. William Shakespere : a biography. at the time he composed this treatise, but has not the slightest allusion to Shak-speare, whose plays, had they then appeared, would doubtless have rescued the English stage from thecontempt which is thrown upon it by the accomplished writer; and to which it was justly exposed bythe wretched compositions of those who preceded our poet. The Defence of Poesie was not pub-lished till 1595, but must have been written some years before. There is one slight objection to thisari:!ument: Sir Philip Sidney was killed at the battle of Zutphen, in the year 1586; and it
. William Shakespere : a biography. at the time he composed this treatise, but has not the slightest allusion to Shak-speare, whose plays, had they then appeared, would doubtless have rescued the English stage from thecontempt which is thrown upon it by the accomplished writer; and to which it was justly exposed bythe wretched compositions of those who preceded our poet. The Defence of Poesie was not pub-lished till 1595, but must have been written some years before. There is one slight objection to thisari:!ument: Sir Philip Sidney was killed at the battle of Zutphen, in the year 1586; and it wouldreally have been somewhat surprising if the illustrious author of the Defence of Poesy could haveincluded Shakspere in his account of the low state of dramatic literatui-e at the time he composedthis treatise, which was in effect a reply to The School of Abuse of Gosson, and to other contro-versialists of the puritanical faction, who were loudest about 1580. At that time Shakspere wai-fiixtcen yeai-s of age. =«> 7 /^ ip-. [The Misfortunes of Aitlmr.] CHAPTER II. THE COUET AT GKEENWICH. At the close of the year 1587, and the opening, according to our new style, of1588, the Queens Majesty being at Greenwich, there were showed, pre-sented, and enacted before her Highness, betwixt Christmas and Shrovetide,seven plays, besides feats of activity and other shows, by the children of Pauls,her Majestys own servants, and the gentlemen of Grays Inn, on whom wasemployed divers remnants of cloth of gold and other stuff out of the store.*Such is the record of the accounts of the revels at Court. Of the seven playsperformed by the children of Pauls and the Queens servants there is no me-morial ; b\it we learn from tlie title of a book of uncommon rarity of what A BIOGHAIMIY. nature were the Certaiiie Devises and Sliewes presented iler Majeslie by theGentlemen of Grayes Inne, at Her Highnesse Court in Greenwich, the twenty-eighth day of Februarie, in the thirtieth yeare of Her Majest
Size: 1775px × 1407px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookpublisherlondon, booksubjectshakespearewill
