It
showed the hand of a beginner; it abounded in trivial witticisms. But
above all, there shone out clearly and unmistakably the dramatic and
poetic fire, the humorous outlook on life, the insight into human
feeling, which were to inspire Titanic achievements in the future.
Soon after, Shakespeare scaled the tragic heights of _Romeo and
Juliet_, and he was hailed as the prophet of a new world of art.
Fashionable London society then, as now, befriended the theatre.
Cultivated noblemen offered their patronage to promising writers for
the stage, and Shakespeare soon gained the ear of the young Earl of
Southampton, one of the most accomplished and handsome of the queen's
noble courtiers, who was said to spend nearly all his time in going
to the playhouse every day. It was at Southampton's suggestion, that,
in the week preceding the Christmas of 1594, the Lord Chamberlain sent
word to The Theatre in Shoreditch, where Shakespeare was at work as
playwright and actor, that the poet was expected at Court on two days
following Christmas, in order to give his sovereign on the two
evenings a taste of his quality. He was to act before her in his own
plays.
It cannot have been Shakespeare's promise as an actor that led to the
royal summons.
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