for
Shakespeare's business success. He appears to have shrewdly invested his
money, and soon became part owner of the Globe and Blackfriars theaters, in
which his plays were presented by his own companies. His success and
popularity grew amazingly. Within a decade of his unnoticed arrival in
London he was one of the most famous actors and literary men in England.

Following his experimental work there came a succession of wonderful
plays,--_Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar,
Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra_. The great
tragedies of this period are associated with a period of gloom and sorrow
in the poet's life; but of its cause we have no knowledge. It may have been
this unknown sorrow which turned his thoughts back to Stratford and caused,
apparently, a dissatisfaction with his work and profession; but the latter
is generally attributed to other causes. Actors and playwrights were in his
day generally looked upon with suspicion or contempt; and Shakespeare, even
in the midst of success, seems to have looked forward to the time when he
could retire to Stratford to live the life of a farmer and country
gentleman. His own and his father's families were first released from debt;
then, in 1597, he bought New Place, the finest house in Stratford, and soon
added a tract of farming land to complete his estate. His profession may
have prevented his acquiring the title of "gentleman," or he may have only
followed a custom of the time[152] when he applied for and obtained a coat
of arms for his father, and so indirectly secured the title by inheritance.
His home visits grew more and more frequent till, about the year 1611, he
left London and retired permanently to Stratford.

Though still in the prime of life, Shakespeare soon abandoned his dramatic
work for the comfortable life of a country gentleman. Of his later plays,
_Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale_, and _Pericles_ show a decided
falling off from his previous work, and indicate another period of
experimentation; this time not to test his own powers but to catch the
fickle humor of the public. As is usually the case with a theater-going
people, they soon turned from serious drama to sentimental or more
questionable spectacles; and with Fletcher, who worked with Shakespeare and
succeeded him as the first playwright of London, the decline of the drama
had already begun. In 1609, however, occurred an event which gave