t the
theatrical robes and blank verse eloquence of playwrights who only received
for their best accepted works from five to twenty pounds; proprietors and
stage managers driving hard bargains with these brilliant, bacchanalian and
impecunious bohemians.

The winter and spring of 1587-8 was a busy time for William. In addition to
his prompting and casting the various plays for Burbage, he was engaged in
collecting his sonnets, putting finishing touches on "Venus and Adonis," as
well as composing the "Rape of Lucrece," a Roman epic, based on historic
truth.

He had also planned and mapped out the English play of "Henry the Fourth,"
taken from an old historical play, and was figuring on two
comedies--"Midsummer Night's Dream" and the "Merry Wives of Windsor."

Often when entering his workroom at twelve o'clock at night, or six o'clock
in the morning, I found him scratching, cutting, and delving away at his
literary bench and oak chest.

He could work at three or four plays alternately, and, from crude plots
taken out of ancient history, novels, religious or mythological tableaus,
devised his characters and put words in their mouths that burned in the
ears of British yeomen, tradesmen, professional sharpers and lords and
ladies who crowded the benches and boxes of the Blackfriars.

He reminded me of an expert cabinet-maker, who had piled up in a corner of
his shop a variety lot of rough timber, from which he fashioned and
manufactured the most exquisite dressers, sofas and bureaus, dovetailing
each piece of oak, rosewood or mahogany, with exact workmanship, and then
with the silken varnish of his genius, sending his wares out to the rushing
world to be admired, and transmitted to posterity, with perfect faith in
the endurance of his creations!

In putting the finishing touches on the fifth act of a play he would
quickly change to the composition of the first act of another, and, with
lightning rapidity embellish the characters in the third act of some
comedy, tragedy or history, that constantly occupied his multifarious
brain.

His working den at the Blackfriars was crowded with a mass of theatrical
literary productions, ancient and modern, while our lodging rooms were
piled up with Latin, Greek, Spanish and French translations.

Manager Burbage, Dick Field and even Chris Marlowe were constantly
patronizing the wonderful William, and supplied him with the iron ore
products of the ancient and middle ages, which he