And she made the celebration of Christmas of 1594 more
memorable than any other in the annals of her reign or in the literary
history of the country by summoning Shakespeare to Court. It was less
than eight years since the poet had first set foot in the metropolis.
His career was little more than opened. But by 1594 Shakespeare had
given his countrymen unmistakable indications of the stuff of which he
was made. His progress had been more sure than rapid. A young man of
two-and-twenty, burdened with a wife and three children, he had left
his home in the little country town of Stratford-on-Avon in 1586 to
seek his fortune in London. Without friends, without money, he had,
like any other stage-struck youth, set his heart on becoming an actor
in the metropolis. Fortune favoured him. He sought and won the humble
office of call-boy in a London playhouse; but no sooner had his foot
touched the lowest rung of the theatrical ladder than his genius
taught him that the topmost rung was within his reach. He tried his
hand on the revision of an old play, and the manager was not slow to
recognise an unmatched gift for dramatic writing.
It was not probably till 1591, when Shakespeare was twenty-seven, that
his earliest original play, _Love's Labour's Lost_, was performed.
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