servant, he did so
for a period of two years, which, we may judge, was then the customary
term of such service. Assuming that Shakespeare bound himself to Burbage
in 1586-87, his term of service would have expired in 1588-89. Though we
possess no evidence that Shakespeare had produced any original plays at
this time, the strictures of Nashe and Greene make it apparent that he
had by then attained to the position of what might be called dramatic
critic for the Burbage interests. In this capacity he helped to choose
the plays purchased by his employers for the use of the companies in
which they were interested.

Greene had come at odds with theatrical managers several years before
Shakespeare could have attained to the position of reader for the
Burbages. Even some of Greene's earlier reflections, however, seem to be
directed against the management of the Shoreditch Theatre. In attacking
theatrical managers he writes in, what he calls, "mystical speeches,"
and transfigures the persons he attacks under fictitious characters and
names. In his _Planetomachia_, published in 1585, he caricatures one
actor-manager under the name of Valdracko, who is an actor in _Venus'
Tragedy_, one of the tales of the book. Valdracko is described as an old
and experienced actor, "stricken in age, melancholick, ruling after the
crabbed forwardness of his doting will, impartial, for he loved none but
himself, politic because experienced, familiar with none except for his
profit, skillful in dissembling, trusting no one, silent, covetous,
counting all things honest that were profitable." This characterisation
cannot possibly have referred to Shakespeare in the year 1585. When it
is noticed, however, that nearly all of Greene's later attacks are
directed against the Theatre and its fellows, it is probable that the
stubborn, wilful, and aged James Burbage is also here scurrilously
indicated. In writing of London and the actors in his "dark speeches,"
Greene refers to London as Rome and to the Shoreditch Theatre as the
"theatre in Rome." In his _Penelope's Web_ he writes: "They which smiled
at the theatre in Rome might as soon scoff at the rudeness of the scene
as give a plaudite at the perfection of the acting." While it is
Burbage's Theatre that is here referred to, it is evident that his
quarrel was not now with the actors--whom both he and Nashe praise in
their quality--but with the plays, their authors, and the theatrical
managers who patronis