It is interesting to note, in passing, that the various witnesses in the Mountjoy lawsuit who have occasion to speak of Shakespeare always refer to him most respectfully. The poet was evidently high in the esteem of his neighbors.
+Shakespeare's Income and Business Transactions+.--Shakespeare was a shrewd and sensible man of business. He amassed during his career in London a property nearly, if not quite, as great as any made by his profession at the time. In addition to profits from the sale of his plays to managers (he probably derived no income from their publication), and his salary as an actor, Shakespeare enjoyed an ample income from his shares in the Blackfriars and Globe theaters, of which he became joint owner with the Burbage brothers and other fellow-actors in 1597 and 1599. Professor Wallace has discovered a document which helps, though very slightly, to enable us to judge what his income { 15} from these sources may have been.[8] In 1615-1616 the widow of one of the proprietors of the two theaters, whose share, like Shakespeare's, was one-seventh of the Blackfriars, one-fourteenth of the Globe, brought suit against her father. She asked for £600 damages for her father's wrongful detention of her year's income, amounting to £300 from each theater.
But damages asked in court are always high, and include fees of lawyers and other items. The probability is that Shakespeare's yearly income from these sources was never over £500. To this, though the figures cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty, we might add £100 for salary and £25 for plays yearly. The total would amount to fully £600 a year from 1599 on till 1611, about which date Shakespeare probably retired to Stratford. If we reckon by what money will buy in our days, we may say that Shakespeare's yearly income at the height of success was $25,000, in round numbers. This is certainly a low estimate, and does not include extra court performances and the like, from which he must certainly have profited.
+Shakespeare's Life in London+.--What with the composition of two plays a year, continual rehearsals, and performances of his own and other plays, Shakespeare's life must have been a busy one. Tradition, however, accords him an easy enjoyment of the pleasures of the time; and his own sarcastic remarks against Puritans in his plays may indicate a hatred of puritanical restraint. He must have joined in many a merry feast with the other actors and writers of the day, and with court gallants. The inventory of property left by him { 16} at his death indicates that while he had accumulated a good estate, he had also lived generously.