No less than
three more efforts of the like kind came to fruition before the end of
the century.
[Footnote 10: Such a compilation had been contemplated in 1614, two
years before the dramatist died, by one of Shakespeare's own
associates, Thomas Heywood. Twenty-one years later, in 1635, Heywood
spoke of "committing to the public view" his summary _Lives of the
Poets_, but nothing more was heard of that project.]
In all four biographical manuals Shakespeare was accorded more or less
imposing space. Although Fuller's eccentric compliments were usually
repeated, they were mingled with far more extended and discriminating
tributes. Two of the compilers designated Shakespeare "the glory of
the English stage"; a third wrote, "I esteem his plays beyond any that
have ever been published in our language"; while the fourth quoted
with approval Dryden's fine phrase: "Shakespeare was the Man who of
all Modern and perhaps Ancient Poets had the largest and most
comprehensive Soul." But the avowed principles of these tantalising
volumes justify no expectation of finding in them solid information.
The biographical cataloguers of the seventeenth century did little
more than proclaim Shakespeare and the other great poets of the
country to be fit subjects for formal biography as soon as the type
should be matured.
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