A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare, Player, Poet, and Playmaker, Volume 70

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J. C. Nimmo, 1886 - Biography & Autobiography - 364 pages

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.

 

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Page 111 - I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes: besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art.
Page 110 - Yes, trust them not ! for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his " Tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide," supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you ; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country.
Page 229 - And let those, that play your clowns, speak no more than is set down for them : for there be of them, that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too ; though, in the mean time, some necessary question}: of the play be then to be considered : that's villainous ; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
Page 50 - Lastly, I would inform you, that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen •' had good share: in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.
Page 245 - The Painful Adventures of Pericles Prince of Tyre. Being the true History of the Play of Pericles, as it was lately presented by the worthy and ancient Poet John Gower.
Page 135 - As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare, witness his " Venus and Adonis," his " Lucrece," his sugared sonnets among his private friends, etc.
Page 260 - To those gentlemen, his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making plays, RG wisheth a better exercise, and wisdom to prevent his extremities.
Page 168 - ... but as I must acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage under whom he hath published them, so the author I know much offended with M. Jaggard that (altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name.
Page 90 - He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company ; and amongst them some, that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Cherlecot, near Stratford.
Page 124 - Comedy, he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for this new actor, then it did for the old player.

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