“The Thespian Amateur association of the Congregational church will give a performance of ‘King Henry Sixt’ in the town hall next Thursday evening.  Reuben Bobbin, our talented tinsmith, enacting the role of his majesty.  This play, being written by one of our townsmen and the greatest poet of the age; should be patronized by all.  Ice-cream will be served inter actes.”—­November 6th, 1589.

“We print elsewhere to-day an excerpt from the Sadler’s Wells Daily Blowpipe, critically examining into the literary work of W. Shakspeyr, late of this village.  The conclusion reached by our discriminating and able exchange is that Mr. Shackspeere is without question a mighty genius.  We have said so all along, and we have known him ten years.  Now that the Metropolitan press indorses us, we wonder what will the doddering dotard of the Avon Palladium have to say for his festering and flyblown self.”—­December 14th, 1589.

In 1592 the Palladium reprinted an opinion given by Robert Greene:  “Here is an upstart crow,” said Greene of Shakespeare, “beautified with our feathers, that supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the rest of you, and, being an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only shake-scene in the country.”  Another contemporaneous critic said of the scene between Brutus and Cassius in “Julius Caesar”:  “They are put there to play the bully and the buffoon, to show their activity of face and muscles.  They are to play a prize, a trial of skill and hugging and swaggering, like two drunken Hectors, for a two-penny reckoning.”  Shakespeare’s contemporaries—­or, at least, many of them—­sought to belittle his work in this wise.  Why, even in later years so acute a critic as John Dennis declared that “his lines are utterly void of celestial fire,” and Shaftesbury spoke of his “rude, unpolished style and antiquated phrase and wit.”

  In the year 1600, having written his chef d’oeuvre, the poet
  retired to Stratford for a brief period of rest.

“Our distinguished poet-townsman, Shakespyr, accompanied us on an angling last Thursday, and ye editor returned well-laden with spoils.  Two-score trouts and a multitude of dace and chubs were taken.  Spending the night at the Rose and Crown, we were hospitably entertained by Jerry Sellars and his estimable lady, who have recently added a buttery to their hostelry, and otherwise adorned the premises.  Over our brew in the evening the poet regaled us with reminiscences of life in London, and recited certain passages from his melancholy history of Hamlet, prince of Denmark, the same being a new and full mournful tragedic of mightie excellence.”—­The Tidings, May 13th, 1600.

In the London News-Letter, September 6th, 1600, there occurred this personal notice:  “At the Sweet Briar coffee-house Mr. A. Wilwhite, from Stratford-on-Avon, sojourneth as the guest of