Will, supposing him to come upon the town in 1587, has now had, say, five years of such opportunities as were open to a man connected with the stage.  Among these, in that age, we may, perhaps, reckon a good deal of very mixed society—­writing men, bookish young blades, young blades who haunt the theatre, and sit on the stage, as was the custom of the gallants.

What follows?  Chaff follows, a kind of intimacy, a supper, perhaps, after the play, if an actor seems to be good company.  This is quite natural; the most modish young gallants are not so very dainty as to stand aloof from any amusing company.  They found it among prize-fighters, when Byron was young, and extremely conscious of the fact that he was a lord.  Moreover there were no women on the stage to distract the attention of the gallants.  The players, says Asinius Lupus, in Jonson’s Poetaster, “corrupt young gentry very much, I know it.”  I take the quotation from Mr. Greenwood. {106a} They could not corrupt the young gentry, if they were not pretty intimate with them.  From Ben’s Poetaster, which bristles with envy of the players, Mr. Greenwood also quotes a railing address by a copper captain to Histrio, a poor actor, “There are some of you players honest, gentlemanlike scoundrels, and suspected to ha’ some wit, as well as your poets, both at drinking and breaking of jests; and are companions for gallants.  A man may skelder ye, now and then, of half a dozen shillings or so.” {107a} We think of Nigel Olifaunt in The Fortunes of Nigel; but better gallants might choose to have some acquaintance with Shakespeare.

To suppose that young men of position would not form a playhouse acquaintanceship with an amusing and interesting actor seems to me to show misunderstanding of human nature.  The players were, when unprotected by men of rank, “vagabonds.”  The citizens of London, mainly Puritans, hated them mortally, but the young gallants were not Puritans.  The Court patronised the actors who performed Masques in palaces and great houses.  The wealth and splendid attire of the actors, their acquisition of land and of coats of arms infuriated the sweated playwrights.  Envy of the actors appears in the Cambridge “Parnassus” plays of c. 1600-2.  In the mouth of Will Kempe, who acted Dogberry in Shakespeare’s company, and was in favour, says Heywood, with Queen Elizabeth, the Cambridge authors put this brag:  “For Londoners, who of more report than Dick Burbage and Will Kempe?  He is not counted a gentleman that knows not Dick Burbage and Will Kempe.”  It is not my opinion that Shakespeare was, as Ben Jonson came to be, as much “in Society” as is possible for a mere literary man.  I do not, in fancy, see him wooing a Maid of Honour.  He was a man’s man, a peer might be interested in him as easily as in a jockey, a fencer, a tennis-player, a musician, que scais-je?  Southampton, discovering his qualities, may have been more interested, interested in a better way.