Beeston died after a busy theatrical life, at eighty or upwards, in
1682. He belonged to a family of distinguished actors or
actor-managers. His father, brothers, and son were all, like himself,
prominent in the profession, and some of them were almost as
long-lived as himself. His own career combined with that of his father
covered more than a century, and both sedulously and with pride
cultivated intimacy with contemporary dramatic authors.
It was probably William Beeston's grandfather, also William Beeston,
to whom the satirical Elizabethan, Thomas Nash, dedicated in 1593,
with good-humoured irony, one of his insolent libels on Gabriel
Harvey, a scholar who had defamed the memory of a dead friend. Nash
laughed at his patron's struggles with syntax in his efforts to write
poetry, and at his indulgence in drink, which betrayed itself in his
red nose. But, in spite of Nash's characteristic frankness, he greeted
the first William Beeston as a boon companion who was generous in his
entertainment of threadbare scholars. Christopher Beeston, this man's
son, the father of the Shakespearean gossip, had in abundance the
hereditary taste for letters. He was at one time Shakespeare's
associate on the stage.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103