im after death as a "worthy friend and fellow"; and Jonson
handed down the general tradition of his time when he described him as
"indeed honest, and of an open and free nature."

[Sidenote: His early work.]

His profession as an actor was at any rate of essential service to him
in the poetic career which he soon undertook. Not only did it give him
the sense of theatrical necessities which makes his plays so effective
on the boards, but it enabled him to bring his pieces as he wrote them
to the test of the stage. If there is any truth in Jonson's statement
that Shakspere never blotted a line, there is no justice in the censure
which it implies on his carelessness or incorrectness. The conditions of
poetic publication were in fact wholly different from those of our own
day. A drama remained for years in manuscript as an acting piece,
subject to continual revision and amendment; and every rehearsal and
representation afforded hints for change which we know the young poet
was far from neglecting. The chance which has preserved an earlier
edition of his "Hamlet" shows in what an unsparing way Shakspere could
recast even the finest products of his genius. Five years after the
supposed date of his arrival in London he was already famous as a
dramatist. Greene speaks bitterly of him under the name of "Shakescene"
as an "upstart crow beautified with our feathers," a sneer which points
either to his celebrity as an actor or to his preparation for loftier
flights by fitting pieces of his predecessors for the stage. He was
soon partner in the theatre, actor, and playwright; and another
nickname, that of "Johannes Factotum" or Jack-of-all-Trades, shows his
readiness to take all honest work which came to hand.

[Sidenote: His first plays.]

With his publication in 1593 of the poem of "Venus and Adonis," "the
first heir of my invention," as Shakspere calls it, the period of
independent creation fairly began. The date of its publication was a
very memorable one. The "Faerie Queen" had appeared only three years
before, and had placed Spenser without a rival at the head of English
poetry. On the other hand the two leading dramatists of the time passed
at this moment suddenly away. Greene died in poverty and self-reproach
in the house of a poor shoemaker. "Doll," he wrote to the wife he had
abandoned, "I charge thee, by the love of our youth and by my soul's
rest, that thou wilt see this man paid; for if he and his wife had not
succo