II
There now arises the crucial enquiry concerning the charge that William Shakspere was thus lampooned in 1592 by Robert Greene in his celebrated address “To those Gentlemen of his own fellowship that spend their wits making plaies”—inferentially, Marlowe, Nash and Peele. The exigency of the case demands, in the opinion of Shakspere’s modern biographers, the appropriation of Greene’s reproachful reference to Shakspere, (though no name is mentioned) yet the actor referred to by Greene the children in London streets well knew and acclaimed; and every student of Elizabethan literature, history and bibliography, should know that the reference is identifiable with William Kemp, the celebrated comic actor, jig-dancer, and jester, who was, in his own conceit, the “only Shake-scene (dance-scene) in a country,” “Shake-scene” and (dance-scene) being interchangeable compounds in the old meaning; but the votaries of Shakspere, posing as his biographers, in the urgency of their desire to remove doubts which had existed respecting the beginning of Shakspere’s early literary productivity as play-maker, or as an elaborator of the works of other men, prior to the year 1592, crave some notation of literary activity in the young man who went up from Stratford to London in 1587 (probably).
As the immortal plays were coming out anonymously and surreptitiously, there is a very strong desire to appropriate or embezzle “the only Shake-scene” reference, for, in the similarity and sound of the compound word “Shake-scene” in one of its elements there is that which fits it to receive a Shakespearean connotation, thus catching the popular fancy of Shakespere’s biographers and academic commentators. The compound word “Shake-scene” is made by the joining of two words generic in both its elements, and, in combination having generic characteristics pertaining to a large or comprehensive class—that is to say, the words “shake” and “scene” bear a sense in which they are descriptive of all the various things to which they are applied, and of all other things that share their common properties. The fanciful biographers of William Shakspere rely on these words of reproof and censure as being the initial notice of his worth and work which was to lift him from his place of obscurity in the year 1592. The meaning of Greene’s words in the idiom of the times, as in their contextural and natural sense, yield nothing which is confirmatory of such contention; for “dance” is connoted under the term “shake,” answering to the first element in “Shake-scene,” which in the old meaning meant “dance,” generic for quick action; and “scene” meant “stage” instead of “scenery” as in the modern meaning, for the theatres were then in a state of absolute nudity—in other words, “Shake-scene” meant a dancing performance upon the stage. In the plain unobtrusive language of our day, as well as in Elizabethan English, the word “shake”—the first element in “Shake-scene” is interchangeable with “dance,” and, when given a specialized meaning with a view to theatrical matters in the year 1592, with Kemp and Shakspere claimants for Greene’s reproof, who could doubt that the name which was so loudly acclaimed is identifiable with the spectacular luminary of the times, William Kemp? In setting up the comic actor and jig-dancer as claimant for Greene’s objurgation, we promise the reader attestative satisfaction by establishing the truth of our contention by particular passages in “the address” when explained by the context as transcriptive of Kemp’s actual history.
We now direct the attention of the reader specifically to the arrogant and boastful comedian, William Kemp. This man, according to Robert Greene’s view, was the personification of everything detestable in the actor—whose profession he despised. We think the biographers and commentators have mistaken the spectacularity of William Kemp for the rising sun of William Shakspere. In the closing years of the sixteenth, and the early years of the seventeenth, century there lived in London the most spectacular comic actor and clown of his day, the greatest “Shake-scene” or (dance-scene) of his generation, William Kemp, the worthy successor of Dick Tarlton. He had a continental reputation in 1589. This year also Nash dedicated to Kemp one of his attacks upon Martin Marprelate entitled “An Almond for a Parrot.” “There is ample contemporary evidence that Kemp was the greatest comic actor of his time in England, and his notoriety as a morris-dancer was so great that his journeyings were called dances. He was the court favorite famous for his improvisions, and loved by the public,” but hated by academic play-writers and ridiculed by ballad-makers. Kemp, in giving his first pamphlet “The Nine Days Wonder” to the press in 1599, turned upon his enemies and in retaliation called them “Shake-rags,” which he used derisively and as contumeliously as Greene had used “Shake-scene.” The use of the word “Shake-rags” by Kemp in his first and only published work is prima-facie evidence, that he also made use of the same term, orally and in his usual acrimonious manner, either against Greene, or those of his fellowship. The first element in the compound words “Shake-scene” and “Shake-rags” is governed by the same general law of movement or rhythmic action exemplified in dancing and rhymery. In 1640 Richard Brown in his “Antipodes” refers to the practice of jesters, in the days of Tarlton and Kemp, of introducing their own wit into poet’s plays, Kemp, writing in 1600, asserts that he spent his life in mad jigs and merry jests, although he was entrusted with many leading parts in farce or broad comedy. His dancing of jigs at the close of a play gave him his chief popularity (“Camden Society Papers”). “The jigs were performed to musical accompaniment and included the singing of comic words. One or two actors at times supported Kemp in his entertainment, dancing and singing with him. Some examples of the music to which Kemp danced are preserved in a manuscript collection of John Dowland now in the library of Cambridge University. The words were, doubtless, often improvised at the moment, but, on occasions, they were written out and published. The Stationers Register contains licenses for the publication of at least four sets of words for the jigs in which Kemp was the chief performer.”
According to Henslowe’s Diary, William Kemp was on June 15, 1592, a member of the company of the Lord Strange players under Henslowe and Alleyn, playing a principal comic part in the “Knack to Know a Knave,” and introducing into it what is called on the title page his “Applauded Merriments,” a technical term for a piece of theatrical buffoonery. In 1593 Nash warned Gabriel Harvey “lest William Kemp should make merriment of him.” “As early as 1586, Kemp was a member of a company of great importance which had arrived at Elsinore where the king held court. He remained two months in Denmark, and received a larger amount of board money than his fellow actors. In a letter of Sir Phillip Sidney, dated Utrecht March 24, 1586, he says, ‘I sent you a letter by Will (Kemp), my Lord Leicester’s jesting player.’ It was after his return from these foreign expeditions that we find Kemp uniting his exertions with those of Alleyn at the Rose and Fortune theatres, as Prince Henry’s servants. During this whole period from his return in 1586 from Denmark, to the year 1598, he did not stay uninterruptedly at the theatres of the Burbages. From February 19, to June 22, 1592, a part of Lord Leicester’s company played under Henslowe and Alleyn. In 1602 Kemp was again in London, acting under Henslowe and Alleyn as one of the Earl of Worcester’s men. We gather from Henslowe’s Diary that on March 10th, he borrowed in ready money twenty shillings.
“Kemp was a very popular performer as early as 1589. We shall see hereafter that he, following the example of Tarlton, was in the habit of extemporizing and introducing matter of his own that has not come down to us. ‘Let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them’ (Hamlet, Act. III, Scene II.). These words were aimed at Kemp, or one of his school, and it was about this date, according to Henslowe’s Diary, that Kemp went over from the Lord Chamberlain to the Lord Nottingham players. The most important duty of the clown was not to appear in the play itself, but to sing and dance his jig at the end of it, even after a tragedy, in order to soften the painful impression—(Camden Society Papers)—Kemp’s jig of ‘The Kitchen Stuff Woman’ was a screaming farce of rude verses, some spoken, others sung; of good and bad witticism; of extravagant acting and dancing. In the art of comic dancing Kemp was immoderately loved and admired. He paid professional visits to all the German and Italian courts, and was even summoned to dance his morris-dance before the Emperor Rudolph himself at Augsburg.
“Kemp combined shrewdness with his rough humor. With a view to extending his reputation and his profits, he announced in 1599, his intention of dancing a morris-dance from London to Norwich; but to his annoyance, every inaccurate report of his gambols was hawked about in publication at the time by book-sellers or ballad-makers, like Kemp’s farewell to the tune of ‘Kerry Merry Buff.’ In order to check the circulation of falsehood, Kemp offered, he tells us, his first pamphlet to the press (though at the time he was thought to have had a hand in writing the Anti-Martinist plays and pamphlets—five pieces erroneously attributed to his pen). The only copy known is in the Bodleian Library. The title ran ‘Kemp’s Nine Days Wonder,’ the wonder referred to being performed in a dance from London to Norwich then written by himself to satisfy his friends. A woodcut on the title page shows Kemp in elaborate costume with bells about his knees playing to the accompaniment of a drum and tabor, which a man at his side is playing. This pamphlet was entered in the Stationers Book April 22, 1600. The dedicatory salutation to Anna Fritton, one of her Majesty’s maids of honor, shows us how arrogant and conceited he must have been.
“Kemp started at seven o’clock in the morning on the first Monday in Lent, the starting point being in front of the Lord Mayor’s house, and half London was astir to see the beginning of the great exploit. His suite consisted of his taborer, Thomas Sly; his servant, William Bee; and his overseer or umpire, George Sprat, who was to see that everything was performed according to promise. According to custom, he put out a sum of money before his departure on condition of receiving thrice the amount on his safe return. His own fatigues caused him many delays and he did not arrive in Norwich until twenty-three days after his departure. He spent only nine days in actual dancing on the road. Kemp himself on this occasion contributed nothing to the music except the sound of the bells, which were attached to his gaiters. In Norwich thousands waited to receive him in the open market-place with an official concert. Kemp, as guest of the town, was entertained at its expense and received handsome presents from the Mayor who arranged a triumphal entry for him. The freedom of the Merchant Adventures Company was also conferred upon him, thereby assuring him a share in the yearly income to the amount of forty shillings—a pension for life. The very buskins in which he had performed his dance were nailed to the wall in the Norwich Guild Hall and preserved in perpetual memory of the exploit, which was long remembered in popular literature. In an epilogue Kemp announced that he was shortly to set forward as merrily as I may; whither, I myself know not,” and begged ballad makers to abstain from disseminating lying statements about him. Kemp’s humble request to the impudent generation of ballad-makers, as he terms them, reads in part, “My notable Shake-rags, the effect of my suit is discovered in the title of my supplication, but for your better understanding for that I know you to be a sort of witless bettle-heads that can understand nothing but that is knocked into your scalp; so farewell and crosse me no more with thy rabble of bold rhymes lest at my return I set a crosse on thy forehead that all men may know that for a fool.” It seems certain that Kemp kept his word in exhibiting his dancing powers on the continent. In Week’s “Ayers” (1688) mention is made of Kemp’s skipping into France. A ballad entitled “An Excellent New Medley” (dated about 1600) refers to his return from Rome. In the Elizabethan play “Jack Drum’s Entertainment” (1616), however, there is introduced a song to which Kemp’s morris dance is performed. Heywood, writing at this period, in his “Apology for Actors” (1612), says William Kemp was a comic actor of high reputation, as well in the favor of Her Majesty as in the opinion of the general audience. There is also a tribute from the pen of Richard Rathway (1618). Ben Jonson, William Rowley and John Marston also make mention of him.
Pretty much all that relates to the gambols of sportive Kemp in the foregoing pages is a mere transcription from the “Camden Society Papers.”
Our prime object is to establish Kemp’s eligibility as claimant for Greene’s censure, before alluded to. We are content to advance the claim of another if found more decisive. We would elect to name Robert Wilson, senior, an old enemy, doubtless, of Robert Greene, if we did not think that Kemp has the better claim to that distinction. According to Collier, Wilson was not only an excellent performer, but also a talented dramatist, especially renowned for his ready repartee. Some writers affirm that the authors of the dramas “Faire Emm” and “Martin Marsixtus” were one and the same person, and that this person was Robert Wilson, senior, author of “Three Ladies of London” and “Three Lords and Ladies of London,” the first published in 1584, and the other in 1590. “Faire Emm” and “Martin Marsixtus” having been posthumously printed, Greene was severe on the author of the former for his blasphemous introduction of quotations from the Bible into his love passages. “We know that the author attacked Greene’s own works in return and called them lascivious.” He had not read the works, but, then, an anonymous writer may not very scrupulously confine himself to the truth. “Loth I was to display myself to the world but for that I hope to dance under a mask and bluster out like the wind, which, though every man heareth yet none can in sight descrie.” “I must answer in print what they have offered on the stage” are the words of Greene.
Robert Wilson may be advanced as claimant for Greene’s reproof by some persons who are of the opinion that “upstart crow” was both actor and playwright. Supposition says Kemp also wrote pamphlets and plays, although at this time he had not given his first and only work to the press. It matters little at whom he aimed, Kemp or Wilson, so long as Shakespere was not the object of the aimer. In the Parish Register of St. Giles, Cripplegate, we read, “Buried, Robert Wilson, yeoman, a player, 20 Nov., 1600.”
These facts and concurring events in the life of William Kemp convince us that Shakspere was not, and Kemp very probably was, the person at whom Greene leveled his satire by bearing witness to his (Kemp’s) extemporizing power and his haughty and insolent demeanor in introducing improvisions and interpolations of his “own wit into poet’s plays.”
From the foregoing, it is evident that, at the time the letter was written, William Kemp enjoyed an unequaled and wide spread notoriety and transient fame, extending not only throughout England, but into foreign countries as well.
And further, by reason of his great prominence, in a calling which Greene loathed, and despised, he was brought easily within the range of the latter’s contemptuous designation, of “upstart crow.”