I. THE CRITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SHAKESPEARE'S ALLUSIONS TO The Folio of 1623, 320. Later Editions, 323. Ben Jonson and the First Folio, 326. Leonard Digges, 328. Titus Andronicus, 329. Shakespeare's Method of Adaptation, 334. King Henry VI., 337. King Henry VIII., 342. Plays not included in the First Folio, CHAPTER I THE DIARY O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er ; Troilus and Cressida. ALTHOUGH the fact is not recorded in Camden's Britannia, you may rest assured that for many centuries the worshipful house of Shallow was of repute in Gloucestershire. The family is now extinct; but the blood and quality of Shallow are so widely diffused throughout the three kingdoms that the fact need hardly be regretted. The founder of this ancient house, one Robert de Châtelhault, is said to have flourished in the time of Henry II. Tradition asserts that he served as a butt for the rude witticisms of the Court, and that the King at the instigation of Thomas Becket conferred on him a grant of a large tract of land in the wilds of Gloucestershire,' in order (as the Chancellor suggested) that he might hold somewhat in capite in default of brains. This practical joke endowed the courtier with possessions rather extensive than valuable, and the successive representatives of the house were never particularly successful in their efforts to increase them. They had an unhappy knack of attaching themselves to the losing side, not from any generous sympathy with the weaker, but from a firm belief in its prospects of success. They never happened to hit off the right answer to the question put to one of them on a noteworthy occasion,-' under which King, Besonian?' B Partly from these causes, and partly by reason of some clever, but unlucky, dispositions of their money (among which was a sum of one thousand pounds advanced to one Sir John Falstaff, but not repaid) the estates and possessions of the house decreased rather than increased as years rolled by. It was probably due to inattention to spelling and to the niceties of pronunciation that the family name declined from the high-sounding Châtel-hault to the Châtel-hault to the more homely Shallow-causes which have sufficed to convert De la Pole into Poole, Bourchier into Butcher, Grenville into Greenfield, and De Vere into Weir. The losses, however, as well as the adventures of the family, were on a provincial scale. The head of the house was always a man of considerable position in his county; and, save in the cut of his beard and the fashion of his clothes, there was but little difference between the Robert de Châtel-hault of the Plantagenets and the Robert Shallow of the Tudors. Now, whatever you may think of this account of the name and ancestry of Robert Shallow (and it is quite as trustworthy as many given by heralds) the man himself was, beyond all doubt, a fact. There was in the year of grace 1586 one Robert Shallow, Esquire, justice of the peace, if not also of the quorum, and custos rotulorum. The name by which he was known to the Gloucestershire folk of the day is a trifling matter of detail. It was quite as much a matter of course for this Robert Shallow and his ancestors to keep a kennel of hounds, as to write themselves 'armigero' in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation-for the Shallows could mostly write their names and additions. In his park, the dappled fallow deer yielded their lives to the crossbow of the woodman, and were coursed with greyhounds after the fashion of a long-forgotten sport, highly esteemed by our ancestors. His falcon, stooping from her pride of place, struck the mallard by the river banks, and when his tercel-gentle shook his bells, the partridge cowering in the stubble dared not stir a wing. His greyhounds contended for the silverstudded collar, the prize awarded at the games on Cotswold. MASTER ROBERT SHALLOW 3 Trout were caught by tickling in the peculiar river of the Justice, and the young dace was a bait for the old pike in the sluggish Severn. To supply his larder, springes were set to catch woodcocks, birds were taken with lime-twigs, and batfowling was not despised, in the absence of better sport. Is it not as certain that Master Silence took part in his kinsman's sports, as that he sang snatches of song after supper in his hall? What fitter name than Slender for the little man with cane-coloured beard-out of his element, and therefore very like a fool, in company with sweet Anne Page, but of whom a different account would be given by the sportsmen on Cotswold, by the warrener with whom he fought, or by the bear-ward when Sackerson was loose? Master Shallow, we may be sure, would never have troubled himself to push the fortunes of his kinsman Slender, if he had not been beholden to him for something beyond the occasional services of his man Simple. What could Master Slender do for the Justice, but look after his hounds and hawks? Such a hanger-on was a recognised part of the establishment of an old-fashioned country gentleman. To join in the Justice's sports, the yeomen of the country and burgesses of the neighbouring towns were made heartily welcome, after the good old fashion which still survives in the custom of the English hunting field. The name of one only of the company thus assembled can be stated with absolute certainty, for he has recorded the incidents of each sport with an accuracy unattainable even to the highest genius save by actual experience. It is the name of William Shakespeare. It so happens that by a curious train of circumstances I became possessed of a record of certain events in the history of this Robert Shallow and his fellows, which took place in the autumn of the year 1586. The story is as follows. In my boyhood I was a frequent visitor at an old-fashioned house in one of the southern counties of Ireland, the home of a family of English descent. The first of the race who settled in Ireland obtained a grant of a portion of the vast |