eading but to
curtail a tedious hour and altogether hidebound with affection to great
men's fancies," refer to Shakespeare in the capacity of reader to the
Earl of Southampton. In an attack which John Florio makes upon
Shakespeare in 1598, he also makes a similar reference to him in this
capacity. The expression "judgements butcher," like Nashe's "killcow,"
indicates Shakespeare's father's trade of butcher.

It was the obvious parallel between Chapman's, "when she will scarcely
be looked upon by others but with invocation, fasting, watching; yea not
without having drops of their souls like an heavenly familiar," and
Shakespeare's allusion, in Sonnet 86, to a poet who attempted to
supplant him in Southampton's favour--

"He nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence:
But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine"--

that led Professor Minto to suggest Chapman as the rival poet of the
Sonnets. In a former essay I have demonstrated the truth of Professor
Minto's suggestion.

Chapman's _Intonsi Catones_, or "Unshorn Catos," refers to the peculiar
manner in which Shakespeare wore his hair, which Greene describes as
"harsh and curled like a horse-mane," and is also a reference to his
provincial breeding and, presumed, lack of culture.

There are a number of indications in the few facts we possess of
Shakespeare's life in 1594, and also in his own and contemporary
publications, to warrant the assumption that the Earl of Southampton
bestowed some unusual evidence of his bounty upon him in this year. If
ever there was a period in his London career in which Shakespeare needed
financial assistance more than at other times it was in this year. Lord
Strange's company had now been acting under Henslowe's management for
two years. The financial condition of both Burbage and Shakespeare must
at this time have been at a low ebb. The plague had prevented Pembroke's
company playing in London for nearly a year, and we have seen that their
attempts to play in the provinces had resulted in failure and loss. In
about the middle of 1594, however, Lord Strange's players (now the Lord
Chamberlain's men) return to Burbage and the Theatre, when Shakespeare
becomes not only a member of the company, but, from the fact that his
name is mentioned with that of Kempe