of Greenwich Palace on the
evening of St Stephen's Day (the Boxing Day of subsequent generations)
in 1594.

Extant documentary evidence attests that Shakespeare and his two
associates performed one "comedy or interlude" on that night of Boxing
Day in 1594, and gave another "comedy or interlude" on the next night
but one; that the Lord Chamberlain paid the three men for their
services the sum of L13, 6s. 8d., and that the queen added to the
honorarium, as a personal proof of her satisfaction, the further sum
of L6, 13s. 4d. These were substantial sums in those days, when the
purchasing power of money was eight times as much as it is to-day, and
the three actors' reward would now be equivalent to L160.

Unhappily the record does not go beyond the payment of the money. What
words of commendation or encouragement Shakespeare received from his
royal auditor are not handed down, nor do we know for certain what
plays were performed on the great occasion. All the scenes came from
Shakespeare's repertory, and it is reasonable to infer that they were
drawn from _Love's Labour's Lost_, which was always popular in later
years at Elizabeth's Court, and from _The Comedy of Errors_, where the
farcical confusions and horse-play were after the queen's own heart
and robust taste. But nothing can be stated with absolute certainty
except that on December 29 Shakespeare travelled up the river from
Greenwich to London with a heavier purse and a lighter heart than on
his setting out. That the visit had in all ways been crowned with
success there is ample indirect evidence. He and his work had
fascinated his sovereign, and many a time during her remaining nine
years of life was she to seek delight again in the renderings of plays
by himself and his fellow-actors at her palaces on the banks of the
Thames. When Shakespeare was penning his new play of _A Midsummer
Night's Dream_ next year, he could not forbear to make a passing
obeisance of gallantry (in that vein for which the old spinster queen
was always thirsting) to "a fair vestal throned by the West," who
passed her life "in maiden meditation, fancy free."

Although literature and art can flourish without royal favour and
royal patronage, still it is rare that royal patronage has any other
effect than that of raising those who are its objects in the
estimation of contemporaries. The interest that Shakespeare's work
excited at Court was continuous throughout his life. When James I.
ascen