e in
further pledge of your bill of L60, as was engaged between us
yesterday. It pains me to make known to you that, owing to the great
demands recently made upon the goldsmiths by her sacred Majesty,
money hath become very dear; and as it was not my own lent you, I
have been obliged to pay above the usance expected a further premium
of seventeen in the hundred, which I pray you to presently repay
me. I am told that shares in the Globe can now be bought at L15;
and inasmuch as yours were bought at L25, should you acquire other
shares at L15, it would serve to equate your havings.

The next letter, from the same broker, is written but a few days later.

THREADNEEDLE STREET, May 12, 1602.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

Acting as requested by you, I did one week ago buy for you three
shares in the Globe Theatre for L15 each, using in such purchase the
L15 given me by you, and L30, not of mine own, but which was
furnished me by a goldsmith of repute. Yesterday I learned that
shares were offered at L10 each, perchance from the efforts of
forestallers, as also from the preaching of a dissenter, who
fulminates that the end of the world is but three weeks away, which
hath induced great seriousness among the people. Unless you can pay
me, therefore, as much as L40, on the morrow I shall be constrained
to offer such shares to the highest bidder at the meeting of the
guild.

The next letter is also from the same Mordecai Shylock, and is dated
four days later.

THREADNEEDLE STREET, May 16, 1602.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

My earnest epistle to thee of four days since having elicited no
response, I did on the following day offer at the meeting of the
Brokers' Guild some of the shares of the stock in the Globe pledged
to me, and three shares were bidden at L9 each by my brother,
Nehemiah Shylock. As I offered next all the rest, one Henry
Wriothsley, Earl of Southampton, did ask to whom the shares
belonged, and when he was enlightened, did straightway take all the
shares and pay me the whole balance owing, and called me divers
opprobrious names. I answered not his railing with railing, for
sufferance is the badge of all our tribe, but such slander is illy
bestowed on one who has been your friend for long, and who was but
striving to avert his own destruction.

The next letter in order is