The following passage from Act V. Scene V., of the Folio version, is absent from the Quarto which was issued in 1602.

It is extremely probable, in view of Shakespeare's connection with the Earl of Southampton, that the revision was made for performance upon the occasion of that nobleman's admission to the Order of the Garter, in the Summer of 1603, "When the Court lay at Windsor" (Act II. Scene II.) It was customary for the Court to be held at Greenwich in the Summertime.

The martial spirit aroused in London in the early months of 1599, by the military preparations for the Irish wars, as well as Shakespeare's sympathy with Essex, Southampton and their following, and his ardent hope for their success, are reflected in Henry V., which was composed in the Spring or Summer of this year. This play may have been produced in some form before the leaders sailed. It is evident, however, that the prologue and other portions of the play were written after the campaign had opened and at a time when their speedy victory and triumphal return were looked for.

In Henry IV. Parts I. and II., the characters of Prince Hal and Falstaff, and their friendship, adumbrate Southampton and Florio and their intimacy, which it is very evident that Shakespeare deprecated. In the Prince's soliloquy in Henry IV. Part I., Act I. Scene II., as follows:

Past critics who have not suspected, or else refused to consider, the possibility of a subjective interest in Shakespeare's plays, have frequently been puzzled by the apparent dramatic inconsistency of the cold and calculating phase of the Prince's character revealed in the soliloquy quoted above, and in only one other stage of his delineation, which also strikes the reader unpleasantly. Notwithstanding his undoubted personal dislike of Florio, the prototype for this character, Shakespeare has depicted in Falstaff such an amusing and interesting rascal, that few readers of the play fail to sympathise with him in his fall, when the King, his former boon companion, casts him off. In these, as in all other noted instances in the plays where Shakespeare seems to lapse in dramatic verisimilitude, an underlying subjective interest may be looked for.

It is apparent that when Shakespeare revised the First Part of Henry IV. into its present form, in the early months of 1598, he had then in mind, the composition of the second part of the play which depicts Falstaff's downfall. In the forecast of the Prince's reformation in the passage quoted from Part I., and in his final repudiation of Falstaff in Part II., Shakespeare tacitly admonishes Southampton, and at the same time anticipates the heightened and glorified characterisation with which he depicts Henry V., whom he presents as a wise, daring and capable leader of men; as an exalted ideal for Southampton to emulate.

The next play written, following Henry V., in order of composition, was Much Ado About Nothing. In the light of Shakespeare's connection with the Earls of Southampton and Essex, and their faction, there can be little doubt that this play was written for presentation at the festivities upon the occasion of the marriage of the Earl of Rutland to Elizabeth Sidney, stepdaughter of the Earl of Essex; which took place some time between September 28, and October 16, 1599. At the end of January, 1599, while Essex was engaged in organising his forces, an order from the Court was issued, countermanding permission to accompany the Expedition previously granted to certain of his followers, and including the Earl of Rutland.

Shortly following this, a marriage was planned between this nobleman and the Earl of Essex' stepdaughter, and all arrangements apparently made for the nuptials to take place before Essex' departure for Ireland. In the meantime, Rutland again succeeded in obtaining permission to accompany the army. In a letter dated March 16th, John Chamberlain, informing his friend Dudley Carleton, of the progress of Essex' preparations, writes: "The Earls of Southampton and Rutland (who hath latlie married the Countess of Essex' daughter) do accompany him." The fact that such a well-informed gossip as Chamberlain should report this deferred marriage as an accomplished fact, suggests that its postponement must have taken place at the last moment, and after the date set for it had been publicly announced. The marriage was undoubtedly deferred owing to the young Earl's desire to accompany his friends to the wars.

I suggest in this connection, that Midsummer Night's Dream, which was originally composed for the marriage of Sir Thomas Heneage to the Countess of Southampton, in May, 1594, was revised in February, 1599 for presentation at the marriage festivities being arranged for this young couple at that time. In this light Shakespeare's reference to:

Upon September 1st, Rowland Whyte, writing to Sir Robert Sidney, says, "My Lord of Rutland is now and then at Court. I hear he intends your niece to be Countess of Rutland as young as she is." Writing again to Sidney six weeks later, and three weeks after Essex' return from Ireland, he announces that "My Lady of Essex' daughter was christened by the Earl of Southampton, The Lady Cumberland and Lady Rutland;" which gives us evidence that Rutland had married between these dates.

The querulous and vacillating attitude of the Queen towards Essex and his friends at this period, is evidenced by her recall of Rutland from Ireland early in June. It was reported that Southampton intended returning to England at the same time; as Essex had been compelled by explicit orders from the Queen to dismiss him from his command as General of the Horse. Essex neglected, however, to appoint a successor, and Southampton remained with him during the summer, accompanying him, with others of his friends, to England in September. In leaving his command in Ireland and returning unannounced, and in defiance of the Queen's express injunctions to the contrary, Essex played into Cecil's hands. From this time onward, until his execution in February, 1601, he remained under the Queen's displeasure, being restrained from appearing at Court. For several months, with varying degrees of severity, he was confined at the Lord Keeper's, or his own house; at times being threatened with the Tower. His adherents in the meantime held aloof from the Court, or were expressly restrained by the Queen's orders; while factional animosity between them and Cecil's followers developed apace, quarrels occurring daily between the partisans in taverns and ordinaries.

Upon October 11th, Rowland Whyte in a letter to Robert Sidney, says, "My Lord Southampton and Lord Rutland come not to the Court, the one doth, but very seldom. They pass away the time in London merely in going to playes every day." It is not difficult to imagine the plays and playhouse that would be most popular with these noblemen. With the adverse fortunes of his friends in mind, Shakespeare composed As You Like It, towards the end of 1599. It is probable that it was first performed at Christmas time. The following song and its reference to holly suggest this season.

One year later, with the interests of Essex and his friends still in mind, our poet composed his last real Comedy. I give convincing evidence that Twelfth Night was composed in January, 1601. Within four weeks of the date of its intended performance Essex had gone to the block, and Southampton to the Tower, while their faction was disrupted and scattered. From this time onwards life takes on sober colorings for Shakespeare.

Returning to a consideration of the dramatic hostilities between our poet and his antagonists at this period; early in 1599, Chapman and his allies in answer to Shakespeare's recent attack upon them in Troilus and Cressida, and the revision of Midsummer Night's Dream, revised an old play which they put on the boards under the title of Histrio-Mastix, or the Player Whipt. I can advance new evidence showing that both Chapman and Marston were concerned in the revision and public production of this play at this time. Shakespeare is caricatured in it as Posthaste, while the Lord Chamberlain's Company, who now for about two years had been performing, when in London, almost exclusively at The Blackfriars, and for select audiences, are presented as Sir Oliver Owlet's players, a private company under the patronage of Lord Malvortius and his friends. Malvortius represents Southampton; Landulpho, the Italian lord, who criticises the play acted by these players in the hall of Lord Malvortius, as "base trash," in comparison with Italian drama, represents Florio, who as early as 1591, in the preface to his Second Fruits, had made similar reflections on English drama. Histrio-Mastix was evidently written by Chapman and others, under some other name, and in an earlier form, in about 1593-94, at the same period that Chapman produced the Hymns to the Shadow of Night. Even at that date it had an anti-Shakespearean intention.

The revision of 1599, was made by Chapman and Marston, who commenced to collaborate in dramatic work in the preceding year. From Shakespeare's recently acted Midsummer Night's Dream, in its revised form, including the play within the play acted by Bottom and his "rude mechanicals," Chapman and Marston took their cue for the revision of Histrio-Mastix, and, as Shakespeare had parodied and caricatured Roydon and his friends in Pyramus and Thisbe, they now indicated and assailed him by introducing Troylus and Cressida, as the play to be acted by Posthaste and his players. The prologue to this proposed play alludes scurrilously to Shakespeare's relations with Mistress Davenant; while the few lines of the play itself that are spoken refer indicatively to an incident in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. The play is represented as being so poor that it is stopped by Lord Malvortius before it is finished. This I suggest was a reflection of the actual fact regarding the first and only production of Troilus and Cressida, in its earliest form a few months before, when its performance was discontinued at the order, or request, of the Earl of Essex.

At about the same time that Marston joined the anti-Shakespearean clique and commenced to collaborate with George Chapman, Ben Jonson became temporarily affiliated with The Lord Chamberlain's Company; having quarrelled with Henslowe with whom he had been previously connected. During his short connection with Shakespeare's Company in 1598-99, Jonson maintained a neutral attitude in the quarrel between Shakespeare and the opposing clique. In Every Man out of His Humour, which was first acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Company towards the end of 1599, Jonson appears to have taken up the cudgels in a perfunctory manner for Shakespeare's side by parodying Histrio-Mastix. After the fall of the Essex faction, and the consequent loss of Court favor and public prestige to the Lord Chamberlain's Company, Jonson joined the opposition to Shakespeare and in a revised production of Every Man out of His Humour, and other plays composed in these later years, including The Poetaster, Cynthia's Revels and Volpone, attacked him as bitterly and scurrilously as his older opponents. At a still later time, when Jonson had quarrelled with his old collaborator Chapman, he denied his former hostility to Shakespeare and eulogised him in despite of Chapman.

Marston's alliance with Chapman and his attacks upon Shakespeare in 1598-99, had the effect of rallying to our poet's support both Chettle and Dekker, who had previously been at odds with Marston. The dramatic and literary recriminations which now ensued for some years between these opposing factions, have hitherto been little understood, and are usually referred to vaguely as the "war of the theatres."

Shakespeare, personally, made no dramatic answer to Histrio-Mastix, but instead, enlisted the co-operation of his new allies, Dekker and Chettle, to whom he gave Troilus and Cressida, which they revised; and, changing its name to Agamemnon, sold to Henslowe, who produced it on the public boards in about the middle of 1599. In their revision of this play, Dekker and Chettle more fully developed the satire against Chapman and his clique, personifying Shakespeare as the wise Ulysses; Marston as the scurrilous Thersites, and Florio as Pandarus. As the bitterness between the factions increased, this play underwent other revisions, to fit it to the exigencies of new occasions. It continued to be used offensively and defensively in slightly altered forms for several years, both by Henslowe's and the Lord Chamberlain's Company, and was finally revised for publication by Shakespeare in 1609, as an answer to an attack made upon him by Chapman, in The Tears of Peace. The issue of the same Quarto in this year under two divergent title pages, is explained by the fact that the copyright of the play as it had been acted by "The King's Majesty's Servants at the Globe," belonged to Henslowe, or parties to whom he may have assigned it. The publishers, overlooking this fact, issued it with a title page reading, "As it was acted by the King's Majestie's Servants at the Globe," but their fights being challenged, they cancelled the first title page, and substituted one eliminating these words, at the same time adding a preface asserting the play to be "a new play never staled with the stage, never clapper clawed with the palms of the vulgar." The publishers inform us also in this preface, that the owners of the copyright had endeavored to prevent publication, which had been made against their wishes. This could not have been done had Shakespeare not recovered ownership by revision at this time. The trouble experienced by the publishers of the Folio in 1623, in including Troilus and Cressida, no doubt arose from the dual ownership of copyright. The title given the play in the Folio, as The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida, as well as numerous significant differences between that version and the Quarto, imply that the Folio text is a compilation made from the Quarto and an older version of the play.

Marston continued to be leagued with Chapman against Shakespeare until he retired from the stage in about 1607. I doubt if Jonson's change of heart took place until after Shakespeare's death. I find evidences of his hostility to our poet as late as the year 1612. No credence can be given to the report that he and Drayton visited Shakespeare in 1616, and indulged with him in a drinking bout which caused our poet's death. Chapman continued to revile Shakespeare while he lived, and his memory for years after he had passed away.

The Sonnet period, which covers almost the entire interval between 1591 -- in the Autumn of which year Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton formed their first acquaintance, -- and the beginning of 1601 -- when this nobleman was committed to the Tower on account of his complicity in the Earl of Essex' alleged treason, -- was in many respects the most interesting decade in the long reign of Elizabeth. The favorite, Leicester, who for so long had been a thorn in Burghley's side, passed away in 1588, and the astute Walsingham, who had hitherto shared the responsibilities of state with him, died in 1590, leaving the Secretaryship of State vacant. The question of the succession to the crown was yet unsettled, while the Queen's increasing age and irritability prevented, or rendered difficult, its discussion. Burghley and his son, Sir Robert Cecil, with the possibility of the Queen's death in mind, now began to lay their plans for the future continuance of their power. The Earl of Essex (who had been introduced to the notice of the Queen by his stepfather, Leicester, a few years before his death), at this period stood high in her favor, and, in the estimation of the Cecils, threatened to prove a strong political competitor. The intrigue, trickery, and dissimulation resorted to in the ensuing years by Burghley, and more especially by his son, to discredit and ruin Essex, when traced in the state papers and other contemporary records, read like improbable fiction.

Though ambitious of power and none too scrupulous in his political methods, Burghley presents on the whole a sturdy figure. Restrained by an apparently sincere religious faith, there were depths of political perfidy to which he would not descend. His son, however, was untrammelled either by faith or conscience. The death of Burghley in 1598, removing Cecil's sole confidant, removed also his only moral restraint. It was not alone Essex' influence with the Queen that Cecil feared, but still more the bond of friendship he had established with her logical successor the Scottish King. To discredit his incautious and high-spirited rival with the resentful and capricious Elizabeth was a comparatively simple matter, but to undermine his relations with James, without either tacitly or openly espousing the cause of his succession, and thereby risking his hold upon the confidence of Elizabeth, was not so easy: yet to accomplish both of these things, and in addition to encompass the death of Essex and the ruin of his faction, under color of law, and at the same time to win the favor and confidence of James, were the apparently impossible ends that now became Cecil's objective. Within two years and a half of the death of Burghley, Essex had gone to the block and Southampton to the Tower. It has been assumed by certain historians, that Southampton was preserved by Cecil's humanity. He owed his life solely to the fact, that his preservation by Cecil's influence might serve as an argument in the latter's favor in the secret negotiations he now opened with James regarding the succession, and which ended two years later in the accession of James and the complete triumph of Cecil's plans.

The depths of this unscrupulous politician's duplicity have never been historically sounded. We have exhaustive lives of his victims, Raleigh and Essex, and of others of his contemporaries who exercised a less potent influence upon the practical politics of his day; but Cecil's life has never been written, though the materials for it that are extant are probably more extensive than are the records concerning any man of his time.

Though historians for some reason appear to have shirked an investigation, or at least a revelation of this man's life, and are usually apologetic, or noncommittal, regarding him, it is not difficult to trace in the published records and letters, as well as in the literature of the time, the tacit estimate of his character held by those who had most reason to analyse it, amongst whom were at least two men who were no mean psychologists; one being his cousin, Francis Bacon, and the other, William Shakespeare. In both cases the opinions expressed are necessarily veiled, but there can be no doubt of their intended application. Bacon had good reason to know Cecil thoroughly. He himself had been his tool or his dupe for years, and to an almost hypnotic fear of his bold and crafty relative is due some of the meanest episodes of his political career. Shakespeare too, felt and knew the evil effects of his power. In view of the disastrous influence exercised upon the fortunes of Southampton and Essex, by Cecil, it is obviously impossible that the attention of such a vitally interested and keen observer as Shakespeare, remained unattracted by so fateful a political figure, or his psychological interest unaroused by such a remarkable character study as the little Secretary presented.

From the time that Shakespeare first met the Earl of Southampton, in the Autumn of 1591, everything interested him that vitally affected his patron. Southampton's associates, friends, and followers became Shakespeare's models for his characters, according to the estimate he formed of their good or evil influence upon the character or fortunes of his friend. His political leanings were palpably towards the Essex faction. However much he may at times have deprecated the unwisdom of the conduct of Essex and Southampton, he undoubtedly sympathised with their aspirations and was deeply antipathetic towards the Cecil faction.

While his interested and friendly reflections of Southampton and his connections, in the plays, were veiled sufficiently to hide the subjective features from the curiosity of the public, we may be assured that they were readily recognised by the persons interested. It is apparent also that Chapman, Roydon and Florio, recognised the caricature and satire directed at themselves. I conceive it to have been practically impossible that Shakespeare should have followed the fortunes of Southampton and Essex with such deep interest for so long a period without becoming imbued by the same mingled sense of interest and repugnance that animated his friends towards Cecil, and think it equally improbable that he should not in some manner have attempted his characterisation during these years.

Though it was specifically forbidden by acts of parliament, passed in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth, to treat dramatically of matters of church or state, the laws were more honored in their breach than their observance. Much ingenuity was exercised by the dramatists of the time in their evasion; a favorite method being to build new plays, capable of subjective interpretation, upon popular novels or threadbare dramas, the publication or presentation of which had passed for years unchallenged by the public censors. No stage poet of the time equalled the adroitness of Shakespeare in this respect, and it is largely to this reason rather than to his presumed lack of constructive originality that we owe the fact that practically all of his plays are based upon extant originals. We may be assured then that in any derogatory reflection he might make of one so powerful, revengeful and unscrupulous as Cecil, he would be careful to protect himself in a similar manner. I am strongly of the opinion that Richard III, in its earliest form, was the composition of some other writer, and that in the later revisions of this play, in about 1594 and 1597, Shakespeare, in the character and personality of Richard, had the deformed and aspiring little Secretary in mind.

By the Winter of 1600-01, Essex' party was practically disrupted. Since the Summer of 1599, its leader had been a prisoner of state, played with by Cecil as a cat plays with a mouse. Accident and chance alike were turned to his discredit with the Queen. His hopes of a reconciliation were alternately raised and blasted. As the months passed by, the implacable nature of Cecil's intentions regarding him gradually dawned upon City and Court. Time-servers passed in increasing numbers to the side of Cecil, while only the more youthful and hotheaded of Essex' adherents remained faithful. The Queen, perplexed and irritated by the factional bitterness, aged rapidly. Her death, which might occur at any time, would bring James to the throne and Essex back to place and power. The hush that fell towards the end of 1600, upon Court gossip and the guarded tone of correspondents show a tacit cognisance of Cecil's true purpose. It became whispered that Essex' life was in danger. The rumors reached Essex in his confinement, as they were intended to; driven to desperation he headed the foolish and futile outbreak that brought him within his enemy's power for life or death.

While friend and foe, aware towards the end, of the relentless purpose of Cecil and of his growing power over the Queen, apprehended a fateful climacteric to Essex' cause, Shakespeare, socially and politically too unimportant actively to affect or be affected by the contending political currents, watched helplessly, in deepening gloom and with a growing sense of fate, the rapidly succeeding acts of the tragedy. It is probable that no onlooker of the time saw more clearly than he through the tangled web of design and chance that gradually enmeshed his friends, and that few, if any, felt more keenly, the effects of their downfall.

In the troubles of Southampton and Essex we have the key to, but not the solution of, the marked and sudden change in Shakespeare's outlook on life at this time, as it is revealed by a comparison of the nature and tone of the earlier and later plays. It was not the death of Essex, nor the imprisonment of Southampton, though he loved one and admired the other, nor yet the serious injury to his own material prospects, that must have resulted from their disaster, that most affected him. It was something spiritual and elemental. He has seen "something horrible, grey:" in the irresistible craft and dominating will of Cecil, he has had a vision of evil and its terrible potency, hitherto undreamt of in his joyous philosophy.

He found expression for the more immediate impressions made and feelings aroused in him by his friends' catastrophe, in the composition of Julius Caesar and Hamlet. These utterances, great as they may be, were yet inadequate to his disillusionment and bitterness. Tragedy follows Tragedy for years; each deepening in anger and pessimism. The shadow of Cecil has fallen on his soul, and is not lifted until, at the last, he breaks away from the tainted atmosphere of London and the Court, and renews his faith in human nature by association with youth and innocence in the person of his own daughter. In A Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest we have reflections of this happier time.

The tragic bitterness displayed in the plays composed in the years intervening between the period of Hamlet, and these later plays mentioned, was lightened for a short period by the liberation of Southampton and the promise of better times in the coming of James. Southampton's influence in the new Court, however, was slight and temporary. Those who now held the reins of power had little in common with a man of his mould. Cecil had environed himself with creatures of his own, and of his own type. Cecil, Suffolk and Northampton, (to use a phrase coined by one of themselves), the "diabolical triplicity" that now ruled England, were entirely suited in their ethical and moral latitude to be advisers to the "meanest of kings."

However hidden by his objective skill and political necessity, the personal reflections may be, the intense disgust and bitterness of the plays produced in these later years, also spiritually mirror the times as Shakespeare saw them. In these years, however, while we have neither the Sonnets nor the fortunes of the Essex faction to guide us, we may assume that Shakespeare would continue to work, as in the past, with his eyes and mind open to the world about him.

In this sketch I have briefly outlined merely a few details of a long and interesting history of Shakespeare and his relations with his contemporaries, now made possible by the solution of the Sonnet enigma. I have worked upon this matter when opportunity permitted at intervals for the past fifteen years. A year or two have at times gone by during which I have had no leisure to devote to it, and months and weeks have often passed unfruitfully.

I have now reached the end of the Sonnet period in my more minute investigations and have yet to develop in detail the subjective interest in the plays produced after the end of the year 1601. As some months may elapse before I find time to complete the work I have in mind, I have decided to issue portions of the findings upon which the whole structure of my argument regarding the subjective interest underlying the plays, is based.

The only facts that I endearour to establish in the present volume are, the identity of Matthew Roydon as the author of Willobie his Avisa; the satirical intention of that poem regarding Shakespeare, and the identity of Mistress Davenant of the Crown Inn at Oxford as the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's Sonnets.

To those readers who follow my argument and agree with my conclusions, I can promise that the evidence I possess for the remainder of the history I have here sketched concerning Shakespeare and his contemporaries, will appeal to them with equal credibility. The most convincing evidence of the truth of the subjective theory I advance, lies in its cumulative nature, and it is for this reason that I defer publication of my fuller findings, until I have carried the whole matter to a conclusion.

THE comparative meagreness of contemporary official and literary records of Shakespeare, has bred a great misconception regarding the actual prestige he attained in his own day. The paucity of these records is due largely to Shakespeare's social condition: to that accident of fate which made a play-actor of our greatest poet, and at a period of our national and social development when a player was practically a social pariah. We have voluminous records of the actions and lives of many men of that age who would now be quite forgotten but for the fact that their lots were cast in official channels, and who, notwithstanding the records, even in their own day were less known than he to the world at large. The lack of official records of the man, William Shakespeare, under these circumstances is not surprising; the hitherto inexplicable thing is, that one of his preponderating genius should apparently have attracted such scanty personal notice and recognition from the contemporary literary world, and that, too, in an age so appreciative of literary production and sensitive to poetic beauty.

While we are in close proximity to a great mountain range, we fail to realise the full distinction between one predominant height and the many lesser peaks which rise around it, but as we move away and peak after peak fades into the general range, the one stands clearly out, more strongly asserting its true proportions in the lengthening perspective. We travel on and on and it is still with us, till in time, the very persistence of its presence breeds in us a sense of awe. So, to some extent, has it been with Shakespeare. While it has remained for later times to accord him his true place in our literature, and though for about a hundred years after he and his contemporaries had passed away, the world seemed to be unmindful of his great pre-eminence, the fact may be proved, that in spite of the covert opposition and studied neglect of a large class of contemporary writers, Shakespeare attained in his own day as great a prestige as is perhaps ever possible to contemporary judgment.

Seven years after Shakespeare's death, when all petty heat of personal rivalry had cooled, Ben Jonson, who was the most competent dramatic critic of that time, made claims for our poet's fame which fully anticipated all that posterity has since accorded him.

When we read the lines in which Ben Jonson apostrophises Shakespeare as "Soul of the age," we forget that the stultifying influence of the Stuarts had already begun to operate upon our national life, and the expression transports our minds back to "the spacious times of great Elizabeth." When Shakespeare began to write, men not yet old had seen England rise from the position of a fourth to that of a first rate power, and more, to become the hope and guiding star of Europe, and the scourge and dread of Spain. The defeat of the "Great Armada" was still a thing of yesterday, and fresh in the minds of children. Before he had attained the zenith of his power "El Drakon," and "Guateralle," as the Spaniards called Drake and Raleigh, had become names with which Spanish mothers hushed their crying children. The former had in his own metaphor, "Singed the King of Spaines' bearde." He had also, in his little "Golden Hinde" already gone "round by the Horn," circumnavigated the globe, and come home with her hull drawing deep with its freight of Spanish plunder. Grenville, in his single ship the "Revenge," had fought a fleet and died, and Raleigh had planted the English flag on the Western Continent.

The national imagination, keyed by great exploit to greatness of conception, found its voice in Shakespeare. There was the atmosphere that made him possible: that the age, with its buoyant hopefulness, its limitless ambitions and splendid fruition, of which he was the "soul." But in 1623, when Jonson wrote the lines in which this expression occurs, most of the Elizabethans had passed away; the petty years of the first James were drawing to a close, and the troublous times of Charles close at hand. For twenty years past, Elizabethan political traditions had been gradually reversed; our navies rotted in the dockyards while laden galleons from the Indies drew unmolested into Spanish ports. Raleigh, at the behest of Spain, had been sent to the block, and an English prince now kissed the "bearde" which Drake had metaphorically "singed." England had fallen from her greatness, upon a day of truckling policies and little men, and the nation, dimly conscious of the fall, grew querulous and ill at ease. Extensions of the royal prerogative, which in the great Elizabeth had been overlooked or condoned, in James were questioned, and later, in Charles, openly challenged.

Protestantism, which during the earlier years of Elizabeth had represented to the mass of the people, more an opposition to the political designs of Spain than a protest against the religious dogmas of Rome, had for many years been assuming a deeper religious and ethical significance. Though Spain, as Rome's arm militant, had ceased to be actively aggressive, the nation began to apprehend reactionary forces at work within itself, equally menacing to its religious and civil liberties.

In 1620 the Mayflower and Speedwell, with the firstlings of the Puritan migration, sailed from Plymouth and the wrath to come; but a larger and as stern a company of their fellows, with equal, if not greater fortitude, remained to face the growing issues; and later faced them, through the slow years; upon the battlefield, and in the council chamber; upon the gallows and the block, working out for England and their brethren over-seas, a solid basis of good government upon which has since been founded the still developing superstructures of liberty they each, in these days, under different forms enjoy.

So, in the latter days of Shakespeare's life, began in England a period of social and political reaction and unrest, which ended only after the body politic had been cleansed and cured of that royal canker, the race of the Stuarts. It was a slow and tedious operation, and occupied about a hundred years. During this period, in the presence of these more pressing and material needs, poetry and the drama decayed, and Shakespeare, except by a few, was neglected and forgotten. Between the years 1623 -- when the first Folio was issued -- and the end of the 17th century, but three small editions of his dramas were published. In the same years, Venus and Adonis was published three times, and Lucrece but twice. The Sonnets, with their wealth of personal significance, were so little valued, that in the hundred years succeeding their first issue, in 1609, they were published but once, and then in such a mutilated and garbled form, that it is plainly evident their editor, or publisher, had no suspicion of their personal nature. It was not till ninety-three years after Shakespeare's death that any serious attempt was made to collect biographical data and tradition in the form of a written life.

In the year 1709, Nicholas Rowe issued the first critical edition of the plays. To this he prefixed a life of our poet, which, notwithstanding the diligent research and patient investigation of the two centuries that have since elapsed, still remains our principal source of knowledge respecting his actual personality. Many records have since been unearthed which have greatly extended our knowledge of Elizabethan life and its stage traditions, and which have also enabled us, more definitely, to trace our poet's career, but little or nothing has since been discovered, which throws new light upon his actual personality. Through all these years, however, his fame has steadily increased, until at the present time, all nations and literatures acknowledge his excellence and pre-eminence; and yet, the human entity; the actual man, who for fifty-three mortal years embodied this elemental and transcendent genius, remains today, to the world at large, practically still but a name.

We have, withal, many books by many hands purporting to be "Lives" of Shakespeare; all are necessarily based upon the same bare outlines of actual fact, but, as is inevitable where so much must be left to the individual imagination, presenting widely differing, and, at times, strongly opposed characterisations of the man. Some writers, carried away by their admiration for the genius of the poet and dramatist, so apotheosise the man that their conceptions display more rapture of worship than sanity of judgment. This, if a fault, is under the circumstances a most natural one and, by a lover of Shakespeare, easily condoned. Other more modern writers there are, however, who, recognising this tendency in their predecessors, have so narrowed their conceptions to fit the meagre details of actuality we possess, that no effort of the imagination will link the stilted figures they present with the great creator of the dramas. These rule and measure critics, with too much care for the meagre actual, at times magnify an incident into a strong personal characteristic, and, from this supposed characteristic, develop a whole character. To instance this: it is known that Shakespeare went to law to collect money due him; it is known also that he attained comparative affluence in the practice of his profession; hence, we have presented to us, a hard-headed and selfish man of business, ever so mindful of his own pecuniary interests that he lightly prostitutes truth, his personal dignity, and his great gift of poetry to the one end of sordid gain. Nothwithstanding the vaguely idealistic, or grossly materialistic, conceptions of what we might call the professional Shakespeareans, it is a significant fact, that when the occasional critic, or man of letters, (such as Walter Bagehot, or in our own day the late Sir Leslie Stephen, and last but not least, Prof. Georg Brandes, of Copenhagen), wanders into Shakespearean fields, we have realised, and even defined for us, a conception of the personality of our poet much more human and in harmony with common sense.

Shakespeare's absolute dramatic objectivity has long been held by commentators as a cardinal point of true Shakespearean criticism: to question this is sacrilege; it is to call in question the master's art, yet, the critics whom I have mentioned, though they acknowledge acquiescence with accepted critical formul�, must necessarily have ridden roughshod over this belief to have evolved the truer characterisations they have given us. Now I contend, that no unbiased reader (forgetting the commentators and keeping in mind even the scanty outlines of Shakespeare's career we possess) can make a careful, and (as far as possible) chronological study of Shakespeare's poems and plays, without realising a conception of the poet's personality, far more intimate, interesting, -- and because of the very infirmities of nature which such a study will suggest, if indeed, not reveal -- far more lovable than the dim demigod of some, or the truckling plebeian sycophant of other accepted authorities. True as this may be, and while each may satisfy his own consciousness with his own conceived ideal, it would be extremely difficult to convey this concrete conception to the intelligence of another, or even to explain the mental processes by which we may each have attained it, without advancing and proving some bases, or abutments of fact, from which to fling our bridges of inference. Here, however, the difficulty begins; not that such basic proof is entirely lacking, but, that when considered alone and unrelieved by the extended story and expanded character, it may be considered by many, better left untraced. "Shakespeare's life is a fine mystery" writes Dickens, and he hopes that nothing may ever come to light to reveal it. Others, besides Dickens have voiced this thought, which seems to be born of a fear by no means flattering to the object of their solicitude. The source which seems to awaken this fear for our poet, besides giving ground for doubt regarding his moral infallibility, when properly analysed, happily supplies us also with a key to reveal other and nobler phases of his personality, as yet unsuspected even by his idolators.

However objective Shakespeare may appear to be in his dramatic work, (I use the qualification advisedly), in his Sonnets, at least, he is avowedly subjective. Here we have one source of research whence we may obtain some definite clews to lead us from the work to the man. That a fuller value for these poems as personal documents has not long ago been realised and expounded, is a mystery to be explained only by the fact that they have been most profoundly neglected by the majority of Shakespearean students. It is now over a hundred years since that prince of critics, Edmund Malone, first suggested their personal nature, and showed in Thorpe's arrangement, their plain division into two series; one, of one hundred and twenty-six Sonnets addressed to a man, and the remaining twenty-eight to a woman. Since Malone's recognition of their personal nature, and their division into two series, the only suggestions of value tending towards their true solution, were, firstly, Dr. Drake's in 1817, suggesting Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, as the patron addressed in the first series; and secondly, Prof. Minto's happy inference regarding George Chapman as the rival poet. A third and equally valuable suggestion, as bearing upon the hidden story of the Sonnets -- though not directly connected with their history -- is the inference of the anonymous critic, who first suggested the identities of Henry Wriothesley, and our poet, with the two characters satirised as "Henry Willobie" and "W S" in the poem of Willobie his Avisa, which was first published in the year 1594. Should it be conclusively proved that this poem was directed against the amatory escapades of our poet and his young friend and patron, at, or about, the date of its production, its chronological value alone would be very great. It would give us a definite date for the production of the particular group of Sonnets in which incidents are reflected of a nature very similar to, if not identical with, its own satirical story. A still greater value may be realised by the possibility that the story found in these two sources, Willobie his Avisa, and the Sonnets, might be correlated with the incidents, characters and action of some of the plays produced at and about the same period.

About fifteen years ago I first became seriously interested in the personal nature of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I had read them before that time merely as impersonal lyric verse. I was unacquainted with most of the Sonnet literature, and knew little of the various theories that from time to time had been advanced concerning them. The Sonnets interested me by their lyrical beauty altogether aside from any hidden story that they might possibly contain. Having the faculty of memorizing easily, and unconsciously, verse that interests me, it was not long until I had memorized nearly all of them. In mentally conning them over from time to time it soon dawned upon me that there was something in them more intimate and personal than in other lyrical verse and I began to analyse the Sonnets themselves for light, not yet seeking outside information on the subject.

That most of them were addressed to a man, and a portion of them to a woman, were conclusions at which I arrived by my own unaided judgment. I reached other conclusions independently in regard to them that my later reading showed me had been reached by others many years before.

I now began an exhaustive study of the Sonnet literature, but believe that I would have reached my present light regarding them much sooner and more easily had I never done so. Much of the Sonnet literature not only gave me no light or help, but actually clouded my vision and tangled my clews.

With the exception of Malone's conclusions in regard to their personal nature, and his division of them into two series, one to a man and one to a woman; Dr. Drake's suggestion of the Earl of Southampton as the patron addressed; Prof. Minto's happy inference regarding George Chapman as the rival poet, and the idea of the anonymous critic who first pointed out the possible indicative reference to Shakespeare in the poem of Willobie his Avisa, all other original theories regarding the Sonnets and their hidden story have been hindrances instead of aids.

The Sonnet theorists were, however, by no means the worst stumbling-blocks; those critics and commentators of the plays who were without theories, and utterly opposed to all personal interpretations of the Sonnets, were worse still. Many writers whose names loom large in Shakespearean criticism are in this latter class. The dogmatic pronouncements of some of these great ones against a personal theory deterred me for some time in my investigations. I am now of the opinion, that many honest and painstaking critics and commentators in neglecting the Sonnets, have missed the solution of many of their greatest difficulties, and have ignored the key to many supposed-to-be-insoluble mysteries in the plays.

I shall forbear from rehearsing, comparing or combating the various theories that have hitherto been evolved regarding the Sonnets. I shall briefly outline their history and tell their story as I find it with due acknowledgment of the assistance given me by the suggestions and inferences already mentioned.

THE earliest record we possess of Sonnets by Shakespeare is in the year 1598, when Francis Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, mentions Shakespeare, and refers to "his sugred Sonnets among his private friends." In the following year, two of the Sonnets, those numbered 138 and 144, appeared in a somewhat garbled form in a collection of poems by various hands -- but all attributed to Shakespeare -- published by William Jaggard under the title of The Passionate Pilgrim. We have no further record of Sonnets by Shakespeare until the year 1609, when the whole collection as we now know them and a poem entitled A Lover's Complaint, were published by Thomas Thorpe, with the following title page:

This edition was issued by Thorpe with the following dedication, evidently of his own making.