p" had reported, referred to this
poem, which had been held then for several months (as were his Sonnets
for years) in MS. "among his private friends."

At the time that Chettle published his _Kinde Heartes Dreame_
Shakespeare had already produced _The Comedy of Errors_ and _King John_,
and had evidently had a hand with Marlowe in the revision of _The True
Tragedie of the Duke of York_. It is unlikely, however, that Chettle had
witnessed a performance of _The Comedy of Errors_, which was produced
primarily for private presentation. _The True Tragedie of the Duke of
York_ and _The Troublesome Raigne of King John_ were both old plays by
other hands, and it was for publishing Greene's attack upon Shakespeare
for his share in the revision of the former, that Chettle now
apologised. He would therefore not regard his revision of _The
Troublesome Raigne_, if he knew of it, as original work. It is evident,
then, Shakespeare's "facetious grace in writing," of which Chettle had
heard, referred either to _Venus and Adonis_, or _The Comedy of Errors_,
or both, neither of which were known to the public at this time.

Friendship may perhaps be too strong a term to apply to the relations
that subsisted at this date between Southampton and Shakespeare, but we
have good proof in Chettle's references to him late in 1592, in the
dedication of _Venus and Adonis_ in 1593, and of _Lucrece_ in 1594, as
well as the first _book_ of Sonnets,--which I shall later show belongs
to the earlier period of their connection,--that the acquaintance
between these two men, at whatever period it may have commenced, was at
least in being towards the end of the year 1592. A brief outline and
examination of the recorded incidents of Southampton's life in these
early years may throw some new light upon the earliest stage of this
acquaintance, especially when those incidents and conditions are
considered _correlatively with the spirit and intention of the poems
which Shakespeare wrote for him, and dedicated to him a little later_.

Thomas Wriothesley, second Earl of Southampton, and father of
Shakespeare's patron, died on 4th October 1581. Henry, his only
surviving son, thus became Earl of Southampton before he had attained
his eighth birthday, and consequently became, and remained until his
majority, a ward of the Crown. The Court of Chancery was at that period
a much simpler institution than it is to-day, and Lord Burghley seems
personally to have exercised