File:Shakespeare the player, and other papers illustrative of Shakespeare's individuality (1916) (14740221246).jpg

Identifier: shakespeareplaye00carg (find matches)
Title: Shakespeare the player, and other papers illustrative of Shakespeare's individuality
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Cargill, Alexander
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
Publisher: London : Constable and company ltd.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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on from time to timesubjected whatever of his manuscripts he left behind himin his reputed lodgings near by the Bears Garden at South-wark, or in the repositories of the Globe Theatre, in whosefortunes he had a considerable personal interest, to obviousrisks of loss, if not of actual destruction. And the mention in this connection of the famous GlobeTheatre suggests, finally, the chief accident by which, inthe total destruction of that theatre by fire in 1613, manyof the Shakespeare manuscripts were in all probabilitydestroyed. By that deplorable disaster a really tangiblereason, accounting for the disappearance of these writings,may confidently be offered. So far as the few extantrecords of the fire may be relied on, the calamity befell on acertain day in the month of June in the year named,and when a rehearsal of Henry VIII., which Shakespeare issupposed to have written (partly at least) a short timepreviously, was in progress.1 The cause of the fire is un- 1 See also at Appendix B.
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Si ^ 000 4 t 5 1 » 1 n £ 0 -a d I H I W ft? THE MYSTERY OF THE MANUSCRIPTS 127 known, although a contemporary writer alleged it to havebeen occasioned by some gunpowder used in the firing ofcannons in displaying the pomp and circumstance of thatgrand spectacular play. Be that as it may, the woodenerection was soon ablaze and destroyed with everything itcontained. It is not known if any lives were lost; butsurely it is not too much to surmise that in this conflagrationmany of the manuscripts of the actor-poet perished for ever.This, let it be remembered, was the theatre where his playswere, at that period, originally staged. In its fortunesShakespeare himself had a considerable interest. PhilipHenslowe was its acting-manager, and to him initiallyShakespeare made over the copyright of his plays, as thesewere written, for certain sums of money, with which he wasenabled to establish himself a proprietor of houses in NewPlace and elsewhere at Stratford-on-A von. What morelikely, therefor

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