"
That "dozen years" is to me astonishingly true and interesting: it shows
that my reading of the duration of his passion-torture was absolutely
correct--Shakespeare's "delicate spirit" and best powers bound to Mary
Fitton's "earthy" service from 1597 to 1608.
We can perhaps fix this latter date with some assurance. Mistress Fitton
married for the second time a Captain or Mr. Polwhele late in 1607, or
some short time before March, 1608, when the fact of her recent marriage
was recorded in the will of her great uncle. It seems to me probable, or
at least possible, that this event marks her complete separation from
Shakespeare; she may very likely have left the Court and London on
ceasing to be a Maid of Honour.
Shakespeare is so filled with himself in this last play, so certain that
he is the most important person in the world, that this scene is more
charged with intimate self-revealing than any other in all his works.
And when Ferdinand comes upon the stage Shakespeare lends him, too, his
own peculiar qualities.
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