London. Shakespeare wrought in this convention; he took it in a crude state and wrought it to its highest capacity of artistic result. Jonson's impatience with the convention may have come from a feeling that the utmost had been accomplished with it in discarding it he showed himself less the contemporary than the successor of Shakespeare. He wrote for the court and times of the pedantking, on ancient classical models, and his plays are pictures of the times he lived in; but after reading his fierce though vigorous satires, it is a relief to turn back to Shakespeare, and to share with the Elizabethans the illusions of poetry and romance which he brought into stageland under a masquerade of the remote.

CHAPTER V

SHAKESPEARE'S LONDON HAUNTS

THERE are seven years in the life of Skakespeare for which we have to depend on tradition-the first seven years he spent in London, the crucial and critical period in which he found his vocation. The ultimate source of these traditions is William Davenant, the poet's godson, and Thomas Betterton, the great actor of the Restoration, the depositary of the traditions of the stage from the time of its suppression and the exile of the players. From the lips of these two men the traditions were communicated to Rowe, the first biographer of Shakespeare. In our own time they have been subjected to critical analysis by Mr Halliwell-Phillipps, the effect of which has been to establish their general authenticity.

There is one point of complete accord in all these traditions. They are unanimous in their testimony that during the first years of his life in London

Shakespeare subsisted "by very mean employments" -mean, that is to say, by contrast with the position afterwards achieved by the poet. James Burbage, the father of the famous actor, and the first builder of playhouses, kept horses at livery in Smithfield; and there was a connection between this fact and the custom of the Elizabethans of riding to the play on horseback. Tradition says that Shakespeare's business was to take charge of the horses while the gallants and ladies were in the playhouse; that he so flourished in this occupation as to hire assistants, who became known as "Shakespeare's boys."

The connection between the playhouse and a large livery stable suggests that the horses were let on hire for the conveyance of playgoers from various points in London. The players were not allowed to perform in the city, so they built a playhouse away in the fields of Shoreditch and provided the means of communication for those who would ride "into the fields, plays to behold." This state of things had been developing since 1576, when the first play. house was opened, and when Shakespeare arrived about nine years later he found his first means of livelihood in this custom of riding to the play.

At this date the only playhouses in existence on

the Middlesex side of London were the Theatre and the Curtain at Holywell (the present Holywell Lane leads to the site from Shoreditch High Street), and both houses were in the hands of the Burbages. About two years previously the association of players of which they were the leaders had been re-organised, and now held licence as Her Majesty's servants. Wilson and Tarleton were the most famous members of the company: the achievements of Richard Burbage lay in the future. The registers of Shoreditch Parish Church shew that the players resided in the liberty of Holywell, or Halliwell. Richard Tarleton, the original of Yorick, the King's Jester, in Hamlet, lived in Halliwell Street, and he was buried at the old church on September 3rd, 1588, about three years after Shakespeare came to London. On the 2nd February 1596 the bell tolled for James Burbage, "the first builder of playhouses," as his surviving family claimed for him. He was brought from Halliwell, as the register shews. In the following year his son Cuthbert lost his boy, whom he had named James, and another mournful procession went from Holywell to the Parish Church. There is every degree of probability that Shakespeare was present at the Church on these occasions. The

Burbage family clung to the neighbourhood after their dramatic fortunes had led them to other parts of the town. On December 30th, 1602, Cuthbert's daughter, "Elizabeth Burbedge," was christened, and who shall say that Shakespeare did not stand sponsor on the occasion? About two years after the poet's own too early demise at Stratford-on-Avon, there was a funeral at the old church to which people flocked from all parts of London, in honour of the Roscius of his time, the first sovereign of the English stage. Richard Burbage, who had achieved his great fame by acting in Shakespeare's plays, who was intimately associated with the poet during all his working years in London, was laid to rest on March 16th, 1619. His death is recorded by Camden as an event of national interest, and here at the old Parish Church of Shoreditch his funeral took place. The entry

on the register shews that he continued to live in the neighbourhood of the old theatres to the end of his life: "Richard Burbadge, player, was bur. 16 March, 1618-19, Halliwell Street."

This church, which had become ruinous, was taken down in 1736; the present church was erected on the site, and opened in 1740. A picture of the old building exists in Ellis's account of the parish, and has been here reproduced.