isation of his responsibilities, as well as by the deplorable
condition into which his father's affairs had fallen. So, between the
years 1583, when he was married, and 1591-92, when we first begin to get
some hints of his literary activities, his Pegasus was in harness
earning bread and butter and, incidentally, gleaning worldly wisdom.
"Love's young dream" is over; the ecstatic quest of the "not impossible
she," almost at its inception, has ended in the cold anticlimax of an
enforced marriage.

We may dismiss the deer-stealing rumour as referring to this period. The
patient industry, sound judgment, and unusual business capacity
exhibited by Shakespeare from the time we begin to get actual glimpses
of his doings until the end of his career, belie the stupid and belated
rumour of his having been forced to leave Stratford as a fugitive from
justice on account of his participation in a poaching adventure upon Sir
Thomas Lucy's preserves. While it is apparent that this bucolic Justice
of the Peace is caricatured as Justice Shallow in _Henry IV., Part II._,
it is still more clear that this play was not written until the end of
the year 1598. When Shakespeare's methods of work are better understood
it will become evident that he did not in 1598 revenge an injury from
ten to twelve years old. Whatever may have been his animus against Sir
Thomas Lucy it undoubtedly pertained to conditions existent in the year
1598. In 1596 John Shakespeare's application for arms was made, but was
not finally granted until late in 1598, or early in 1599. It was still
under consideration by the College of Heralds, or had very recently been
granted when Shakespeare wrote _Henry IV., Part II._, late in 1598. It
is not likely that such a grant of arms would be made even by the most
friendly disposed authorities without consultation with, or reference
to, the local magistracy or gentry regarding the character and social
standing of the applicant. It is quite likely then that the rustic
squire resented--what such a character would undoubtedly have regarded
as a tradesman's presumption, and that Shakespeare, becoming cognizant
of his objections, answered them in kind by caricaturing the Lucy arms.
The critical student of Shakespeare's works will find that wherever a
reflection of a topical nature is palpable in his plays, that the thing,
or incident, referred to is almost invariably a matter of comparatively
recent experience. If it is a reflection of