two other playhouses were in operation; and still others sprang up
from time to time. The Blackfriars and some others were without the
limits of the corporation, in what were called "the Liberties." The
Mayor and Aldermen of London were from the first decidedly hostile to
all such establishments, and did their best to exclude them the City
and Liberties; but the Court, many of the chief nobility, and, which
was still more, the common people favoured them. The whole mind indeed
of Puritanism was utterly down on stage-plays of all sorts and in
every shape. But it did not go to work the right way: it should have
stopped off the demand for them. This, however, it could not do; for
the Drama was at that time, as it long had been, an intense national
passion: the people would have plays, and could not be converted from
the love of them.

From what we shall presently see, it would be unreasonable not to
suppose, that by the year 1590 the Poet was well started in his
dramatic career; and that the effect of his cunning labours was
beginning even then to be felt by his senior fellows in that line.
Allowing him to have entered the theatre in 1586, when he was
twenty-two years of age, he must have made good use of his time, and
worked onwards with surprising speed, during those four years; though
whether he got ahead more by his acting or his writing, we have no
certain knowledge. In tragic parts, none of the company could shine
beside the younger Burbadge; while Greene, and still more Kempe,
another of the band, left small chance of distinction in comic parts.
Aubrey, as before quoted, tells us that Shakespeare "was a handsome,
well-shaped man," which is no slight matter on the stage; and adds,
"He did act exceedingly well." Rowe "could never meet with any further
account of him this way, than that the top of his performance was the
Ghost in his own _Hamlet_." But this part, to be fairly dealt with,