A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare. Frederick Gard Fleay

It is due to the reader of a new work on a subject already so often handled as the Life of Shakespeare to tell him at the outset what he may expect to find therein, and to state the reasons for which I have thought it worth while to devote nearly ten years to its production. Previous investigators have with industrious minuteness already ascertained for us every detail that can reasonably be expected of Shakespeare's private life. With laborious research they have raked together the records of petty debts, of parish assessments, of scandalous traditions, of idle gossip; and they have shown beyond doubt that Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, was married, had three children, left his home, made money as an actor and play-maker in London, returned to his native town, invested his savings there, and died. I do not think that when stript of verbiage, and what the slang of the day calls padding, much more than this can be claimed as the result of the voluminous writings on this side of his career. For one I am thankful that things are so; I have little sympathy with the modern inquisitiveness that peeps over the garden wall to see in what array the great man smokes his pipe, and chronicles the shape and colour of his head-covering. But on the public side of Shakespeare's career little has been adequately ascertained; and with this we are deeply concerned. Not for a mere personal interest, but in its bearings on the history of English literature, we ought to ascertain so far as is possible what companies of actors Shakespeare belonged to, at what theatres they acted, in what plays besides his own he was a performer, what authors this brought him into personal contact with, what influence he exerted on or received from them, what relations, friendly or unfriendly, they had with rival companies, and finally, in what order his own works were produced, and what if any share other hands had in their production. All these matters have been treated carelessly and inaccurately by biographers of the peeping school; and in the last of these we are gravely referred for the chronology of Shakespeare's plays to a schoolboy compilation the author of which is so ignorant as to speak of Lust's Dominion as a play of Jonson's, the News from Hell as a play of Dekker's, and Achilles as Laertes' son. This marvel of inefficiency we are told is the best work on the subject; and this while Malone and Drake are accessible to any student. In the present treatise this hitherto neglected side of Shakespeare's career has been chiefly dwelt on. The facts of his private life are also given; but not the documents on which they are founded, these having been excellently well collected and arranged in the recent Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, F.R.S., F.S.A., Hon. M.R.S.L., Hon. M.R.I.A. This book is a treasure-house of documents, and it is greatly to be regretted that they are not published by themselves, apart from hypotheses founded on idle rumour or fallacious mis-reasoning. I do not know any work so full of fanciful theories and "ignes fatui" likely to entice "a deluded traveller out of the beaten path into strange quagmires."[1] There is much else besides documents not given in the present treatise; discussions as to who might have been Shakespeare's schoolmaster, whether he was apprenticed to a butcher, whether he stole a deer out of a non-existent park, whether he held horses at the theatre door or "was employed in any other equine capacity," whether he went to Denmark or to Venice, and whether Lord Bacon wrote his plays for him. On all these points I must refer to earlier and less sceptical treatises. What the reader will find here is—(1.) A continuous narrative in which the statements are mostly taken for granted in accordance with my own view of the evidence accessible to us; (2.) Annals or chronological arrangement of the same facts, with discussion of their mutual interrelations; (3.) Discussion of the evidence on which the chronological succession of Shakespeare's plays is based; (4.) Similar discussions for plays in which he was not main author but only "coadjutor, novice, journeyman, tutor," or even merely one of the possible actors; (5.) A few remarks on the German versions of his plays acted on the Continent; and (6.) Tables of quarto editions of his plays, &c., with a list of all plays entered on the Stationers' Registers from the first opening of theatres to their closing in 1640–42. This last item may seem to be somewhat beyond the scope of this book, but it is greatly needed, and it is better that so difficult a task should be performed by one acquainted with dramatic literature than by some scissors-and-paste compiler who cannot distinguish a play from a prose tract. As to the preparation for the whole work it has been to me a labour of love, not, I trust, altogether lost. I have read and re-read for it every play accessible to me that dates earlier