Shakespeare scaled the tragic heights of _Romeo and
Juliet_, and he was hailed as the prophet of a new world of art.
Fashionable London society then, as now, befriended the theatre.
Cultivated noblemen offered their patronage to promising writers for
the stage, and Shakespeare soon gained the ear of the young Earl of
Southampton, one of the most accomplished and handsome of the queen's
noble courtiers, who was said to spend nearly all his time in going
to the playhouse every day. It was at Southampton's suggestion, that,
in the week preceding the Christmas of 1594, the Lord Chamberlain sent
word to The Theatre in Shoreditch, where Shakespeare was at work as
playwright and actor, that the poet was expected at Court on two days
following Christmas, in order to give his sovereign on the two
evenings a taste of his quality. He was to act before her in his own
plays.

It cannot have been Shakespeare's promise as an actor that led to the
royal summons. His histrionic fame had not progressed at the same rate
as his literary repute. He was never to win the laurels of a great
actor. His most conspicuous triumph on the stage was achieved in
middle life as the Ghost in his own _Hamlet_, and he ordinarily
confined his efforts to old men of secondary rank. Ample compensation
was provided by his companions for his personal deficiencies as an
actor on his first visit to Court; he was to come supported by actors
of the highest eminence in their generation. Directions were given
that the greatest of the tragic actors of the day, Richard Burbage,
and the greatest of the comic actors, William Kemp, were to bear the
young actor-dramatist company. With neither of these was Shakespeare's
histrionic position then or at any time comparable. For years they
were leaders of the acting profession.

Shakespeare's relations with Burbage and Kemp were close, both
privately and professionally. Almost all Shakespeare's great tragic
characters were created on the stage by Burbage, who had lately roused
London to enthusiasm by his stirring presentation of Shakespeare's
_Richard III._ for the first time. As long as Kemp lived, he conferred
a like service on many of Shakespeare's comic characters; and he had
recently proved his worth as a Shakespearean comedian by his original
rendering of the part of Peter, the Nurse's graceless attendant, in
_Romeo and Juliet_. Thus stoutly backed, Shakespeare appeared for the
first time in the royal presence-chamber