Even
more important is Dryden's testimony that he was himself "first
taught" by D'Avenant "to admire" Shakespeare.
One of the most precise and valuable pieces of oral tradition which
directly owed currency to D'Avenant was the detailed story of the
generous gift of L1000, which Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of
Southampton, made the poet, "to enable him to go through with a
purchase which he heard he had a mind to." Rowe, Shakespeare's first
biographer, recorded this particular on the specific authority of
D'Avenant, who, he pointed out, "was probably very well acquainted
with the dramatist's affairs." At the same time it was often repeated
that D'Avenant was owner of a complimentary letter which James the
First had written to Shakespeare with his own hand. A literary
politician, John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave and Duke of
Buckinghamshire, who survived D'Avenant nearly half a century, said
that he had examined the epistle while it was in D'Avenant's keeping.
The publisher Lintot first printed the Duke's statement in the preface
to a new edition of Shakespeare's Poems in 1709.
D'Avenant's devotion did much for Shakespeare's memory; but it
stimulated others to do even more for the after-generations who wished
to know the whole truth about Shakespeare's life.
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