Life of William Shakespeare of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. In 1985 E. A. J. Honigmann proposed that Shakespeare acted as a schoolmaster in Lancashire, on the evidence found in the 1581 will of a member of the Houghton family, referring to plays and play-clothes and asking his kinsman Thomas Hesketh to take care of "William Shakeshaft, now dwelling with me". Honigmann proposed that John Cottam, Shakespeare's reputed last schoolmaster, recommended the young man. Another idea is that Shakespeare may have joined Queen Elizabeth's Men in 1587, after the sudden death of actor William Knell in a fight while on a tour which later took
The Plays of William Shakespeare has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments. The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises therefore not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom of past ages, or gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable positions, that what has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood. Johnson then introduces Shakespeare: The poet, of whose works I have undertaken the revision, may now begin to assume the dignity of an