For participation in this scheme the Burbages selected the following men: William Shakespeare, not only a successful actor, but a poet who had already made his reputation as a writer of plays, and who gave promise of greater attainments; John Heminges, a good actor and an exceptionally shrewd man of business, who until his death managed the pecuniary affairs of the company with distinguished success; Augustine Phillips and Thomas Pope, both ranked with the best actors of the day;[381] and William Kempe, the greatest comedian since Tarleton, described in 1600 as "a player in interludes, and partly the Queen's Majesty's jester." When to this group we add Richard Burbage himself, the Roscius of his age, we have an organization of business, histrionic, and poetic ability that could not be surpassed. It was carefully planned, and it deserved the remarkable success which it attained. The superiority of the Globe Company over all others was acknowledged in the days of James and Charles, and to-day stands out as one of the most impressive facts in the history of the early drama. [Footnote 381: See, for example, Thomas Heywood's _Apology for Actors_ (1612). In enumerating the greatest actors of England he says: "Gabriel, Singer, Pope, Phillips, Sly--all the right I can do them is but this, that though they be dead, their deserts yet live in the remembrance of many."] According to the original plan there were to be ten shares in the new enterprise, the Burbage brothers holding between them one-half the stock, or two and a half shares each, and the five actors holding the other half, or one share each. All the expenses of leasing a site, erecting a building, and subsequently operating the building as a playhouse, and likewise all the profits to accrue therefrom, were to be divided among the sharers according to their several holdings. This organization, it should be understood, merely concerned the ownership of the building. Its members stood in the relation of landlords to the players, and were known by the technical name of "housekeepers." Wholly distinct was the organization of the players, known as the "company." The company, too, was divided into shares for the purpose of distributing its profits. The "housekeepers," in return for providing the building, received one-half of the income from the galleries; the company, for entertaining the public, received the other half of the income from the galleries, plus the takings at the doors. Those actors who were also "housekeepers" shared twice in the profits of the playhouse; and it was a part of the plan of the "housekeepers" to admit actors to be sharers in the building as soon as they attained eminence, or otherwise made their permanent connection with the playhouse desirable. Thus the two organizations, though entirely distinct, were interlocking.