at Quiney was seeking an enlargement of the charter of
Stratford, with a view to an increase of revenue. In Sturley's previous
letter reference had been made to an attempt to gain "an ease and
discharge of such taxes and subsidies wherewith our town is like to be
charged, and I assure you I am in great fear and doubt by no means able
to pay." In this extreme condition of affairs Sturley heard with
satisfaction "that our countryman Mr. Wm. Shak. would procure us money,
which I will like of as I shall here when, and where, and how; and I
pray let not go that occasion if it may sort to any indifferent
conditions." The poet is probably referred to in still another letter,
of about the same period, to Richard Quiney, this time from his father
Adrian: "If you bargain with Wm. Sha., or receive money therefor, bring
your money home that you may." All of these documents carry the
unmistakable implication that William Shakespeare in London was regarded
by his fellow-townsmen as a person of resources, likely to be of service
to his friends in financial stress.

[Page Heading: Professional Progress]

If we return now to the evidences of Shakespeare's professional
progress, we shall see whence these resources were derived. Confining
ourselves still to explicit and unambiguous records, we find the year
1598 marking Shakespeare's emergence as actor and dramatist into a
somewhat opener publicity. The quarto editions of _Richard II_ and
_Love's Labour's Lost_, issued that year, are the first plays to exhibit
his name on the title-page; and in the 1616 folio edition of Ben
Jonson's works, attached to _Every Man in His Humour_, is the statement:
"This Comedie was first Acted in the yeere 1598 by the then L.
Chamberleyne his servants. The principal Comedians were Will.
Shakespeare, Aug. Philips, Hen. Condel, Will. Slye, Will. Kempe, Ric.
Burbadge, Joh. Hemings, Tho. Pope, Chr. Beeston, Joh. Dyke." These
evidences of prominence are more than corroborated by the famous passage
in the _Palladis Tamia_ (1598) of Francis Meres, in which he not only
compares the "mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare" with Ovid for
his _Venus and Adonis_, his _Lucrece_, "his sugred sonnets among his
private friends," but with Plautus and Seneca for his excellence "in
both kinds for the stage; for comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona,
his Errors, his Love Labors Lost, his Love Labours Wonne, his Midsummers
Night Dreame, and his Merchant of Venice; for tra