At what time the Poet carried into effect his purpose of retirement, is not precisely known. That his powers as an actor were not equal to his ambition of excellence, is evident enough from his Sonnet xxix. And the Sonnets cx. and cxi. reveal in unmistakeable language how keenly he felt the disrepute that adhered to his calling, and how earnestly he longed to be clear of it. His name is found as one of the actors in Ben Jonson's Sejanus, in 1603. Jonson's Volpone was brought out at the Globe in 1605, and Shakespeare's name does not occur among the actors. We have seen that on the 9th of April, 1604, the city authorities received an order from Court to permit the players to resume their performances in London. A copy of this paper has been found among the relics preserved at Dulwich College, and appended to it is a list of the King's company at that date, in the following order: "Burbage, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Phillips, Condell, Heminge, Armyn, Slye, Cowley, Ostler, Day." Augustine Phillips, who ranked well as a comic actor, died in May, 1605; and in his will he bequeathed "a thirty-shillings piece of gold" to Shakespeare as one of his "friends and fellows;" but this need not infer that the Poet still kept up a fellowship with him on the stage. Heminge and Condell, in their Dedication of the folio of 1623, say they have collected the plays, 'only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive, as was our Shakespeare.” On the whole, there can be little question that the Poet ceased to be an actor in the summer of 1604. In the following winter the company got into trouble by bringing im

66

Wit, courage, good shape, good parts, and all goo,
As long as all these goods are no worse us'd:
And though the stage doth stain pure gentle blood,
Yet generous ye are in mind and mood."

Here again, in a marginal note to the third line, he gives "W. S., R B." as the initials of the persons meant. Davies was a man of pure character and conversation; so that his testimony is exceedingly valuable as regards the morals and manners of the great Poet and great actor.

proper and offensive matters upon the stage; and their course was such as strongly to infer that his sound discretion and great influence had been withdrawn.

Up to this time, besides the plays already mentioned, Measure for Measure is the only one that is certainly known to have been written. Nevertheless, we have very little doubt that Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens, and Julius Cæsar were then in being, though probably not all of them in the shape they now bear. Reckoning these four, we have twenty-nine of the plays written when the Poet was forty years of age, and had been in the work but about eighteen years! Time, indeed, has left us few traces of the process, but what a magnificent treasure of results! If Shakespeare had done no more, he would have stood the greatest intellect of the world. How all alive must those eighteen years have been with the most intense and varied exertion! His quick discernment, his masterly tact, his grace of manners, and his fertility of expedients would needs make him the soul of the establishment: doubtless the light of his eye and the life of his hand were in all its movements and plans. Besides, the compass and accuracy of information displayed in his writings prove him to have been, for that age, a profound and voluminous student of books. Portions of classical and of continental literature were accessible to him in translations. Nor are we without strong reasons for believing that, in addition to his "small Latin and less Greek," he found or made time, amidst all his other labours, to form a tolerable reading acquaintance with Italian and French. Chaucer, too, "the day-star," and Spenser, "the sunrise," of English poetry, were pouring their beauty round his walks. From all these, and from the growing richness and abundance of contemporary literature, his all-gifted an all-grasping mind no doubt greedily took in and quiesiv digested whatever was adapted to please his taste, or enrich his intellect, or assist his art.

Some question has been made, whether Shakespeare were

a member of the celebrated convivial club established by Sr Walter Raleigh, and which held its sessions at the Mermaidtavern. And, sure enough, we have no fact or authority that directly certifies his membership of that choice instituion; though there are divers things inferring it so strongly as to leave no reasonable doubt on the subject. His convivialities certainly ran in that circle of wits several of whom are directly known to have belonged to it; and among them all there was not one whose then acknowledged merits gave him a better title to its privileges. Gifford, speaking of this merry parliament of genius at the Mermaid, says, "Here, for many years, Ben Jonson repaired, with Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect."

It does not, indeed, necessarily follow from Shakespeare's facility and plenipotence of wit in writing, that he could shine at those extempore "flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar." But, besides the natural inference that way, we have the statement of honest Aubrey, that "he was very good company, and of a very ready and pleasant smoothe wit." Francis Beaumont, who was a prominent member of this jovial senate, and to whom Shirley applies the fine hyperbolism that "he talked a comedy," was born in 1586, and died in 1615. We cannot doubt that he had our Poet, among others, in his eye when he wrote those celebrated lines to Ben Jonson, which are not so well known but that they must be quoted here:

Since I saw you; for wit is like a rest

Held up at tennis, which men do the best

With the best gamesters. What things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,

As if that every one from whence they came

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolv'd to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life; then, when there hath been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town

For three days past; wit, that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly

Till that were cancell'd: and, when that was gone,
We left an air behind us, which alone

Was able to make the two next companies

Right witty; though but downright fools, mere wise."

Thomas Fuller, though not born till 1608, was afterwards acquainted with some of the old Mermaid wits, and wrote a good part of his Worthies of England before the murder of King Charles, in 1649. In his Worthies of Warwickshire, we have the following, which is worth quoting more fully than has commonly been done:

"William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon in this county; in whom three eminent poets may seem in some sort to be compounded. 1. Martial, in the warlike sound of his surname, (whence some may conjecture him of a military extraction,) Hasti-vibrans, or Shake-speare. 2 Ovid, the most natural and witty of all poets. 3. Plantus, who was an exact comedian, yet never any scholar, as our Shakespeare, if alive, would confess himself. Add to all these, that, though his genius generally was jocular, and inclined him to festivity, yet he could, when so disposed, be solemn and serious, as appears by his tragedies: so that Heraclitus himself (I mean if secret and unseen) might afford to smile at his comedies, they were so merry; and Democritus scarce forbear to sigh at his tragedies, they were so mournful.

"He was an eminent instance of the truth of that rule, Poeta non fit, sed nascitur, (one is not made but born a poet.) Indeed his learning was very little; so that, as Cornish diamonds are not polished by any lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out of the earth, so Nature itself was all the art which was used upon him.

"Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jon. son; which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former,

was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow, in his performances: Shakespeare, with the English man-of-wir, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tiles, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention."

Of these wit-combats, no relics worthy of much credit have survived, though divers things have from time to time been given out as specimens. Probably the reputation of the parties for wit has caused many old jokes to be passed off in their names. And indeed, in the best flashes of extempore wit, so much of the effect depends on the character and manner of the speaker, that the matter will scarce bear repeating. We will close the subject and the Chapter with a part of Herrick's "Ode for Ben Jonson," published in 1648:

"Ah Ben!
Say how, or when,
Shall we thy guests
Meet at those lyric feasts,
Made at the Sun,

The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had,

As made us nobly wild, not mad;

And yet each verse of thine

Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."

We subjoin two or three of these "specimens," just for a taste. The point of the first is explained in that lattin was a metallic compound somewhat resembling tin. See The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. sc. 1, note 19.

Shakespeare was God-father to one of Ben Jonson's children; and after the christening, being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up, and asked him why he was so melancholy. “No, faith, Ben," says he, "not I; but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my God. child, and I have resolved at last.". "I pr'ythee, what?" says te. "I' faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen Latın spoons, and

thou shalt translate them."

erses by Ben Jonson and Shakespeare occused by the mot to the Globe theatre - Totus mundus agit histrionem:

Jonson.

If but stage-actors all the world displays,

Where shall we find spectators of their plays?