he angry edicts of
over-scrupulous Lord Mayors, took shelter in the Precinct, and there, in
1578, erected a playhouse (Playhouse Yard). Every attempt was in vain
made to crush the intruders. About the year 1586, according to the best
authorities, the young Shakespeare came to London and joined the company
at the Blackfriars Theatre. Only three years later we find the new
arrival--and this is one of the unsolvable mysteries of Shakespeare's
life--one of sixteen sharers in the prosperous though persecuted
theatre. It is true that Mr. Halliwell has lately discovered that he was
not exactly a proprietor, but only an actor, receiving a share of the
profits of the house, exclusive of the galleries (the boxes and dress
circle of those days), but this is, after all, only a lessening of the
difficulty; and it is almost as remarkable that a young, unknown
Warwickshire poet should receive such profits as it is that he should
have held a sixteenth of the whole property. Without the generous
patronage of such patrons as the Earl of Southampton or Lord Brooke, how
could the young actor have thriven? He was only twenty-six, and may have
written "Venus and Adonis" or "Lucrece;" yet the first of these poems
was not published till 1593. He may already, it is true, have adapted
one or two tolerably successful historical plays, and, as Mr. Collier
thinks, might have written _The Comedy of Errors_, _Love's Labour's
Lost_, or _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_. One thing is certain, that in
1587 five companies of players, including the Blackfriars Company,
performed at Stratford, and in his native town Mr. Collier thinks
Shakespeare first proved himself useful to his new comrades.

In 1589 the Lord Mayor closed two theatres for ridiculing the Puritans.
Burbage and his friends, alarmed at this, petitioned the Privy Council,
and pleaded that they had never introduced into their plays matters of
state or religion. The Blackfriars company, in 1593, began to build a
summer theatre, the Globe, in Southwark; and Mr. Collier, remembering
that this was the very year "Venus and Adonis" was published, attributes
some great gift of the Earl of Southampton to Shakespeare to have
immediately followed this poem, which was dedicated to him. By 1594 the
poet had written _King Richard II._ and _King Richard III._, and
Burbage's son Richard had made himself famous as the first
representative of the crook-backed king. In 1596 we find Shakespeare and
his partners (on