which shows him to have been in London at the time.  The vicar, from whose Diary I have already quoted, notes further that Shakespeare “frequented the plays all his younger time, but in his elder days he lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year.”  That the writer’s information was in all points literally correct, is not likely; but there is no doubt that the Poet continued to write for the stage after his retirement from it.

Of the nine plays still to be accounted for, Macbeth was played at the Globe in 1610, though probably written some time before; King Lear was acted at Whitehall in December, 1606, and three editions of it were issued in 1608; Antony and Cleopatra was entered at the Stationers’ in 1608; Cymbeline was performed some time in the Spring of 1611, and The Winter’s Tale in May the same year; King Henry the Eighth is not heard of till the burning of the Globe theatre in 1613, when it is described as “a new play.”  Of Coriolanus we have no notice whatever till after the Poet’s death; while of Othello and The Tempest we have no well-authenticated notices during his life; though there is a record, which has generally passed for authentic, noting them to have been acted at Court, the former on the 1st of November, 1604, and the latter on the 1st of November, 1611:  but that record, as in the case of Measure for Measure, has lately been pronounced spurious by the highest authority.

It would seem that after the year 1609, or thereabouts, the Poet’s reputation did not mount any higher during his life.  A new generation of dramatists was then rising into favour, who, with some excellences derived from him, united gross vices of their own, which however were well adapted to captivate the popular mind.  Moreover, King James himself, notwithstanding his liberality of patronage, was essentially a man of loose morals and low tastes; and his taking to Shakespeare at first probably grew more from the public voice, or perhaps from Southampton’s influence, than from his own preference.  Before the Poet’s death, we may trace the beginnings of that corruption which, rather stimulated than discouraged by Puritan bigotry and fanaticism, reached its height some seventy years later; though its course was for a while retarded by King Charles the First, who, whatever else may be said of him, was unquestionably a man of as high and elegant tastes in literature and art as England could boast of in his time.

Shakespeare, however, was by no means so little appreciated in his time as later generations have mainly supposed.  No man of that age was held in higher regard for his intellectual gifts; none drew forth more or stronger tributes of applause.  Kings, princes, lords, gentlemen, and, what is probably still better, common people, all united in paying homage to his transcendent genius.  The noble lines, already referred to, of Ben Jonson,—­than