But nothing can be stated with absolute certainty
except that on December 29 Shakespeare travelled up the river from
Greenwich to London with a heavier purse and a lighter heart than on
his setting out. That the visit had in all ways been crowned with
success there is ample indirect evidence. He and his work had
fascinated his sovereign, and many a time during her remaining nine
years of life was she to seek delight again in the renderings of plays
by himself and his fellow-actors at her palaces on the banks of the
Thames. When Shakespeare was penning his new play of _A Midsummer
Night's Dream_ next year, he could not forbear to make a passing
obeisance of gallantry (in that vein for which the old spinster queen
was always thirsting) to "a fair vestal throned by the West," who
passed her life "in maiden meditation, fancy free."
Although literature and art can flourish without royal favour and
royal patronage, still it is rare that royal patronage has any other
effect than that of raising those who are its objects in the
estimation of contemporaries. The interest that Shakespeare's work
excited at Court was continuous throughout his life. When James I.
ascended the throne, no author was more frequently honoured by
"command" performances of his plays in the presence of the sovereign.
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