devised a new one more conducive to dramatic
effect. In Henry the Fourth he mixed up the
historic portraits with dramatic individuals, giving
to Sir John Falstaff and his companions an equal
share of the canvas. Sir John Falstaff was, in
the early draft of the play, named Sir John
Oldcastle, an appellation which he found in an elder
drama. But Shakespeare was not aware of the
real character of Sir John Oldcastle, who was
an adherent of Wyckliffe, and thus fell into the
error of exposing a Protestant martyr to
ridicule. As the production of this play, with the
great characters of Falstaff, Hotspur, and Prince
Henry, created a considerable sensation, the
Roman Catholics began at once to claim its
author as their supporter; but Shakespeare
soon disabused them by altering the name of the
fat knight, and adding an epilogue to the Second
Part of Henry the Fourth, in which he apologises
for his mistake, and asserts that Oldcastle
is not the person intended. Nevertheless, he
makes a sort of promise of continuing the
character of Falstaff in his next play, Henry the
Fifth. There, however, he contents himself
with describing his death. Perhaps the
religious controversy prevented him from pursuing
the theme at that period.

By this time, Shakespeare had not only
secured the grant of arms to his father, thus
entitling himself to the status of a gentleman,
but had bought New Place at Stratford for his
own private residence. In the "plea of covenant"
for its purchase, he is expressly named William
Shakespeare, gentleman. In a curious tract,
dated 1605-6, and entitled Ratseis Ghost, this
transaction is mentioned, in connexion with the
history of the poet, of whom the author, some
unsuccessful writer, appears to have been
envious. Ratsey was a highwayman executed at
Bedford, in March, 1606; and in this document
he is made to counsel the leading player
of a strolling company to try his fortunes in
London. "There," says he, "thou shalt learn
to be frugal (for players were never so thrifty
as they are now about London); and to feed
upon all men, to let none feed upon thee, to
make thy hand a stranger to thy pocket, thy
heart slow to perform thy tongue's promise, and,
when thou feelest thy purse well lined, buy thee
some place of lordship in the country, that,
growing weary of playing, thy money may bring
thee to dignity and reputation, that thou needest
care for no man; no, not for them that before
made thee proud with speaking their words on
the stage." This statement, when translated
out of the language of malignant satire into
that of sober fact, gives a sufficiently correct
account of Shakespeare's progress and character.
It shows that he was prudent and economical,
that others of his craft were so likewise, and
that, being so, he gradually saved enough to
place himself in an independent position, such,
indeed, that he "need care for no man," not
even for the playwrights whose words previously
he had been proud to speak. Other facts
of his life show that he had now won a
reputation. For in the year after this purchase
appeared Mere's Palladis Tamia, in which
Shakespeare's name is registered as one of the great
poets of his day, and many of his dramatic
works, together with his sonnets, mentioned.
Some of these dramatic works had been
published, but anonymously. Now, however, three
of these issued from the press with his name,
viz., Love's Labour's Lost, Richard the Second,
and Richard the Third; yet in the very same
year, 1598, the Historie of Henrie the Fourth,
with the humourous conceits of Sir John
Falstaffe, had been published anonymously; but
in the next year's edition his name was added.
Shakespeare had, therefore, been at least thirteen
years in London as a writer for the stage, and
had actually placed upon it no fewer than
eighteen of his most popular plays, besides
writing several poems, before his name had
culminated and become public as a dramatic
author. This is an important fact, and suggestive
of much reflection!

We have now Shakespeare as a poet, with "a
place of lordship" in the country, a gentleman
in independent circumstances, and free to follow
his own course as an author. We become aware
of the influence of these favourable conditions
in the superior excellence of the works which he
now begins to produce. First on the list, we
have his comedies, Much Ado about Nothing,
As You Like It, Merry Wives of Windsor, and
Twelfth Night. All these testify to the maturity
of his intellect, the readiness ot his wit, and the
exquisite playfulness of his fancy. They present
even richer matter to the critic than his
great tragedies. They should be viewed from a
higher elevation than the level they seem to
occupy; so best may the propriety of the action
and the harmony of the parts be perceived.
They manifest a subtlety and delicacy of delineation
which severer pieces cannot exhibit. Into
these, however, he now imported what he could
of this finer spirit. Witness his Othello,
Measure for Measure, Lear, Troilus and Cressida,
Cymbeline, A Winter's Tale, and Macbeth. In
all, with the tragic element is mingled a lighter,
an ironical, a serio-comic vein, indicative of a
mind that has survived mere impulse, works
consciously, and has learned to sport with its
immediate theme in favour of an ulterior
purpose. There is nothing in these of what the
Germans call the storm-and-stress period of the
poetic development. A great calm has settled
on the depths of the soul in which the creative
process had become active, and rules every
movement of the teeming substance. "The
years that bring the philosophic mind" have
left an influence which now presides over the
whole work, from its first inception to its ultimate
growth. The dramatist is evidently free
to conceive his own plan, and to mould his
materials after his own liking. In the execution
of these mighty labours the poet needed no
assistance, sought no help, and desired no
approbation but his own. Though some of these be
amongst the most popular of his productions,
Shakespeare nowhere in them aims at
popularity; in more than one instance he gives proof