The play "As You Like it" confirms Ben Jonson's characterisation of Shakespeare being "an essential clowne." Next let us turn to Ratsei's _Ghost_ (see p. 49), which, as Mr. Sidney Lee, in his "Life of William Shakespeare," p. 159, 1898 ed., confesses, refers to Shakespeare. Ratsei advises the young actor to copy Shakespeare, "and to feed upon all men, to let none feede upon thee" (meaning Shakespeare was a cruel usurer). As we shew, page 53, Grant White says: "The pursuit of an impoverished man for the sake of imprisoning him and depriving him both of the power of paying his debts and supporting himself and his family, is an incident in Shakespeare's life which it requires the utmost allowance and consideration for the practice of the time and country to enable us to contemplate with equanimity--satisfaction is impossible."
Ratsei continues, "Let thy hand be a stranger to thy pocket" [like the miser, Shakespeare], "thy hart slow to perform thy tongues promise" [like the lying rascal Shakespeare], "and when thou feelest thy purse well lined, buy thee a place of lordship in the country" [as Shakespeare had bought New Place, Stratford] "that, growing weary of playing, thy mony may there bring thee to dignitie and reputation" [as Shakespeare obtained a coat of arms], "then thou needest care for no man, nor not for them that before made thee prowd with speaking their words upon the stage." This manifestly refers to two things, one that Shakespeare when he bought New Place, quitted London and ceased to act; the other that he continually tried to exact more and more "blackmail" from those to whom he had sold his name.
Now we begin at last to understand what we are told by Rowe, in his "Life of Shakespeare," published in 1709, that is, 93 years after Shakespeare's death in 1616, when all traces of the actual man had been of set purpose obliterated, because the time for revealing the real authorship of the plays had not yet come. Rowe, page x., tells us: "There is one Instance so singular in the Magnificence of this Patron of Shakespeare's, that if I had not been assur'd that the Story was handed down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his Affairs, I should not have ventured to have inserted, that my Lord Southampton, at one time, gave him a thousand Pounds, to enable him to go through with a Purchase which he heard he had a mind to."