A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY AND AN ESTIMATE OF THE FACTS, FANCIES, FORGERIES, AND FABRICATIONS, REGARDING HIS LIFE AND WORKS, WHICH HAVE APPEARED IN REMOTE AND RECENT LITERATURE. BY SAMUEL NEIL, AUTHOR OF "THE ART OF REASONING," "THE ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC,' ETC., ETC. "What is your substance, whereof are you made, LONDON: HOULSTON AND WRIGHT, 65, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXI. Konankiust's te is Mane. PREFACE. THE present opusculum aims at supplying a concise synopsis of the known facts of Shakespere's life, arranged—for the first time, we believe, in literature-in strictly chronological order. These it has been the author's endeavour to distinguish carefully from deductions made from them, or fancies arising out of them. The forgeries and fabrications which have accumulated, in modern times, regarding the great dramatist and his works, have been sifted and criticized, and the results of these investigations are so laid before the reader now as to enable him to decide upon each disputed point for himself. The introductory chapter contains an explicit statement of the author's intention, means, and method. It only remains to be told that four papers published in the "British Controversialist" form the basis of the present brochure. The acceptance they met with from Shakesperean critics has encouraged the writer to venture on this re-issue. The writing comprised in them has, however, undergone revision and re-arrangement; and these pages contain considerably more than treble the amount of matter submitted to criticism in those articles. Some subsidiary matter and notes have been relegated to an Appendix; and a "Tabular View" of Shakespere's works, with their dates, compiled from the best authorities, has been added. It is hoped that the work will be found complete and useful, though concise. NOTE. In the following pages the name of England's greatest dramatist will be found SHAKESPERE. INTRODUCTION. "Whose remembrance yet Lives in men's eyes, and will to ears and tongues SHAKESPERE! There is conjuration and mighty magic in the name, and there is mystery about the man. The place of his birth is a shrine for pilgrim feet, and Stratford-upon-Avon holds the dust of her (and England's) noblest intellectual son. Yet of this man, who 66 was not for an age, but for all time," fewer memorials, it is said, are attainable or preserved than of almost any of Britain's mighty minstrels. Far away, in the time-distance of five centuries ago, "Old Dan Chaucer" shows himself as a reality, and no myth,— Singing he was, or floyting alle the day; He was as fresche as is the moneth of May." Dunbar, Gawin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay, appear in literary history lifelike and solid. Surrey and Wyatt are known, both in biography and romance. Sydney and Spenser are palpable and substantial figures in the tableaux of their age. The personality and "the very form and pressure" of many of the Elizabethan sages-Raleigh, Fairfax, Daniel, Drayton, Marlowe, Chapman, Middleton, Jonson, &c., are known to the most casual readers of biography; yet here is one-the greatest-of whom it has been remarked, "" He lived' is almost all that can be said." We remember the vividness with which the thought of this selfforgetfulness, and as it were, spirit-like impalpability, shone into our minds as we stood in the chancel of Stratford Church--the church in which he was baptized, in which he worshipped, where he mourned, and in which he now lies 66 'so sepulchred," B |