happy.  The birth, in May, 1583, of his eldest child Susannah (who is said to have inherited something of his wit and practical ability, and who m. a Dr. John Hall), followed in the next year by that of twins, Hamnet and Judith, and the necessity of increased means, led to his departure from Stratford, whence he travelled on foot to London, where the next 23 years of his life were mainly spent.  The tradition that his departure was also caused by trouble into which he had got by killing the deer of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlcote, is credible.  Leaving Stratford in 1585 or the beginning of 1586, he seems at once to have turned to the theatres, where he soon found work, although, as Rowe, his first biographer, says, “in a very mean rank.”  It was not long, however, before he had opportunities of showing his capacities as an actor, with the result that he shortly became a member of one of the chief acting companies of the day, which was then under the patronage of the Earl of Leicester, and after being associated with the names of various other noblemen, at last on the accession of James I. became known as the King’s Company.  It played originally in “The Theatre” in Shoreditch, the first playhouse to be erected in England, and afterwards in the “Rose” on the Bankside, Southwark, the scene of the earliest successes of S. as an actor and playwright.  Subsequently to 1594, he acted occasionally in a playhouse in Newington Butts, and between 1595 and 1599 in the “Curtain.”  In the latter year the “Globe” was built on the Bankside, and 10 years later the “Blackfriars:”  and with these two, but especially with the former, the remainder of his professional life was associated.  It is not unlikely that he visited various provincial towns; but that he was ever in Scotland or on the Continent is improbable.  Among the plays in which he appeared were Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour and Sejanus, and in Hamlet he played “The Ghost;” and it is said that his brother Gilbert as an old man remembered his appearing as “Adam” in As You Like It.  By 1595 S. was famous and prosperous; his earlier plays had been written and acted, and his poems Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece, and probably most of the sonnets, had been pub. and received with extraordinary favour.  He had also powerful friends and patrons, including the Earl of Southampton, and was known at Court.  By the end of the century he is mentioned by Francis Meres (q.v.) as the greatest man of letters of the day, and his name had become so valuable that it was affixed by unscrupulous publishers to works, e.g. Locrine, Oldcastle, and The Yorkshire Tragedy, by other and often very inferior hands.  He had also resumed a close connection with Stratford, and was making the restoration of the family position there the object of his ambition.  In accordance with this he induced his f. to apply for a grant of arms, which was given, and he