In February, 1584-5, he became the father of twins, Hamnet and Judith, and in 1586, leaving his wife and children at Stratford, he went up with a theatrical company to London, where for three years he led a hard and obscure life.  He was at first a menial at the theatre; some say he held gentlemen’s horses at the door, others that he was call-boy, prompter, scene-shifter, minor actor.  At length he began to find his true vocation in altering and adapting plays for the stage.  This earlier practice, in every capacity, was of great value to him when he began to write plays of his own.  As an actor he never rose above mediocrity.  It is said that he played such parts as the Ghost in Hamlet, and Adam in As You Like It; but off the stage he became known for a ready wit and convivial humor.

His ready hand for any work caused him to prosper steadily, and so in 1589 we find his name the twelfth on the list of sixteen shareholders in the Blackfriars Theatre, one of the first play-houses built in London.  That he was steadily growing in public favor, as well as in private fortune, might be inferred from Spenser’s mention of him in the “Tears of the Muses,” published in 1591, if we were sure he was the person referred to.  If he was, this is the first great commendation he had received: 

    The man whom nature’s self had made,
      To mock herself and truth to imitate,
    With kindly counter under mimic shade,
      Our pleasant Willie.

There is, however, a doubt whether the reference is to him, as he had written very little as early as 1591.

VENUS AND ADONIS.—­In 1593 appeared his Venus and Adonis, which he now had the social position and interest to dedicate to the Earl of Southampton.  It is a harmonious and beautiful poem, but the display of libidinous passion in the goddess, however in keeping with her character and with the broad taste of the age, is disgusting to the refined reader, even while he acknowledges the great power of the poet.  In the same year was built the Globe Theatre, a hexagonal wooden structure, unroofed over the pit, but thatched over the stage and the galleries.  In this, too, Shakspeare was a shareholder.

THE RAPE OF LUCRECE.—­The Rape of Lucrece was published in 1594, and was dedicated to the same nobleman, who, after the custom of the period, became Shakspeare’s patron, and showed the value of his patronage by the gift to the poet of a thousand pounds.

Thus in making poetical versions of classical stories, which formed the imaginative pabulum of the age, and in readapting older plays, the poet was gaining that skill and power which were to produce his later immortal dramas.

These, as we shall see, he began to write as early as 1589, and continued to produce until 1612.