Mr. Lee himself admits that the only instance on record of a protest on Shakespeare's part against the many injuries which he suffered at the hands of contemporary publishers' is that attested by Heywood, who, in his Apology for Actors, published in 1612, speaks of the player as complaining to him that Jaggard had 'presumed to make so bold with his name' as to prefix it to The Passionate Pilgrim, which was published in 1599 (p. 145).

In 1611, the successful actor finally abandoned the stage, and settled down at New Place. This is the concurrent testimony of his Biographers— Mr. Phillipps, Mr. Lee, and Mr. Wyndham. But if the Shakspere of the stage retired, the Shakespeare of the plays remained; and as Shakespearian plays appeared before the Player arrived in London, so they continued to appear after he retired to Stratford. The Tempest, according to the best authorities, was written to celebrate the marriage of the Elector Palatine with the daughter of the King on the 14th of February 1613; and Henry the Eighth was being acted as a new play' when the Globe was burnt down on the 29th of the following June. Mr. Lee suggests that the Player on his retirement 'left with the manager of his company unfinished drafts of more than one play which others were summoned at a later time to complete' (p. 208); but this is a mere fancy, as little worthy of serious consideration as the forgeries which Mr. Lee attributes to Mr. Collier (pp. 304-6).

When the Player retired from the stage he was only forty-six or forty-seven-the age at which our second Shakespeare was just commencing the immortal series of romances which, in their wit and humour, and their masculine grasp of men and things, are worthy to be ranked with the Shakespearian plays. The unanimous testimony of his biographers is to the effect that the retired actor took no further interest in theatrical affairs. According to Rowe, he spent the latter part of his life in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. According to Dr. Johnson, he made no collection of his plays, and showed no anxiety to give them to posterity in their genuine state. Mr. Phillipps is astonished at the apathy which he exhibited as to the fate of his immortal dramas (i. 242). And, finally, Mr. Lee admits that during the period of his retirement he seemed utterly unconscious of his marvellous superiority to his professional comrades' of the past (p. 224), and that he chiefly valued his literary attainments and successes 'as serving the prosaic end of providing permanently for himself and his daughters' (p. 225).

At the beginning of 1616, according to Mr. Lee, the Player's health was failing, and he gave instructions for his will (p. 218). This will-in which, by-the-by, he praises God that he is in perfect health'-was ready for his signature on the 25th of January in that year. On the 10th of February, his daughter Judith was married to Thomas Quiney,

the son of an old friend, and for some reason, probably connected with the marriage, the execution of his will was delayed till the 25th of March. By this instrument he made pecuniary provision for Judith, and entailed his lands on his elder daughter; he carefully disposed of his wearing apparel, of his sword, of his silver-gilt bowl, and of his second best bed, which he bequeathed to his wife, with the furniture of the same; he made a number of small bequests to various friends for the purchase of memorial rings; he named his son-in-law, Dr. Hall, and his daughter, Susanna, as his executors and residuary legatees; and finally he requested two of his friends to act as overseers' of his will. Mr. Lee remarks the 'precision with which he accounts for and assigns every known item of his property' (p. 221); and Mr. Phillipps observes, that not only is there no mention of Drayton, Ben Jonson, or any of his other literary friends, but an entire absence of reference to his own compositions' (i. 241), or to books (i. 251). In fact, not a single book would seem to have been in his possession-not a copy of the Sonnets, the Poems, or the Plays-not one of the innumerable books on which the Sonnets, the Poems, and the Plays were founded -not one of the old plays which he is said to have touched up, recast, and made his own. He left behind him no literary correspondence; not a letter from Southampton, or Pembroke, or Montgomery, his reputed patrons-not a letter from Drayton or

Jonson, his reputed friends-not a letter from mortal man referring to the works of which he was the reputed author. The only letter addressed to him that is extant is a letter from one of his Stratford friends, asking him for the loan of thirty pounds. Not a single fragment of any letter of his own has been discovered; and the only specimens which we possess of the handwriting of the reputed author of Macbeth and Lear are the words By me,' and five signatures, so execrable that, according to a writer in the Quarterly Review, the wonder is how, with such a hand, he could have written so much' as he is credited with writing.

6

On the 23rd of April, 1616, being suddenly attacked by a malady, which tradition attributes to debauch, he died. On the 25th of April, one month after he had executed his will, he was buried in the chancel of his parish church, and over the spot. where his body was laid there was placed a slab, with an inscription which tradition attributes to himself:

Good frend, for Jesus sake, forbeare

To digg the dust encloased heare;

Bleste be the man that spares thes stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

An epitaph imprecating a curse on the man who should disturb his bones, an epigram on the money-lender with whom he dealt, and a ballad abusing the gentleman whose park he robbed— such are the compositions which tradition attributes. to the man whom we venerate as Shakespeare.

V

Of Shakespeare and the Two Players

F we accept the confession of the author of the

Sonnets that Shakespeare was not his real name, but the noted weed' in which he kept Invention, and if we give credit to the announcement of the editor of Troilus and Cressida that the Shakespearian Comedies were the property of certain grand possessors,' we can explain much that seems inexplicable in the conduct of the retired Player. We can explain how it came to pass that he never claimed to be the author of the plays while he remained upon the stage; how it was that he took no interest in them after he retired to Stratford; how it happened that he made no mention of them in his will; and how it befell that his representatives took no steps to effect their publication after his decease.

The retired Player was buried on the 25th of April, 1616, and it was not till more than seven years after his death that a collected edition of the Shakespearian Plays was published. Towards the