ittle,
more intimately to apprehend the personality of Shakespeare and to
construct a more definite chronology of his doings, the shifting lights
of evidence in the form of tradition and legend, which in the past have
dazed, or misled, searchers, either disappear or take on new values.
When we remember that Shakespeare, when he went to London, was about
twenty-three years old, the father of a family, and the son of an
ex-bailiff of the not unimportant town of Stratford, we may dismiss as
a fanciful distortion the story of his holding horses at the theatre
doors for stray pennies; and in the added embellishment of the story
which describes this Orpheon, yet thrifty street Arab, as organising for
this purpose a band of his mates who, to prove their honesty when
soliciting the care of a horse, would claim to be "Shakespeare's boys,"
we may find a clue to the actual facts of the case. We have hitherto had
no definite record of, nor recognised allusion to, Shakespeare between
the year 1587, when his name is mentioned with his father's in a legal
document, and the year 1592, when we have the well-known allusions of
Robert Greene. Greene's references in this latter year reveal
Shakespeare as having already entered upon his literary career, and at
the same time, in the phrases "upstart crow beautified with our
feathers" and "the onlie Shake-scene in the country," seem to point to
him as an actor; the expression "_Johannes factotum_" seems still
further to widen the scope of his activities and to indicate the fact
that Shakespeare wrought in several capacities for his masters during
his earlier theatrical career. Part of his first work for his employers,
it is possible, consisted in taking charge of the stabling arrangements
for the horses of the gentlemen and noblemen who frequented the Theatre.
The expression "rude groome," which Greene uses in his attack upon
Shakespeare, is evidently used as pointing at his work in this capacity.
The story of the youths who introduced themselves as "Shakespeare's
boys" seems to indicate that he was the recognised representative of the
theatrical proprietors who provided accommodations for this purpose. It
is to be assumed then that Shakespeare, having charge of this work,
would upon occasions come personally in contact with the noblemen and
gentry who frequented Burbage's Theatre, which was situated in the
parish of Shoreditch, then regarded as the outskirts of the City.

Of the several reco