en known
previously. {31b} Richard Field, a native of Stratford, and son of a
friend of Shakespeare's father, had left Stratford in 1579 to serve an
apprenticeship with Thomas Vautrollier, the London printer. Shakespeare
and Field, who was made free of the Stationers' Company in 1587, were
soon associated as author and publisher; but the theory that Field found
work for Shakespeare in Vautrollier's printing-office is fanciful. {32a}
No more can be said for the attempt to prove that he obtained employment
as a lawyer's clerk. In view of his general quickness of apprehension,
Shakespeare's accurate use of legal terms, which deserves all the
attention that has been paid it, may be attributable in part to his
observation of the many legal processes in which his father was involved,
and in part to early intercourse with members of the Inns of Court. {32b}

Theatrical employment.

Tradition and common-sense alike point to one of the only two theatres
(The Theatre or The Curtain) that existed in London at the date of his
arrival as an early scene of his regular occupation. The compiler of
'Lives of the Poets' (1753) {32c} was the first to relate the story that
his original connection with the playhouse was as holder of the horses of
visitors outside the doors. According to the same compiler, the story
was related by D'Avenant to Betterton; but Rowe, to whom Betterton
communicated it, made no use of it. The two regular theatres of the time
were both reached on horseback by men of fashion, and the owner of The
Theatre, James Burbage, kept a livery stable at Smithfield. There is no
inherent improbability in the tale. Dr. Johnson's amplified version, in
which Shakespeare was represented as organising a service of boys for the
purpose of tending visitors' horses, sounds apocryphal.

A playhouse servitor.

There is every indication that Shakespeare was speedily offered
employment inside the playhouse. In 1587 the two chief companies of
actors, claiming respectively the nominal patronage of the Queen and Lord
Leicester, returned to London from a provincial tour, during which they
visited Stratford. Two subordinate companies, one of which claimed the
patronage of the Earl of Essex and the other that of Lord Stafford, also
performed in the town during the same year. Shakespeare's friends may
have called the attention of the strolling players to the homeless youth,
rumours of whose search for employment about t