h Greene
against him at this period.

It shall be made clear that _Titus Andronicus_, which was acted as a new
play by Sussex's company under Henslowe on 23rd January 1594, was also
written by Peele, or rewritten from _Titus and Vespasian_, which is now
lost, but which--being written for Strange's men in the previous
year--we may assume was also Peele's, or else his first revision of a
still older play.

Some time before the middle of 1594 a new reorganisation of companies
took place, the Admiral's and the Lord Chamberlain's separating and
absorbing men from Pembroke's and Sussex's companies, which ceased to
exist as active entities at this time, though a portion of Pembroke's
men--while working with the Admiral's men between 1594 and
1597--retained their own licence and attempted to operate separately in
the latter year, but, failing, returned to Henslowe and became Admiral's
men. A few of their members whom Langley, the manager of the Swan
Theatre, had taken from them, struggled on as Pembroke's men for a year
or two and finally disappeared from the records.

A consideration of the affairs of Lord Strange's men--now the Lord
Chamberlain's men--while under Henslowe's financial management between
1592 and 1594, and of Pembroke's company's circumstances during the same
period, with their enforced provincial tours owing to the plague in
London, will show that these were lean years for both organisations, and
for the men composing them; _yet in December 1594--as is shown by the
Court records of March 1595--Shakespeare appears as a leading sharer in
one of the most important theatrical companies in England_. I shall
advance evidence to show that his position in this powerful company, and
its apparent prosperity at this time, were due to financial assistance
accorded him in 1594 by his patron, the Earl of Southampton, to whom in
this year he dedicated _Lucrece_, and in the preceding year _Venus and
Adonis_.

If these hypotheses be demonstrated it shall appear that though
Shakespeare, as Burbage's employee in the conduct of the Theatre, had
theatrical relations with the Earl of Leicester's company that he was
not a member of that company, and that if he may be regarded as having
become a member of any company in 1586-87, when he came to London, he
was a member of the Lord Chamberlain's company,--which was owned by
James Burbage,--_but as a bonded and hired servant or servitor to James
Burbage for a term of years which en