CHAPTER III.

HOW PLAYS WERE WRITTEN IN SHAKSPER'S TIME.

"A truth's a truth; the rogues are marvelous poor."

-All's Well, iv, 3.

Very few persons either in Great Britain or America know either how or by whom plays were generally written between the years 1590 and 1610, the interval during which the poems and plays appeared. It is taken for granted that writers of plays wrote then as they do now, each for himself, and that rights in the play and its publication were reserved to them. But by whom and how they were written between the above dates is not a matter of conjecture or supposition at all; and hence if we understand the custom of the times in that regard, we shall get some light at least on the authorship of the Shakespeare plays. The principal writers of plays in and near Shaksper's time were Francis Beaumont, Richard Brome, George Chapman, Henry Chettle, Samuel Daniel, John Day, Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, John Fletcher, Richard Hathaway, William Haughton, Thomas Heywood, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, John Marston, Thomas Middleton, Anthony Monday, Thomas Nash, Henry Porter, William Rankins, Samuel Rowley, Martin Slater, Wentworth Smyth, Anthony Wadeson, John Webster, and Robert Wilson. These dramatists generally wrote, not individually, but by a system of collaboration. Some of them were actors as well as dramatists, and they were all poor in pocket and very often bound by contract or in a manner enslaved to the proprietor of the theatre.

Henslowe's Diary shows not only the number of times that different plays were represented and generally the day when they were first acted, but it shows sometimes also who wrote the plays, the dates of their composition, and it often gives the names of all of those who had a hand in their authorship. This Philip Henslowe was a joint proprietor with Edmund Alleyn in the Rose Theatre, the Hope Theatre, the Fortune Theatre, and one in Newington Butts and Paris Garden. It is true that Henslowe's writing was not very good and that of his clerk not much better, and that neither of them could spell correctly; but nevertheless Henslowe has removed the dust which blinded the eyes of some of the most learned commentators and compelled them to be a little more conservative and careful in their guesses as to authorship.

August Wilhelm von Schlegel delivered a course of lectures on dramatic poetry in 1808 and obtained high celebrity for them on the continent. Madame de Staël said of them that "every opinion formed by the author, every epithet given to the writers of whom he speaks, is beautiful and just, concise and animated."

Speaking of Sir John Oldcastle, a play printed in 1600 with the name of William Shakespeare as the author on the title page, in connection with the plays of Thomas Lord Cromwell and A Yorkshire Tragedy, Schlegel said, "The three last pieces are not only unquestionably Shakespeare's but, in my opinion, they deserve to be classed among his best and maturest works. Thomas Lord Cromwell and Sir John Oldcastle are biographical dramas and in this species they are models. The first, by its subject, attaches itself to Henry the Eighth, and the second to Henry the Fifth. Still farther there has been ascribed

to him the Merry Devil of Edmonton, a comedy in one act, printed in Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays. This has certainly some appearance in its favor. It contains a merry landlord, who bears great similarity to the one in the Merry Wives of Windsor." All of this was written without knowledge of the discovery of Henslowe's Diary in the library of Dulwich College. The Diary was printed in 1841 by the Shakespeare Society, and on page 158 thereof occurs the following entry:

"This 16 of October 99 [meaning 1599] Received by me of Philip Henslow to pay Mr. Monday, Mr. Drayton and Mr. Wilson and Hathway for the first prte of the lyfe of Sir John Oldcastell and in earnest of the second prte, for the use of the company ten pounds. I say received." Farther along, on page 236 of the Diary, is the following entry:

"Lent unto the companye, the 17 of Auguste 1602 to pay unto Thomas Deckers, for new adicyons in Ouldcaselle the some of xxxx s."

The learned commentator, Schlegel, was therefore decidedly mistaken in saying that the play of Sir John Oldcastle was "unquestionably Shakespeare's and among his best and maturest works." Four dramatists composed it, viz: Anthony Monday, Michael Drayton, Robert Wilson, and Richard Hathaway. Thomas Dekker made additions to it. Schlegel was also mistaken as to the Merry Devil of Edmonton. That play was written by Michael Drayton.

In this connection it is amusing to read the satirical comment of Symonds in his "Shakespeare's Predecessors," page 390: "The names at least of Lord Cromwell and Sir John Oldcastle" he says, "must remain as danger signals

upon the quicksands of oracular criticism. Schlegel fathered Oldcastle on Shakespeare."

This blunder of Schlegel is not, however, without its compensatory aids to the discovery of the truth. He has connected the names of Drayton and Dekker with the Shakespeare mystery in such a way as to deserve careful examination and investigation of the literary ability of these two poets by scholars and commentators. It will be here noted, as above stated, that there are copies of the play of Sir John Oldcastle printed in 1600 with the name of William Shakespeare on the title page as author. Whether William Shaksper knew this or not is not very important, but it is clear that the playwriters, Monday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathaway, and the play reviser and dresser, Thomas Dekker, knew that their play went abroad under a name similar to that of William Shaksper and that Shaksper had no more to do with its composition than the reader has.

The Diary also discloses another fact in illustration, not merely of the practice of collaboration, but also in settlement of the question of authorship of another play wrongly attributed to Shaksper. I give the entries just as they appear. On page 147 occurs the following: "Lent unto Thomas Dounton, to lende unto Mr. Dickers and Harey Cheattell, in earneste of ther boocke called Troyeles and Creassedaye the some of 3 pounds Aprell 7 day 1599." Following that entry is another confirmatory one, "Lent unto Harey Cheattell and Mr. Dickers, in prte of payment of ther boocke called Troyelles and Cresseda the 16 of Aprell 1599, xxs."

These remarkable entries not only refute the Shakespearean claim to the authorship of Troilus and Cressida,

but the collaboration of two men in its composition tallies exactly with the opinion of the leading commentators that one part of the play of Troilus and Cressida is altogether different in style and method from the other part. Even the careless reader of the play of Troilus and Cressida will notice the difference in the style and composition of parts of the play, naturally evidencing that it was the work of more than one writer. These remarkable entries as to Troilus and Cressida will be further considered in a subsequent chapter, when the play is examined.

But a much stronger instance of collaboration, and one which has a bearing on the question of the authorship of the Shakespeare plays, is recorded on page 221 of the Diary. I copy it verbatim: "Lent unto the companye, the 22 of May 1602 to give unto Antoney Monday and Mikell Drayton, Webester Mydelton and the Rest, in earnest of a boocke called Sesers Falle the some of five pounds." Collier, the editor of the Diary, adds the following note: "Malone passed over this important entry without notice; it shows that in May 1602, four poets, who are named, viz: Monday, Drayton, Webster, and Middleton, and some others not named, were engaged in writing a play upon the subject of the fall of Cæsar."

This entry will be considered and discussed hereafter in connection with the play of Julius Cæsar as published in the Folio of 1623.

When Thomas Heywood wrote the play of the English Traveler, he stated, in the address to the reader, that the play was one "among two hundred and twenty, in which I have had either an entire hand or at the least a main finger." He further states as to these plays of his "that many of them by shifting and change of companies have