business rather than to an exclusively histrionic connection with
the Burbages in his earlier London years. These evidences are confirmed
by the gossip of William Castle, who was parish clerk of Stratford for
many years, and who was born two years before Shakespeare died, and,
consequently, must have known and talked with many people who had known
Shakespeare. He frequently told visitors that Shakespeare was first
received in the playhouse as "a servitor." When the legal usage and
business customs of that period, as exhibited in legal records and in
Henslowe's _Diary_, are considered it becomes apparent that a youth of
from twenty-one to twenty-three years of age, newly come to London, with
no previous training in any particular capacity, with a bankrupt father
and without means of his own, could not very well associate himself with
a business concern in any other capacity than that of an indentured
apprentice or bonded and hired servant. Without such a legally ratified
connection with some employer, a youth of Shakespeare's poverty and
social degree, and a stranger in London, would be classed before the law
as a masterless man and a vagrant. The term "servitor" then does not
refer to his theatrical capacity--as stated by Halliwell-Phillipps--but
to his legal relations with James Burbage, his employer. Only sharers in
a company were classed as "servants" to the nobleman under whose
patronage they worked; the hired men were servants to the sharers, or to
the theatrical owner for whom they worked.

Being connected with the Burbages between 1586-87 to 1588-89, whatever
theatrical training Shakespeare may have received came undoubtedly from
his association with the Lord Admiral's and Lord Hunsdon's companies,
which performed at the Theatre in Shoreditch as one company during
these years, combining in the same manner as Strange's company and the
Lord Admiral's company did, under Henslowe and Alleyn at the Rose,
between 1592-94. Though in later life he was reputed to be a fair actor,
he never achieved great reputation in this capacity; it was plainly not
to acting that he devoted himself most seriously during these early
years. Working in the capacity of handy-man or, as Greene calls him,
_Johannes factotum_, for the Burbages, besides, possibly, taking general
charge of their stabling arrangements,--as tradition asserts,--he also,
no doubt, took care of the theatrical properties, which included the
MSS. and players' copies of