with his hand on the best part of him,
his heart, clothed in a sober fur-trimmed
gown, and with a grave good-tempered face,
set in a dish of frill;— every one knows
how, in the old Shakespearian days, folks
carried their own heads about in ample linen
dishes.

The days of Edward Alleyn were the days
of Shakespeare. Furthermore, we are now
speaking of a time when the parish of Edward
Alleyn, in which he enjoyed the dignity of
the churchwarden's office, was the parish of
Mr. Shakespeare, also a prosperous play-actor
and playwright. Phillip Henslow, Esquire,
Alleyn's father-in-law. Edward Alleyn, Mr.
Shakespeare, Mr. Edw. Collins, and John
Burnett, were the only persons paying, in
that part of London, a rate so high as six-
pence a-week towards the relief of the poor.
And neighbour Shakespeare was on friendly
terms with Alleyn. There is a love-letter
from Alleyn's wife, Joan, to her husband in
the country. This husband and wife lived
thirty years together, and seern to have
corresponded in the temper of true lovers to the
last. There is a letter from Joane Alleyne,
written nine years after marriage, partly
crumbled into dust with age, though young
and fresh with pleasant words and gentle
thoughts, in which Shakespeare is mentioned
as a dropper-in upon their household.

There has been a plague in London, and
the players are forced to stroll through the
provinces. "My entire and well-beloved
sweetheart, still it joys me, and long, I pray
God, may I joy to hear of your health and
welfare, as of ours. Almighty God be
thanked, my own self, yourself and my mother,
and whole house, are in good health; and
about us the sickness doth cease, and likely
more and more, by God's help, to cease. . . .
For your coming home I am not to advise
you; neither will I. Use your own discretion.
Yet I long and am very desirous to
see you; and my poor and simple opinion is,
if it shall please you, you may safely come
home. Here is none now sick near us; yet
let it not be as I will, but at your own best
liking. I am glad to hear you take delight
in hawking; and though you have worn
your apparel to rags, the best is, you know
where to have better; and as welcome to
me shall you be with your rags, as if you
were in cloth of gold or velvet. Try, and
see."

Of the part of the letter in which Shakespeare
is mentioned, some parts have been
lost through decay; but there is enough left
to show the meaning. "About a week ago
there came a youth, who said he was Mr.
Francis Chaloner [her husband was then
staying with a hospitable family of Chaloners]
who would have borrowed ten pounds
[equal in money of our time to fifty], to have
bought things for . . . and said he was known
unto you, and Mr. Shakespeare of the Globe,
who came . . . said he knew him not, only
he heard of him that he was a rogue . . . .
so he was glad we did not lend him the
money. Richard Jones went to seek and
inquire after the fellow, and said he had lent
him a horse. I fear me he gulled him,
though he gulled not us."

And there were new plays in those days
worth going to see: first nights of Lear, of
Romeo and Juliet, and Othello; though
Alleyn, whose interest was in the Rose, on
Bankside, and the Fortune, probably performed
only now and then by chance in plays
of Shakespeare's writing. He played,
perhaps, the Lear or Romeo of other writers;
for, in his theatrical wardrobe, we find that
he made provision for such parts. There was
"a scarlet cloak, with two broad gold laces,
with gold buttons of the same down the
sides, for Lear." There was also among his
cloaks "a purple satin welted with velvet
and silver twist; Romeo's." There are also
upon the list a "Harry the VIII. gown,
an Angel's suit, a blue damask coat for the
Moor in Venice, a Black Angel, and Priam's
hose in Dido." With respect to the black
angel we may remark, that after Alleyn had
shown himself a pious benefactor to his
country, the Puritans, who cannot abide
play-acting, said that his great charity of
Dulwich College was not an actor's deed, but
the deed of a man who desired to atone for
the crime of having been an actor. One night,
they say, and Aubrey repeats the story,
Alleyn was playing a demon's part upon the
stage, when he saw Satan himself upon the
scene, and, by terror and remorse so brought
about, was led to found the charitable
institution, which he called God's Gift; but for
which, if this account be true, we have only
to thank Beelzebub. The story is an idle
one, that has been told of other men. Another
form of it speaks of an actor who played
Death, and, coming off the stage, was shaken
hands with by the king of terrors, who had
his own genuine dart in his bony fingers.
The story, as regards Alleyn is said to have
begun with the fact that the old theatre, the
Rose, cracked, and frightened the audience,
while a devil was upon the stage in
Marlowe's Faustus, of which play Alleyn, in his
Faustus jerkin and cloak, was the hero.
Our purpose, in what little we say here of
the old actor, is to show out of what spirit
Dulwich College really was produced, and
that, play-actor as he was, the saints in their
own conceit would do well if they could
compass ever so little of what they would call
his state. That he was in a very good state
we can honestly assure them.

He was kindly, generous, and just; never
ashamed of his vocation, humbly pious—which
is a very different thing, indeed, from, being
vaingloriously pious, and no doubt a worse
thing in the eyes of some. He came by his
money honestly, was frugal and yet hospitable,
careful and yet the reverse of miserly. The
poor player in trouble wrote for help to