Life of William Shakespeare of his plays, presumably as a selling point. There is a tradition that Shakespeare, in addition to writing many of the plays his company enacted and concerned with business and financial details as part-owner of the company, continued to act in various parts, such as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Adam in "As You Like It", and the Chorus in "Henry V". He appears to have moved across the River Thames to Southwark sometime around 1599. In 1604, Shakespeare acted as a matchmaker for his landlord's daughter. Legal documents from 1612, when the case was brought to trial, show that
The Plays of William Shakespeare a projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man of parts and genius". Years later, Edmond Malone, an important Shakespearean scholar and friend of Johnson's, said that Johnson's "vigorous and comprehensive understanding threw more light on his authour than all his predecessors had done", and that the "Preface" was "the finest composition in our language". Adam Smith said that the "Preface" was "the most "manly" piece of criticism that was ever published in any country." In 1908, Walter Raleigh claimed that Johnson helped the reader to "go straight to Shakespeare's meaning, while the philological and antiquarian commentators kill one