ne by one, debts accumulated, duns were incessant in their
attendance. To a proud and sensitive man this condition of things must
needs have been very galling; but it was not destined to last long.
Quite apart from his considerable receipts as a playwright, the poet's
earnings as an actor were substantial. The purchasing value of a
sovereign in Elizabeth's time would be equal to the value of nearly
eight pounds of our money, and Shakespeare's most learned biographers
are of opinion that he was a careful and a saving man. Member of a
leading company, enjoying the patronage of noblemen and the regard of
his Sovereign, frequently summoned to take part in special performances
at Court, it is likely that the poet's income as an actor was, within
comparatively few years of the start of his career, equal in our modern
currency to a sum nearer a thousand than five hundred a year. In later
years it was still higher. For revising other men's work his fees would
have varied between thirty and forty pounds, modern currency, and for
his own plays he may well have averaged twice as much, or even more. The
"benefit" system was already in vogue, and a dramatist could command an
extra fee if the first-night audience proved very appreciative of his
efforts. Shakespeare wrote his plays at the rate of two a year, and he
would have had something in the way of a royalty on the sale of his
poems, even though the plays brought him nothing as published work. We
may presume, then, that after a year or two he was able to maintain his
wife and children with some approach to comfort, and as the years passed
and reputation grew he found himself able to revisit his birthplace in
security, and to take definite steps to re-establish the family
fortunes, then at so low an ebb.

We read that after 1596, when the poet returned to Stratford with
London's honours thick upon him and plenty of money in his purse, his
father's debts were no longer the subject of proceedings at the local
court. We may presume, then, that his son had paid them and cleared the
way for John Shakespeare's strange application to the College of Heralds
for a coat of arms. Strange at first thought, but less remarkable if, as
is generally supposed, the father was acting for the son. It was and is
the custom for a coat of arms to be applied for by the eldest male of
the house, and the poet could not have made application in his father's
lifetime. The application may have received some in