and Marston, were imprisoned for having displeased the king by a jest in “Eastward Ho,”— “A nobleman to vindicate rank brought an action in the star-chamber against a person, who had orally addressed him as ‘Goodman Morley.’” The literati of those days found in scholastic learning, neither potency, nor promise, to abrogate class distinctions by giving a passport to high attainment in literature, poetry and philosophy. Ben Jonson says, “The time was when men were had in price for learning, now letters only make men vile. He is upbraidingly called a poet as if it were a contemptible nickname.” Mr. Lee tells us, that the state papers and business correspondence of Southampton were enlivened by references to his literary interest and his sympathy with the birth of English Drama. (P. 316.). “However, Mr. Lee has extracted no reference to Shakspere from the paper.” Southampton’s zest for the theatre is based on the statement contained in the “Sidney Papers” that he and his friend Lord Rutland “come not to court but pass away the time merely in going to plays every day.” When a new library for his old college, St. Johns, was in course of construction, Southampton collected books to the value of three hundred and sixty pounds wherewith to furnish it. Southampton’s literary tastes and sympathy with the drama cannot be drawn from his gift to the library, for it consisted largely of legends of the saints and mediaeval chronicles. When and where did William Shakspere acknowledge his obligations to the only patron of the player? According to Mr. Lee, who is known to biographical research, not one of the Shakespearean plays was dedicated to Southampton. The name “Shakspere” is conspicuously absent from among the distinguished writers of his day, who in panegyrical speech and song acclaimed Southampton’s release from prison in 1602. Francis Meres, a pedantic schoolmaster and Divinity student, had his “Palladis Tamia” registered September 7, 1598, and published shortly after. Meres in his “Tamia” writes of the mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare, and his “Venus and Adonis,” and his “Lucrece,” and his sugared sonnets to his friends, and enumerates twelve plays—though at the time three only had been published with his name. Like others of his contemporaries, Meres writes tritely of the honey-tongued, the honey sweet and the sugared. With him, everything written is mellifluent, but he says nothing of the man. In fact, no contemporary left on record any definite impression of Shakespeare’s personal character. Meres asserted that Ben Jonson was one of our best poets for tragedy, when at that time (1598) Jonson had not written a single tragedy, and but one comedy.