The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street (46 page)

23
. Accounts of Sir George Home, Master of the Great Wardrobe, for the ‘royall proceeding through the Citie of London’, 15 May 1604 (PRO LC2/ 4/5, fol. 78). Each of the named players received 4 yards of red cloth for a cloak.

24
. PRO SC6/JASI/1646, fol. 28r (original numbering) or 29r (new numbering).

25
. SDL 148-50, citing eighteenth-century sources (Nicholas Rowe’s 1709 edn of Shakespeare for Hamlet senior, Samuel Johnson and George Steevens’s 1778 edn for Adam). John Davies (note 28 below) says Shakespeare played ‘kingly parts’. Cast lists in Ben Jonson’s
Works
(1616) name Shakespeare as an actor in
Everyman in his Humour
(1598) and
Sejanus
(1603) but do not specify the parts.

26
. For an overview of the portraits, including recent technical analyses, see Cooper 2006, 48-75. On the lost original of the Droeshout engraving see Chapter 17.

27
. On the Shakespeare coat of arms and attendant controversies, see Duncan-Jones 2001, 85-103; Cooper 2006, 138-42. ‘Not without mustard’: Ben Jonson,
Every Man out of his Humour
(1600), 3.1.205, though the phrase was current earlier (Nashe 1958, 1.171). ‘Shakespeare ye player’ is in a list drawn up in 1602 by Ralph Brooke, York Herald (Folger Library, Washington, MS V.a.350, fol. 28).

28
. John Davies, ‘To our English Terence, Mr Will. Shake-speare’, in
The Scourge of Folly
(
c
. 1610), Epigram 159.

29
. EKC 2.67-71, 95-127; SDL 155-6; Honan 1998, 236-44, 290-94.

30
.
Ratsey’s Ghost
(Shakespeare Association Facsimiles 10, 1935), sigs BI-BIv. The book was the sequel to
The Life and Death of Gamaliel Ratsey
(1605). Ratsey, a highwayman, was executed at Bedford on 26 March 1605; the pamphlets recount his supposed ‘madde prankes and robberies’.

31
. Hamnet was named after his godfather, Hamnet or Hamlet Sadler, a Stratford baker and lifelong friend of Shakespeare’s. The forename, a diminutive of the Norman name Hamon, is found elsewhere in the Stratford registers (EKC 2.3-4). It has no etymological connection with the fictional Hamlet (an Anglicized form of the Scandinavian Amleth) but there is surely an emotional assonance, especially if (as Rowe asserts) Shakespeare played Hamlet’s father.

32
.
Kind Harts Dreame
(1592), sig. A4.

33
. On Chettle’s possible authorship see W. B. Austin,
A Computer-aided Technique for Stylistic Discrimination: The Authorship of ‘Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit’
(Washington, DC, 1969); John Jowett, ‘Notes on Henry Chettle’,
RES
45 (1994), 385-8. The ‘upstart crow’ (
Groatsworth
, 1592, sig. FIV) refers to Shakespeare as a mimic, i.e. actor, but carries also the imputation of plagiarism. In the
Epistles
of Horace a plagiarizing poet is described as a ‘little crow’ decked with ‘stolen colours’. As Chettle’s phrasing shows, Shakespeare felt his ‘honesty’ had been impugned, as well as his ‘art’.

34
.
Microcosmos
(1603), 215. ‘Generous’ carries an overtone of
generosus
, the legal Latin term for a gentleman.

35
. Scoloker 1604, ‘Epistle’, sig. E4v. The author’s name is a bibliographic convenience. The poem was formerly attributed to Anthony Scoloker or ‘Skolykers’, an immigrant printer and translator, but the discovery that he died in 1593 makes this unlikely; his son, also Anthony, predeceased him. There is actually no reason to associate ‘An. Sc.’ with this family at all. See Janet Ing Freeman, ‘Anthony Scoloker, translator’ and P. J. Finkelpearl, ‘Anthony Scoloker, poet’ (
ODNB
2004).

36
. Aubrey 1949, 85; Edmond 1987, 13-21.

37
. J. L. Borges, ‘Todo y nada’, in
El Hacedor
(Buenos Aires, 1960), trans. J. E. Irby, ‘Everything and Nothing’, in
Labyrinths
(1970), 284-5.

3. Sugar and gall

38
.
Othello
1.3 takes information about the Turkish invasion of Cyprus from Richard Knolles’s
History of the Turks
(SR 30 September 1603). On
Measure
’s topical allusions referring to 1603-4 see J. W. Lever, Arden edn (1965), xxxi-xxxv, and Chapter 23 above.

39
.
All’s Well
is dated
c
. 1603 by Alexander Leggatt (New Cambridge edn, 2003, 11);
c
. 1603-4 by G. K. Hunter (Arden edn, 1959, xviii-xxv); and
c
. 1604-5 by Susan Snyder (Oxford edn, 1993, 24). Schrickx 1988 argues that political alliances mentioned in the play point to a performance during celebrations of the Anglo-Spanish peace treaty (July-August 1604). The frequency of rhymed couplets (a feature of Shakespeare’s early work) may suggest he reworked an earlier version of the play. The mysterious ‘Loves Labours Wonne’, mentioned in a list of Shakespeare’s plays in 1598 (Francis Meres,
Palladis Tamia
, fol. 282r), could conceivably be a reference to it.

40
. G. B. Shaw,
Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant
(1898), Preface, ix.

41
. Wilson 1932, 119; Rossiter 1961, 117. Rossiter also finds this grating wit in the ‘indecent sonnets’ (i.e. chiefly the ‘Dark Lady’ sequence). Some of the sonnets (first published in 1609) probably belong to the Silver Street years. Stylometric analysis assigns nos 104-26 to the early seventeenth century, and two of this group have allusions to the succession and coronation of James I (1603-4). See MacDonald Jackson, ‘Rhyme in Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Evidence of Date of Composition’,
NQ
46 (1999), 213-19.

42
. G. B. Guarini,
Compendio della poesia tragicomica
(1601). Cinthio’s
Epitia
(1583) was a source, via English versions, for the plot-line of
Measure for Measure
. It is described by Cinthio as a ‘tragedia di lieto fin’ (a potential tragedy with a ‘pleasant’ ending) - what Sir Philip Sidney called ‘mungrell Tragy-comedy’ (
Apologie for Poetry
, 1581).

43
. For some other responses to
Hamlet
in
Diaphantus
see Duncan-Jones 2001, 179-81.

44
. Sypher 1955, 115-17, 152-3. He discerns in
Measure
the hallmarks of Mannerism defined by Panowski as
Spannung
(‘tension’),
Streckung
(‘elasticity’) and
Flucht ohne Ziel
(‘projection without climax’). Elizabeth Yearling describes the ‘devices’ of Jacobean tragicomedy as ‘tonal contrasts, protean characters, ambiguous language and self-conscious theatricality’ (
RES
34 (1983), 214).

45
. An ongoing repartee between Marston and Shakespeare is discernible in
c
. 1600-1601: Marston’s
Antonio’s Revenge
has parallels with
Hamlet
, and his
What You Will
with
Twelfth Night
(itself subtitled ‘What You Will’, and performed at the Middle Temple, where Marston was a member, in February 1601). Both writers appended ‘Poeticall Essaies’ to Robert Chester’s
Love’s Martyr
(1601); Shakespeare’s contribution, ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’, is praised by Marston as a ‘moving
epicedium
’. See W. Reavley Gair, ed.,
Antonio’s Revenge
(Manchester 1978); Duncan-Jones 2001, 137-56; Steggle 1998, 40-48.

46
. On the
Timon
collaboration see Wells 2006, 184-8; John Jowett, Oxford edn (2004), 1-3; Gary Taylor, ‘Thomas Middleton’ (
ODNB
2004). Almost all of Act 3 is generally ascribed to Middleton, plus 1.2 and parts of 2.2, 4.2 and 4.3.

47
. On Nashe see
1 Henry VI
, ed. J. Dover Wilson (Cambridge, 1952), xxi-xxxi, though the parallels adduced are not necessarily the result of collaboration. On Peele and Shakespeare see Vickers 2002. On ‘The Booke of Sir Thomas More’ (BL Harley MS 7368) see Part Five, note 10 below.

48
. Sylvia Feldman, ed.,
A Yorkshire Tragedy
(Malone Society, 1973), v-xvi. The entry in SR, 2 May 1608 (Arber 1875, 3.337) also describes it as ‘written by William Shakespere’. The publisher, Thomas Pavier, later produced a series of unauthorized Shakespeare quartos, some misleadingly dated.

49
. Sisson 1935; John Berryman, ‘Shakespeare’s Reality’ (1971), in Haffenden 2001, 347. Colin Burrow tilts wittily at the windmill of ‘literary biography’, where ‘explanations of literary activity . . . tend to be made up from a dash of Freud, a handful of social aspiration, a scratching from Foucault’s armpit, and a willingness to entertain simple one-to-one correspondences between fiction and life’ (‘Who Wouldn’t Buy It?’,
LRB
27, 20 January 2005).

50
. Tillyard 1965, 152.

4. Shakespeare in London

51
. Ben Jonson, ‘To the memory of my Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare’ (1623), line 71, in
Complete Poems
, ed. George Parfitt (1975, 265).

52
. Aubrey 1949, 255.

53
. William Dunbar (attrib.), ‘In Honour of the City of London’ (late fifteenth century); Nashe,
Christs Teares
(1593), sig. X3 (Nashe 1958, 2.158-9). Nashe’s diatribe earned him a brief spell in Newgate, and was substituted with a toned-down version in the 2nd edn of 1594.

54
. ‘harey the vi’, marked as a new play, first appears in Henslowe’s diary on 3 March 1592 (Foakes 2002, 16). The
Groatsworth
was published within a few weeks of Greene’s death on 3 September 1592 (Nicholl 1984, 135, 301).

55
. The ‘lost years’ and their legends are summarized in SDL 77-90, Sams 1995. For the Catholic narrative (which in part depends on a player in Lancashire called William Shakeshafte being the sixteen-year-old Shakespeare) see E. A. J. Honigmann,
Shakespeare: The Lost Years
(1985); Richard Wilson,
Secret Shakespeare: Studies in Theatre, Religion and Resistance
(2004).

56
. Diary of Thomas Greene, 17 November 1614: see note 2 above. The Blackfriars Gatehouse, purchased by Shakespeare in March 1613, was an investment rather than a residence, but may have served as a London pied-à-terre (Honan 1998, 378-9).

57
. Bod., Aubrey MS 8, fol. 45v. The lay-out of the page (see EKC 2.252) is confused, but the view that Aubrey’s interlineated note is about Beeston himself, rather than Shakespeare, deprives us unnecessarily. Beeston’s birthdate is not known: it could be as early as 1603 (his parents married in 1602), which would make him thirteen when Shakespeare died. Beeston was recommended to Aubrey by another old stager, John Lacey, who also provided him with material on Shakespeare. Lacey, born in Yorkshire in about 1615, cannot have known Shakespeare personally, but he had worked with Ben Jonson (d. 1637), furnishing northern dialect terms for his late play
The Tale of a Tub
.

58
. On literary Shoreditch see Mark Eccles,
Christopher Marlowe in London
(1934), 122-6; Nicholl 1984, 39-40; and the second of Gabriel Harvey’s
Four Letters
(1592). Various Balls (but not Em) feature in the Shoreditch registers.

59
. PRO E179/146/354; EKC 2.87-90; Giuseppi 1929. For an introduction to the subsidy rolls see Lang 1993. Some London rolls are available online on Alan Nelson’s website (
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/
~ahnelson/SUBSIDY/ subs.html).

60
. Hazlitt 1864, 2.317. John Manningham notes in his diary (November 1602; Sorlien 1976, 123): ‘a common phrase of subsidies and such taxes: the greate ones will not, the little ones cannot, the meane [middle-ranking] men must pay for all.’

61
. Shakespeare’s second assessment (PRO E179/146/369) resulted in a tax liability of 13s 4d; this was a new subsidy and the tax-rate was higher.

62
. Honan 1998, 322; Michael Foster, ‘Thomas Morley’ (
ODNB
2004).

63
. On Maunder as Messenger of the Chamber see Nicholl 2002, 53-4, 206. Henry Maunder of St Helen’s was alive in 1603, when a man is described as his servant (
Registers of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate
, Harleian Society 31 (1904), 260), but was probably dead by 1608 when ‘Isabell Maunder, widow’ was buried (ibid., 271). ‘Anne Maunder al[ia]s Bedwell’, a godmother in 1612 (ibid., 418), is probably his married daughter.

64
. Ibid., 260; Scouloudi 1985, 182.

65
. PRO E372/444 (Residuum London, 6 October 1599) and 445 (Residuum Sussex, 6 October 1600).

66
. Shakespeare is called ‘honey-tongued’ by both Francis Meres (
Palladis Tamia
, 1598) and John Weever (‘Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare’ in
Epigrammes
, 1599, 4.22). ‘O sweet Master Shakespeare’, spoken by a foppish fan, Gullio, in anon,
Returne to Parnassus
pt 1 (
c
. 1599), 3.1.1054-5. Manningham: see Part Six, note 46 below.

67
. HMC Salisbury 3.148; EKC 2.332; Elizabeth Allen, ‘Sir Walter Cope’ (
ODNB
2004).

PART TWO:
SILVER STREET

5. The house on the corner

1
. For the ‘Agas’ map see Prockter and Taylor 1979. ‘Muddled truth’: Peter Campbell, ‘In Russell Square’,
LRB
28, 30 November 2006; cf. H. G. Wells on London as a ‘stupendous’ city formed of ‘incidental and multitudinous littleness’ (
The New Machiavelli
, 1911).

2
. Byrne 1925, 55-8. On Islington: Nashe 1958, 2.224, 4.262.

3
. Wood 2003, 267; P. Jones and T. Reddaway, eds,
Surveys of Building Sites in the City of London after the Great Fire
(London Topographical Society Publications 97-99, 1962-66), 3.35. A frontage of 63 ft would suggest a substantial house, similar to the known measurements of nearby Dudley Court (note 13 below). However, the surveys indicate pre-Fire property boundaries, and do not necessarily refer to individual houses. The length of Silver Street between Wood Street and Monkwell Street was about 75 metres (228 ft): see Howe and Lakin 2004, Fig 68.