to us an order on the Steward of the Globe Theatre for 20 shillings
per week of your stipend therein. This will leave to you yet 2
shillings per week, which, with prudence, will yield to you the
comforts, if not the luxuries, of subsistence. In ten weeks the face
of the bill will be thus repaid. For his forbearance in the matter
of time, which hath most seriously inconvenienced him, he requires
that you shall pay him the further sum of £2 as usury, and likewise
that you do liquidate and save him harmless from the charges of us,
his solicitors, which charges, from the number of grave and
complicated questions which have become a part of this case and
demanded solution, we are unable to make less than £4. We should say
guineas, but your evident distress hath moved us to gentleness and
mercy. These added sums are to be likewise embraced in the Steward's
order, and paid at the same rate as the substance of the bill, and
should you embrace this compassionate tender, in the brief period of
sixteen weeks you will be at the end of this indebtedness.

The next letter is dated the following month, and is from Henry Howard,
an apparent pawnbroker.

QUEER STREET, LONDON, 10 March, 1593.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Actor:

These presents are to warn you that the time has six days since
passed in which you were to repay me 8 shillings, and thereby
redeem the property in pledge to me; namely, one Henry VIII. shirt
of mail and visor, and Portia's law book, and the green bag
therefor. Be warned that unless the 8 shillings and the usance
thereof be forthcoming, the town-crier shall notify the sale of the