Then came twins--1585. February.
Two blank years follow.
Then--1587--he makes a ten-year visit to London, leaving the family
behind.
Five blank years follow. During this period NOTHING HAPPENED TO HIM, as
far as anybody actually knows.
Then--1592--there is mention of him as an actor.
Next year--1593--his name appears in the official list of players.
Next year--1594--he played before the queen. A detail of no consequence:
other obscurities did it every year of the forty-five of her reign. And
remained obscure.
Three pretty full years follow. Full of play-acting. Then
In 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford.
Thirteen or fourteen busy years follow; years in which he accumulated
money, and also reputation as actor and manager.
Meantime his name, liberally and variously spelt, had become associated
with a number of great plays and poems, as (ostensibly) author of the
same.
Some of these, in these years and later, were pirated, but he made no
protest.
Then--1610-11--he returned to Stratford and settled down for good and
all, and busied himself in lending money, trading in tithes, trading in
land and houses; shirking a debt of forty-one shillings, borrowed by his
wife during his long desertion of his family; suing debtors for shillings
and coppers; being sued himself for shillings and coppers; and acting as
confederate to a neighbor who tried to rob the town of its rights in a
certain common, and did not succeed.
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