and Richard Burbage in the Court
records of the payment for performances in December 1594, it is evident
that he was then also a leading sharer in the company.

In parting from Henslowe and reorganising under Burbage in 1594 it is
apparent that the reorganisers of the Lord Chamberlain's men would need
considerable capital if we may judge the financial affairs of this
company by those of the Lord Admiral's company (subsequently Lord
Nottingham's men) while under Henslowe's management. On 13th October
1599 Henslowe records in his _Diary_: "Received with the company of my
Lord of Nottingham's men to this place, beinge the 13th of October 1599,
and it doth appeare that I have received of the debte which they owe
unto me three hundred fifty and eight pounds." This was only a partial
payment of this company's debt, which evidently was considerably in
excess of this amount. It is unlikely, then, that Lord Strange's company
was free of debt to him at the end of their term under his management.

Shakespeare's earliest biographer, Nicholas Rowe, records, on the
authority of Sir William Davenant, "that my Lord Southampton at one time
gave him a thousand pounds to enable him to go through with a purchase
which he heard he had a mind to." Whatever truth there may be as to the
amount of money here mentioned, it is apparent that Southampton
evidenced his bounty to Shakespeare in 1594 in some substantial manner,
which quickly became noised abroad among the poets and writers who
sought patronage. Several of these poets in approaching Southampton
refer inferentially to his munificence to Shakespeare. In 1594 Barnabe
Barnes writes:

"Vouchsafe right virtuous Lord with gracious eyes
_Those heavenly lamps which give the muses light_
To view my muse with your judicial sight," etc.

The words italicised evidently refer to Southampton's acceptance of
_Venus and Adonis_ in the preceding year. Later in 1594, Thomas Nashe
dedicated _The Life of Jack Wilton_ to Southampton, and in a dedicatory
Sonnet to a poem preserved in the Rawlinson MS. in the Bodleian Library,
entitled _The Choice of Valentines_, Nashe apologises for the salacious
nature of the poem, and in an appended Sonnet evidently refers to
Shakespeare's _Venus and Adonis_ in the line italicised below:

"Thus hath my pen presumed to please my friend,
Oh might'st thou likewise please Apollo's eye;
No, honor brooks no such impietie,
_Yet Ovids Wanto