regret again to call to your notice the Statute of 16
Eliz., entitled, "Concerning the Imprisonment of Insolvent Debtors,"
which we trust you will not oblige us to invoke in aid of our
suffering client's rights. To be lenient and merciful is his
inclination, and we are happy to communicate to you this most
favorable tender for an acquittance of his claim. You shall render
to us an order on the Steward of the Globe Theatre for 20 shillings
per week of your stipend therein. This will leave to you yet 2
shillings per week, which, with prudence, will yield to you the
comforts, if not the luxuries, of subsistence. In ten weeks the face
of the bill will be thus repaid. For his forbearance in the matter
of time, which hath most seriously inconvenienced him, he requires
that you shall pay him the further sum of L2 as usury, and likewise
that you do liquidate and save him harmless from the charges of us,
his solicitors, which charges, from the number of grave and
complicated questions which have become a part of this case and
demanded solution, we are unable to make less than L4. We should say
guineas, but your evident distress hath moved us to gentleness and
mercy. These added sums are to be likewise embraced in the Steward's
order, and paid at the same rate as the substance of the bill, and
should you embrace this compassionate tender, in the brief period of
sixteen weeks you will be at the end of this indebtedness.

The next letter is dated the following month, and is from Henry Howard,
an apparent pawnbroker.

QUEER STREET, LONDON, 10 March, 1593.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Actor:

These presents are to warn you that the time has six days since
passed in which you were to repay me 8 shillings, and thereby
redeem the property in pledge to me; namely, one Henry VIII. shirt
of mail and visor, and Portia's law book, and the green bag
therefor. Be warned that unless the 8 shillings and the usance
thereof be forthcoming, the town-crier shall notify the sale of the
sundry articles named.

The next letter, and the last in this period of the poet's career
(1593), is from Mordecai Shylock.

FLEET STREET, NEAR THE SIGN OF THE HOG IN ARMOR, NOV. 22, 1593.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

I have been active in the way you some days since besought me;
namely, the procuring for you of a loan of L5, that y