longeth not to your Lo. gravitie and wisedome to resort unto the places where they are wont to delight the publique eare. Their trust and sute nowe is not to bee molested in their waye of life, whereby they maintaine themselves and their wives and families (being both maried and of good reputation) as well as the widowes and orphanes of some of their dead fellows. "Your Lo. most bounden at com.

An opinion has arisen, which we are bound to state, that the letter signed H. S. is not genuine. The objection was made to us a year and a half ago by a gentleman of great critical sagacity. Nothing can be more complete than the evidence connected with its discovery. The high character of the gentleman by whom it was discovered renders this evidence of its authenticity, as far as it goes, entirely unexceptionable. It is beyond all possibility of doubt that this was a "document preserved at Bridgewater House;" found amongst "large bundles of papers, ranging in point of date between 1581, when Lord Ellesmere was made Solicitor-General, and 1616, when he retired from the office of Lord Chancellor." This letter, Mr. Collier says, "was in the same bundle as the paper giving a detail of the particular claims of Burbage, Fletcher, Shakespeare, and the rest." But he does not inform us whether this individual bundle was of the number of those which "remained unexsays

plored"-whether it belonged to the class of bundles of which he "It was evident that many of them had never been opened from the time when, perhaps, his own hands [Lord Ellesmere's] tied them together." Some of the bundles had previously been examined for purposes of antiquarian research: "The Rev. H. J. Todd had been there before me," says Mr. Collier, "and had classed some of the documents and correspondence." It is beyond all doubt that if any addition were made to these papers, it must have been at a period quite distinct from that of the Rev. Mr. Todd's examination of them; and in all probability that gentleman did not open the bundle which contained the estimate of the property at the Blackfriars. Was there any previous antiquarian critic who had access to the papers preserved in Bridgewater House? One of the most elaborate forgeries of modern times, that of 'The English Mercurie,' of 1588, was insinuated into the manuscripts of Dr. Birch in the British Museum, which were purchased in 1766. For half a century, upon that authority alone, we went on proclaiming that to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burleigh we owed the first English newspaper. In 1840 it was discovered, through the sagacity of Mr. Watts of the Museum, that the first English newspaper was a palpable forgery. How did it get amongst the papers of Dr. Birch, himself above suspicion? The question has not been solved. But the circumstance is sufficient to justify any inquiry into the genuineness of a document in the slightest degree questionable, although it he found tied up amongst other undoubted documents. The external evidence relating to its discovery requires to be compared with the external evidence of the genuineness of the document; as well as with that portion of the external evidence which is necessary to complete the chain, but which is not supplied by the discoverer. In the controversy respecting the Ireland Papers in 1796, a good deal of the argument turned upon a letter from Shakspere to the Earl of Southampton, and the Earl's answer. W. H. Ireland, in his Authentic Account of the Shakspere Manuscripts,' says, "Having heard of the Lord Southampton's bounty to Shakspere, I determined on writing the correspondence between them on that subject; but, on inquiry, could not learn that any signature of his Lordship's was in existence: I accordingly formed his mode of writing, merely from myself." The forger would have more readily got over the difficulty had he purported that the letter was a copy. The danger of detection would have been less; but the supposed authenticity of the document would have been impaired. It would have been said, these papers purport to have belonged to Shakspere; how is it that the original is not found? So may it be asked of the copia vera of the letter of H. S. That the document is a copy is the great defect in the external evidence of the genuineness. It could not be received in any legal inquiry, unless the date of the copy, the circumstances under which it was made, the proofs of its authenticity derived from the hand-writing, the ink, the paper, were exhibited. All these proofs are wanting in Mr. Collier's account of the discovery. But we cannot here adopt a legal precision. We receive the copy as evidence, however imperfect. But we have first to ask, did the copyist omit the date and the superscription? If so, it was not a copiq If they were omitted in the original, the omission, although not without a precedent,

vera.

is an exception to the ordinary practice of those days. A letter from Southampton to the Lord Keeper Williams (preserved in the Harleian MSS.) is superscribed, "To the right honorable my very good lo: the lo: Keeper of the great Seale of England." It is subscribed, "Your Lo: most assured frend to do you service, H Southampton." But it was the more necessary that the superscription should not have been omitted on the occasion of the letter of H. S., because the letter was for the purpose of introducing two persons to ask a favour of a nobleman high in office. Without such a superscription, the nobleman to whom it was presented might have doubted whether it was intended for his hands. It might have been a current letter of recommendation for the Lord Chamberlain or the Lord Chancellor. How do we know that the letter was addressed to Lord Ellesmere at all? It contains not the slightest allusion to his high legal office, unless the sentence " 'It longeth not to your Lo. gravitie and wisedom to resort unto the places where they are wont to delight the publique eare," may be especially meant for a Lord Chancellor. The letter is certainly of a very peculiar nature. Mr. Collier says, "I do not recollect any instances of letters of a precisely similar kind of so old a date, but they no doubt exist." If the letter were addressed to Lord Ellesmere in 1608, as Mr. Collier holds, it would appear from legal documents found at Bridgewater House that the question then before the Chancellor was the claim by the City of London to jurisdiction within the Blackfriars. A legal opinion in favour of the claim, and proofs against it, are amongst these papers. But the letter of H. S. deals with a very different question. It asks his very honoured Lord "to be good to the poor players of the Blackfriars," who "are threatened by the Lord Maior and Aldermen of London, never friendly to their calling, with the distruction of their meanes of livelihood by the pulling downe of theire plaiehouse." If the Lord Mayor and Aldermen had even established their jurisdiction, it was utterly impossible that they could have pulled down the playhouse of the Servants of his Majesty. The players could have had no fear of such an issue. A quarter of a century before, the authorities of the City had pulled down the temporary scaffolds for theatrical performances erected in the yards of the Cross Keys, the Bull, and the Belle Savage; but even then, and much less in 1608, they could no more pull down the substantial private theatre of the Blackfriars Company, the fee of which we have seen was valued at a thousand pounds, than they could pull down Lord Ellesmere's own mansion. To avert this evil, the poor players "aske for the protection of their most graceous Maister and Sovereigne in this the tyme of their troble." They needed not that protection; they already had it. A patent was issued to them in 1603, in virtue of a writ of Privy Seal, directed to Lord Ellesmere himself, in which all justices, mayors, &c. were called upon in all places not to offer them hindrance; to aid and assist them; to render them favours. In the following year, this very theatre of the Blackfriars was expressly recognised in a patent for the performances of the Children of the Revels. But even if the protection of the King were needed by the King's servants, it would scarcely be asked through the Lord Chancellor. Pembroke and Southampton were immediately about the King's person; Pembroke was the Lord Chamberlain. H. S. sets out by acknowledging the good offices he has received at the hands of his very honoured Lord. These civilities presume a freedom of intercourse between two equals in rank, if it is Southampton who writes the letter, and Lord Ellesmere to whom it is written. But how do we know that Southampton wrote the letter? The subscription is H. S. In the Ireland controversy Malone asserted that Southampton signed his name H. Southampton. Chalmers contended that he had written Southampton, without the H. But no one pretended that he had ever signed a letter, or a document, with his initials only. The formality of that age was entirely opposed to such a practice. "Your Lordship's most bounden at command," is not the way in which an Earl and a Knight of the Garter would subscribe himself to an equal and an intimate. "Affectionate friend," "assured friend," "loving friend," is the mode in which noblemen subscribe themselves in their familiar correspondence with each other. But "most bounden," "most obedient,' ,” “most humbly bounden," is the mode in which a commoner addresses a nobleman. "Most bounden at command" is a humility of which we scarcely find a precedent except in the letter of a Such are the points of objection which first present themselves upon the face of the letter. But there is a peculiarity in this letter which is very deserving of notice; and which would lead us to wish, especially, that no possible suspicion could rest upon its authenticity. It contains a great deal that is highly interesting to us at the present day, but which must have been considered somewhat impertinent by a great officer of state in his own times. Richard Burbage, according to

servant.

the letter, is "our English Roscius, one who fitteth the action to the word and the word to the action most admirably." It is pleasant to believe that Lord Southampton was so familiar with Hamlet that he had the very words of the play at his tongue's end. Alleyn in his own day was called "Roscius for a tongue," and Fuller says "He was the Roscius of our age." But H. S. claims the honour for Burbage. This, however, is not a material point in the question about pulling down the playhouse. It is more pleasant to have Lord Southampton calling Shakspere "my especial friend." The description might startle the proud Chancellor; but, passing that, he would scarcely want to know that he was "of late an actor of good accompte in the company." The nobleman, who had himself sent for Shakspere's company to perform Othello before the Queen at Harefield, could scarcely require to be told that Shakspere was the "writer of some of our best English plays;" that "they were most singularly liked of Queen Elizabeth;" that the players performed before the Court at Christmas and Shrovetide. The Chancellor to King James, who issued the patent to the company within a few weeks after the accession, could scarcely require to be told that the King had extended his royal favour to them. Interesting as the fact is to us, it seems remarkable that a great law officer should be informed, as to two persons whom his gravity and wisdom must hold somewhat cheap, "they are both of one countie and indeede almost of one towne." It is scarcely complimentary to the nobleman who is addressed, be he Lord Ellesmere or not, to assume that he could only judge of the qualities of these men, the poet and the actor, unless he resorted "unto the places where they are wont to delight the publique eare." Was the nobleman addressed never at the Court of James during the performances at Christmas and at Shrovetide? The writer of the letter, whoever he be, had not a very logical perception. He contradicts what he has assumed, disjoins what has a connexion, and associates what is essentially distinct. A real man, telling a real story, scarcely does this. H. S. assumes that Lord Ellesmere knows nothing about the poor players. He describes them, therefore, with a curious minuteness. One is "writer of some of our best English plays;" and it is added, these plays, as your Lordship knoweth, were most singularly liked of Queen Elizabeth." With such a knowledge on the part of his Lordship, it would have been sufficient to mention the name of one of the men who delivered the letter. And yet his Lordship is left for some time to guess who the man is whose plays, as he knows, were singularly liked of Queen Elizabeth; and other matters are gone into before he is told that his name is William Shakespeare; which he did not want to know if he knew that his plays were so liked. When he is told the name, it is assumed that he has forgotten all his former knowledge; and he is also told that William Shakespeare is right famous, though it longeth not to his Lordship's wisdom to know anything about him, as he could only attain that knowledge by resorting to public playhouses. And yet he could not so attain this knowledge, because the writer has ceased to be an actor, and is no longer "wont to delight the publique ear." The especial friend, late an actor, is "now a sharer." This would imply that when he was an actor he was not a sharer; and yet we know that he was a sharer twenty years before this. Perhaps there is no positive error here; but there is that looseness of construction which seldom accompanies an actual knowledge of present facts; which indeed is characteristic of an attempt to fabricate a document which should deal safely with remote and minute circumstances. Certainly there are several indications of vagueness and inconsistency, which would render us unwilling wholly to rely upon this document, interesting as it is, for any material fact.

66

But what fact does it tell us that we did not know from other sources? The evidence as to the writer is not distinct. The person to whom it is written is not defined. The time at which it is written can only be inferred. Is there any fact that could not be known, or assumed, by a person writing so vague a letter, some half century ago, with the intention to deceive, and calling it a copy, to get over the difficulty of imitating a known handwriting? We know that there was a man then living who perpetrated such deceptions; who, moving in good society, might readily have had access to the papers at Bridgewater House, and have dropped his cuckoo egg in the sparrow's nest. The failure of William Henry Ireland in the fabrication of a letter from Southampton might have set a cleverer and more learned man upon trying his hand upon some fabrication more consistent than that of the unlettered forger of the Shakspere Manuscripts, and which should have the safe quality of assuming nothing that was opposed to the belief of those who had written upon Shakspere. If the letter be genuine, it is a singular circumstance that it so entirely corroborates many points of his life with which we had previously been familiar, and tells

us so little that was not previously known. It is of a different character in this respect from the important document discovered by Mr. Collier amongst the same papers, showing that Shakspere was a shareholder in the Blackfriars in 1589;—wholly different also from the paper entitled "For avoiding of the Playhouse in the Precinct of the Blacke Friers."

But, on the other hand, there are some facts in the letter of H. S. which have only been brought to light in very recent times. We did not know, until the discovery of the Estimate for avoiding the Theatre, that Burbage had "become possessed of the Blacke Fryers playhouse." We did not know till Mr. Collier published a document in his Annals of the Stage,' found in the State Paper Office, that "it was builded by his Father." The statement that it was builded "now nere 50 yeres agone" is contrary to the precise information conveyed in that document. We did not know that the company at the Blackfriars maintained "the widowes and orphanes of some of their dead fellows" till we learnt from the Estimate for avoiding the Playhouse that "the Widowes and Orphanes of Playeres are paide by the Sharers at divers rates and proportions." We subjoin, in parallel columns, some coincidences of statement, and some resemblances of style, which may assist our readers in judging for themselves, in a question in which it is exceedingly difficult to discriminate between the imitations of forgery, and the habitual phrases and current knowledge of a real person:—

[Passages from the Letter of H. S.]

"The many good offices I have received at your Lordship's hands, which ought to make me backward in asking further favours, only emboldens me to require more in the same kind."

"The time of their trouble."

"Never given occasion of anger."

"Our English Roscius."

"One who fitteth the action to the word and the word to the action."

"My especial friend."

"In divers ways and at sundry times."

"They are both of one county, and indeed almost of one town."

"Whereby they maintain themselves and their wives and families."

"The widows and orphans of some of their dead fellows."

[Passages from old and modern writings.]

"I have found your Lordship already so favorable and affectionate unto me, that I shall be still hereafter desirous to acquaint you with what concerns me, and bold to ask your advice and counsel."-Southampton's Letter to Lord Keeper Williams: Malone's Inquiry, 1796.

"The time of trouble."-Psalm xxvii.

"Never given cause of displeasure."-Petition, 1589: Collier's New Facts.

"The Roscius of our age."-Fuller.

"When Roscius was an actor at Rome."-Hamlet.

"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action."Hamlet.

'Clepe to your conseil a few of youre frendes that ben especial."-Chaucer.

"Dearest friend."-Ireland's forged Letter of Southampton to Shakspere.

"At sundry times and in divers manners."-Ep. to Hebrews.

"I suspect that both he [Heminges] and Burbage were Shakspeare's countrymen."-Malone's History of the Stage. "Who have no other means whereby to maintain their wives and families."-Petition of 1596: Collier's Annals. "The widows and orphans of players, who are paid by the sharers."-Estimate, &c.: Collier's New Facts.

We have stated frankly and without reserve the objections to the authenticity of this document which have presented themselves to our mind. It is better to state these fully and fairly than to "hint a doubt." Looking at the decided character of the external evidence as to the discovery, and taking into consideration the improbability of a spurious paper having been smuggled into the company of the Bridgewater documents, we are inclined to confide in it. But, apart from the interesting character of the letter, and the valuable testimony which it gives to the nature of the intercourse between Southampton and Shakspere-" my especial friend”- -we might lay it aside with reference to its furnishing any new materials for the life of the poet, with the exception of the statement that he and Burbage were "both of one county." Confiding in it, as we are anxious to do, we accept it as a valuable illustration of that life. We have on several occasions referred to the letter of H. S.; and in this examination we can have no wish to neutralize our own inferences from its genuineness. These, however, in this Biography, have reference only to the assertion, 1st. That Burbage and Shakspere were of one county and almost of one town: This was a conjecture made by Malone. 2nd. That there was deep friendship between Southampton and Shakspere: This is an old traditionary belief, supported by the dedications of Venus and Adonis and the Lucrece. 3rd. That Shakspere left the stage previous to 1608: This differs little from the prevailing opinion, that he quitted it before 1605, founded upon his name not appearing to a play of Ben Jonson in that year.

Ir would be something if we could now form an exact notion of the house in which Shakspere lived; of its external appearance, its domestic arrangements. Dugdale, speaking of Sir Hugh Clopton, who built the bridge at Stratford and repaired the chapel, says "On the north side of this chapel was a fair house built of brick and timber, by the said Hugh, wherein he lived in his later days, and died." This was nearly a century before Shakspere bought the "fair house," which, in the will of Sir Hugh Clopton, is called "the great house." Theobald says that Shakspere, "having repaired and modelled it to his own mind, changed the name to New Place." Malone holds that this is an error:-" I find from ancient documents that it was called New Place as early at least as 1565." The great house, having been sold out of the Clopton family, was purchased by Shakspere of William Underhill, Esq. Shakspere by his will left it to his daughter, Mrs. Hall, with remainder to her heirs male, or, in default, to her daughter Elizabeth and her heirs male, or the heirs male of his daughter Judith. Mrs. Hall died in 1649; surviving her husband fourteen years. There is little doubt that she occupied the house when Queen Henrietta Maria, in 1643, coming to Stratford in royal state with a large army, resided for three weeks under this roof. The property descended to her daughter Elizabeth, first married to Mr. Thomas Nash and afterwards to Sir Thomas Barnard. She dying without issue, New Place was sold in 1675, and was ultimately repurchased by the Clopton family. Sir Hugh Clopton, in the middle of the eighteenth century, resided there. The learned knight thoroughly repaired and beautified the place, as the local historians say, and built a modern front to it. This was the first stage of its desecration. After the death of Sir Hugh, in 1751, it was sold to the Rev. Francis Gastrell, in 1753.

difficult to account for upon "The Rev. Mr. Gastrell, a

The total destruction of New Place in 1757, by its new possessor, is any ordinary principles of action. Malone thus relates the story :man of large fortune, resided in it but a few years, in consequence of a disagreement with the