and profitable improvements; because many will rather venture in that kind than take five in the hundred, especially having been used to greater profit. Secondly, let there be certain persons licensed to lend to known merchants upon usury at a higher rate; and let it be with the cautions following. Let the rate be, even with the merchant himself, somewhat more easy than that he used formerly to pay; for by that means all borrowers shall have some ease by this reformation, be he merchant or whosoever. Let it be no bank or common stock, but every man be master of his own money; not that I altogether mislike banks, but they will hardly be brooked, in regard of certain suspicions. Let the state be answered some small matter for the license, and the rest left to the lender; for if the abatement be but small, it will no whit discourage the lender. For he, for example, that took before ten or nine in the hundred, will sooner descend to eight in the hundred, than give over his trade of usury, and go from certain gains to gains of hazard. Let these licensed lenders be in number indefinite, but restrained to certain principal cities and towns of merchandizing; for then they will be hardly able to colour other men's moneys in the country: so as the license of nine will not suck away the current rate of five; for no man will lend his moneys far off, nor put them into unknown hands.

If it be objected that this doth, in a sort, authorize usury, which before was in some places but permissive; the answer is, that it is better to mitigate usury by declaration, than to suffer it to rage by connivance.

S

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

HAKESPEARE left Stratford-on-Avon because he was un

able to earn enough money to support his increasing family. Perhaps his desire to enter the theatrical profession arose from his interest in the performances given from time to time in Stratford by travelling companies of actors. At any rate he joined Burbage's company in London. He soon discovered that he was not destined to be a great actor. But acting was only one of various duties performed by the members of a dramatic organization in the sixteenth century. Every company had a library of manuscripts from which its repertory was chosen. These old plays had to be rewritten and adapted for the audiences of the day. Shakespeare undertook this task, sometimes working in collaboration with others. He was successful, for like the most prominent of our Broadway managers he knew what his public wanted. Furthermore he gave life to the wooden characters of the old plays. He was learning "to hold the mirror up to nature." In a short time he was writing original plays based on interesting stories in which the characters offered material for further development.

These plays and his poems won him popularity and financial success. He had left Stratford to make money, and he never forgot that purpose. He invested his income shrewdly and soon became the most important stock holder in the Globe and Blackfriars theaters. From that period his prime interest was the successful managing of these theaters. He wrote his greatest plays in the hope that they would be financial as well as literary successes. By 1597 he had made enough money to purchase New Place, the finest house in Stratford. After fourteen more years of business life in London, Shakespeare retired to Stratford to spend his last years among the scenes of his childhood.

Like Chaucer, Shakespeare was primarily a business man. It is fitting that we should honor him for his contributions to literature,

but we should not forget his place in the business world. He did much to elevate the theatrical business and to organize it on a more successful basis. Many of his plays show his interest in commerce and his understanding of the commercial classes. Therefore, no student of business can afford to neglect studying the characterizations and revelation of human nature found in the plays of William Shakespeare.

MERCHANT OF VENICE

Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.

Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,

As they fly by them with their woven wings.

Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,

The better part of my affections would

Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still 1
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind;
Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;
And every object, that might make me fear

Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad.

Salar.

My wind, cooling my broth,

Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great at sea might do.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats,
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand 2
Vailing her high top lower than her ribs

3

To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side
Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,

And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,
That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?
But tell not me; I know, Antonio

Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

Ant. Believe me, no; I thank my fortune for it,
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:

Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
Salar. Why, then you are in love.

Ant.

Fie, fie!

Salar. Not in love neither? Then let us say you are

sad,

Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy

For you to laugh, and leap, and say you are merry,

Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,*
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;

And other of such vinegar aspect,

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor 5 swear the jest be laughable.

From-ACT I, SCENE 1.

TAMING OF THE SHREW

Pet. The tailor stays thy leisure,

To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.
Enter TAILOR.

Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;

Lay forth the gown.

Enter HABERDASHER.

What news with you, sir?

Hab. Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.

Pet. Why, this was moulded on a porringer;

A velvet dish: fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy:

Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut shell,

A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap:

Away with it! come, let me have a bigger.

Kath. I'll have no bigger: this doth fit the time,

And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.

Pet. When you are gentle, you shall have one too, And not till then.

Hor.

That will not be in haste. (Aside)

Kath. Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;

And speak I will; I am no child, no babe:

Your betters have endured me say my mind,

And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart concealing it will break;
And rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.