A Life of William Shakespeare | Page 2

joint action and
working to a common result.' It is criticism inspired by this liberalising
principle that is especially applicable to the vast sonnet-literature which
was produced by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. It is criticism of
the type that Arnold recommended that can alone lead to any accurate
and profitable conclusion respecting the intention of the vast
sonnet-literature of the Elizabethan era. In accordance with Arnold's
suggestion, I have studied Shakespeare's sonnets comparatively with
those in vogue in England, France, and Italy at the time he wrote. I
have endeavoured to learn the view that was taken of such literary
endeavours by contemporary critics and readers throughout Europe. My
researches have covered a very small portion of the wide field. But I
have gone far enough, I think, to justify the conviction that
Shakespeare's collection of sonnets has no reasonable title to be
regarded as a personal or autobiographical narrative.
In the Appendix (Sections III. and IV.) I have supplied a memoir of
Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton, and an account of the
Earl's relations with the contemporary world of letters. Apart from
Southampton's association with the sonnets, he promoted Shakespeare's
welfare at an early stage of the dramatist's career, and I can quote the
authority of Malone, who appended a sketch of Southampton's history
to his biography of Shakespeare (in the 'Variorum' edition of 1821), for
treating a knowledge of Southampton's life as essential to a full
knowledge of Shakespeare's. I have also printed in the Appendix a
detailed statement of the precise circumstances under which
Shakespeare's sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609
(Section V.), and a review of the facts that seem to me to confute the
popular theory that Shakespeare was a friend and protege of William
Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, who has been put forward quite
unwarrantably as the hero of the sonnets (Sections VI., VII., VIII.) {ix}
I have also included in the Appendix (Sections IX. and X.) a survey of
the voluminous sonnet-literature of the Elizabethan poets between 1591

and 1597, with which Shakespeare's sonnetteering efforts were very
closely allied, as well as a bibliographical note on a corresponding
feature of French and Italian literature between 1550 and 1600.
Since the publication of the article on Shakespeare in the 'Dictionary of
National Biography,' I have received from correspondents many
criticisms and suggestions which have enabled me to correct some
errors. But a few of my correspondents have exhibited so ingenuous a
faith in those forged documents relating to Shakespeare and forged
references to his works, which were promulgated chiefly by John Payne
Collier more than half a century ago, that I have attached a list of the
misleading records to my chapter on 'The Sources of Biographical
Information' in the Appendix (Section I.) I believe the list to be fuller
than any to be met with elsewhere.
The six illustrations which appear in this volume have been chosen on
grounds of practical utility rather than of artistic merit. My reasons for
selecting as the frontispiece the newly discovered 'Droeshout' painting
of Shakespeare (now in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at
Stratford-on-Avon) can be gathered from the history of the painting and
of its discovery which I give on pages 288-90. I have to thank Mr.
Edgar Flower and the other members of the Council of the Shakespeare
Memorial at Stratford for permission to reproduce the picture. The
portrait of Southampton in early life is now at Welbeck Abbey, and the
Duke of Portland not only permitted the portrait to be engraved for this
volume, but lent me the negative from which the plate has been
prepared. The Committee of the Garrick Club gave permission to
photograph the interesting bust of Shakespeare in their possession, {x}
but, owing to the fact that it is moulded in black terra-cotta no
satisfactory negative could be obtained; the engraving I have used is
from a photograph of a white plaster cast of the original bust, now in
the Memorial Gallery at Stratford. The five autographs of
Shakespeare's signature--all that exist of unquestioned
authenticity--appear in the three remaining plates. The three signatures
on the will have been photographed from the original document at
Somerset House, by permission of Sir Francis Jenne, President of the
Probate Court; the autograph on the deed of purchase by Shakespeare

in 1613 of the house in Blackfriars has been photographed from the
original document in the Guildhall Library, by permission of the
Library Committee of the City of London; and the autograph on the
deed of mortgage relating to the same property, also dated in 1613, has
been photographed from the original document in the British Museum,
by permission of the Trustees. Shakespeare's coat-of-arms and motto,
which are stamped on the cover of this volume, are copied from the
trickings in the margin