He did not help him in any way. He gave books every Christmas to
Ben Jonson, but we hear of no gift to Shakespeare, though evidently from
the dedication to him of the first folio, he remained on terms of
careless acquaintance with Shakespeare. Ingratitude is what Shakespeare
found in Lord Pembroke; ingratitude is what he complains of in him. What
a different effect the loss of Mary Fitton had upon Shakespeare. Just
consider what the plays teach us when the sonnet-story is finished. The
youth vanishes; no reader can find a trace of him, or even an allusion
to him. But the woman comes to be the centre, as we shall see, of
tragedy after tragedy. She flames through Shakespeare's life, a fiery
symbol, till at length she inspires perhaps his greatest drama, "Antony
and Cleopatra," filling it with the disgrace of him who is "a strumpet's
fool," the shame of him who has become "the bellows and the fan to cool
a harlot's lust."
The passion for Mary Fitton was the passion of Shakespeare's whole life.
The adoration of her, and the insane desire of her, can be seen in every
play he wrote from 1597 to 1608.
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