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In November, 1589, the company acting at the Blackfriars Theatre thought it would be advantageous to their interests to send in to the Privy Council a memorial, certifying that they had never given cause of displeasure by introducing upon the stage ‘matters of State or Religion’. The actors who signed this memorial styled themselves ‘Her Majesty’s Poor Players’, and among them appears the name of William Shakspere. We here meet the Poet’s name for the first time after he had left his home at Stratford-on-Avon, about four years previously. What his employment had been in the intervening period is a question which few of his biographers have cared to ask, and which not one has answered.

It is usually supposed that immediately upon his arrival in London he became in some way associated with the Stage, – but there is no evidence of this. On the contrary, we shall give reasons for believing that coming to London poor, needy, and in search of employment, he was immediately taken into the service of Vautrollier the Printer.

Thomas Vautrollier, entitled in his patents ‘typographus Londinensis, in claustro vulgo Blackfriers commorans’, was a Frenchman who came to England at the commencement of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. He was admitted a brother of the Stationers’ Company in 1564, and commenced business as Printer and Publisher in Blackfriars, working in the same premises up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1588. His character as a scholar stands high, and his workmanship is excellent. He had a privilege, or monopoly, for the printing and sale of certain books, as all the chief Printers then had. Shortly before his death he married his daughter to Richard Field, who for this reason, and because he succeeded to the premises and business of the widow, is erroneously supposed by Ames to have served his apprenticeship to Vautrollier. But why bring in the name of Richard Field? The reply is important. Field was Shakspere’s own townsman, and being of about the same age and social rank, the boys probably grew up together as playfellows. Field’s father, Henry Field, was a Tanner at Stratford-on-Avon, and Halliwell says ‘a friend of Shakspere’s family’. Early in 1578 young Field came up to London, and at Michaelmas was apprenticed for seven years to George Bishop, Printer and Publisher. Being in the same trade as Vautrollier, Field would naturally become acquainted with him; and in 1588, a year after he was out of his time, he married Vautrollier’s daughter. Here, then, we seem to have a missing link supplied in the chain of Shakspere’s history. In 1585 Shakspere came up to London in a ‘needy’ state. To whom would he be more likely to apply than to his old playmate Richard Field. Field, a young man nearly out of his apprenticeship, on terms of intimacy with Vautrollier, could do nothing better than recommend him to the father of his future wife. Once introduced we may be sure that Shakspere, with his fund of wit and good humour, would always be a welcome guest; and that this friendly feeling was maintained between him and the Vautrollier-Field families receives confirmation from the fact that Richard Field, who succeeded to the shop and business soon after the death of his father-in-law, actually put to press the two first printed works of the great Poet, the ‘Venus and Adonis’, 1593, and the ‘Lucrece’, 1594.

Here then, in Vautrollier’s employ, perhaps as a Press-reader, perhaps as an Assistant in the shop, perchance as both, we imagine Shakspere to have spent about three years upon his first arrival in the metropolis. Placed thus in Blackfriars, close to the Theatre, close to the Taverns, close to the Inns of Court, and in what was then a fashionable neighbourhood, Shakspere enjoyed excellent opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of men and manners.

Field did not succeed Vautrollier immediately upon his death. His widow endeavoured for some time to carry on the business alone; but for some unknown reason the Stationers’ Company withheld their license; and after a fruitless effort to obtain it, she was succeeded by her son-in-law. These business changes would probably be the occasion of which Shakspere eagerly availed himself to join the Players at the neighbouring theatre.

The Sonnets, although not printed until 1609, are generally acknowledged to be among Shakspere’s earliest efforts, and we cannot help imagining that Sonnet XXIV was written while in the employment of Vautrollier; or at any rate, while the shop, hung round with prints, was fresh in the Poet’s memory. May be some of their warmth was inspired by the charms of the buxom widow herself who was apostrophised by the Poet when wishing her

At any rate, we have here in three lines as many metaphors, and all derived from just such employment as we suppose Shakspere at that time to have been engaged in.

Then, again, to a Printer’s widow, not over young, what more telling than the following reference?

Note here, that the jet black ink which everybody admires in old manuscripts was much too thick for a running hand, and had long been superseded by a writing fluid which, in the 16th century, was far from equalling the bright gloss of Printing Ink.

Before turning to the internal evidence supplied by Shakspere’s writings in support of our theory, let us glance at the list of works printed and published by Vautrollier, and see if Shakspere reflected any trace of their influence upon his mind.

From Herbert’s ‘Typographical Antiquities’ we find that in the ‘Shop’ would be the two following works:

A brief Introduction to Music. Collected by P. Delamote, a Frenchman; Licensed.

London, 8vo., 1574.

Discursus Cantiones; quæ ab argumento sacræ vocantur, quinque et sex partivm. Autoribus Thoma Tallisio et Guilielmo Birdo. Cum Privilegio.

London, oblong quarto, 1575.