of Love’s Labour's Lost by Burbage and his company, to which Shakespeare belonged, at Southampton House.
Southampton took a considerable share in promoting the colonial enterprises of the time, and was an active member of the Virginia company’s council. He seems to have been a born fighter, and engaged in more than one serious quarrel at court, being imprisoned for a short time in 1603. He was in more serious disgrace in 1621 for his determined opposition to Buckingham. He was a volunteer on the Protestant side in Germany in 1614, and in 1617 he proposed to fit out an expedition against the Barbary pirates. In 1624 he and his elder son enrolled themselves as volunteers for the United Provinces of the Netherlands against Spain. Immediately on landing they were attacked with fever, to which both succumbed, the father surviving until the 10th of November 1624.
There exist numerous portraits of Southampton, in which he is depicted with dark auburn hair and blue eyes, compatible with Shakespeare’s description of a “man right fair.” Sir John Beaumont (1583–1627) wrote a well-known elegy in his praise, and Gervase Markham wrote of him in a tract entitled Honour in his Perfection, or a Treatise in Commendation of . . . Henry, Earl of Oxenford, Henry, Earle of Southampton, Robert, Earl of Essex (1624).
For further information see “Memoirs of Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton,” in Boswell’s Shakespeare (1821), xx. 427 sqq., where many of the elegies on Southampton are printed; also Nathan Drake, Shakespeare and his Times (1817), ii. 1–20; Sidney Lee, Life of William Shakespeare (1898); Gerald Massey, The Secret Drama of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1888); Samuel Butler, Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reconsidered (1899), where there is some distinctive criticism of the Southampton theory (ch. v.–vii.); an article by William Archer, “Shakespeare's Sonnets. The Case against Southampton,” in the Fortnightly Review (Dec. 1897); and Sidney Lee’s article on Southampton in the Dict. Nat. Biog., arguing in favour of his identity with the hero of the sonnets. P. Alvor in Das neue Shakespeare Evangelium (Munich, 1906), brings forward a theory that Southampton and Rutland were the authors of the Shakespeare tragedies and comedies respectively, and borrowed William Shakespeare’s name to secure themselves from Elizabeth’s suspicion.
SOUTHAMPTON, a municipal, county, and parliamentary borough of Hampshire, England, a seaport, and county in itself, 79 m. S.W. by S. from London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901), 104,824. It is finely situated near the head of Southampton Water, an inlet of the English Channel
which forms the estuary of the river Test; on a peninsula bounded east by the river Itchen. There are considerable remains
of the old town walls, dating from Norman times, but strengthened on various later occasions. The most remarkable portion
occurs on the western side, where for a distance of nearly 100 yds. the wall is arcaded on its exterior face. The wall was
strengthened by towers at intervals, such as the Arundel Tower at the north-western corner. The site of the castle, on the
western side near the water, is built over, but the wall is well seen here. The castle was originally a Saxon fortress, and was rebuilt on the erection of the walls. It was partly demolished in 1650, and in 1805 its reconstruction was begun by the marquess of
Lansdowne, but was not completed. Near the site there are some very ancient houses, one of which, known as King John's Palace, is of the highest interest, as it is considered to be earlier than any example of the 12th century in England, and is well preserved. Of the ancient town gates the Bar or North Gate, South Gate, West Gate, and Blue Anchor Gate remain. The first three are important; the South and West gates date from the early
14th century, while Bar Gate, as it stands, is later, and retains excellent Decorated work. Numerous early vaults remain below the houses within the walls. The two old churches, St Michael's, the central tower and lofty spire of which rise from Norman arches, and Holy Rood, partly Decorated, are greatly modernized. St Michael's contains a Norman font of black marble, comparable with that in Winchester Cathedral. All Saints' Church dates from 1795, and among numerous modern churches St Mary's, erected from designs by G. E. Street, is noteworthy, and occupies the site of a Saxon church. The
chapel of St Julian, where French Anglican services are held, is of transitional Norman architecture, greatly altered by
restoration. It was originally attached to the hospital of God's House, founded in the time of Henry III. for eight poor persons,
the existing buildings of which are modern. In the chapel are buried the earl of Cambridge, Lord Scrope, and Sir Thomas
Grey, who were executed in 1415 outside the Bar Gate for conspiracy against Henry V. The chapel was allocated as a place of worship by Queen Elizabeth to certain Protestant Walloon refugees. The priory of St Denys, an Augustinian foundation of 1124, gives name to a suburb by the Itchen, and has left only
fragmentary ruins.
In the municipal offices interesting ancient regalia and records are kept. The Gildhall, used as a court-house, is in the upper part of Bar Gate. Noteworthy modern buildings are the public library, corn exchange, custom-house, and assembly rooms. The Hartley Institution, founded under the will of Mr H. R. Hartley, contains a library, museum, art gallery, lecture hall, laboratories, and school of science and art associated with that of South Kensington, London; the foundation was created for
the advancement of natural history, astronomy, antiquities, and classical and Oriental literature. The Edward VI. grammar school was founded in 1550 and reorganized in 1875, and occupies modern buildings. Alderman Taunton's trade school was founded in 1752, and includes a technical department. The ordnance survey office is the headquarters of the ordnance survey department of Great Britain and Ireland. The Royal South Hampshire Infirmary is the principal of numerous benevolent and charitable institutions. To the north of the old town are the East and West Parks and the Hampshire county cricket ground, and to the south the small Queen's Park. Southampton Common, with its fine avenue, north of the town, was formerly part of the manor of Shirley. There is a statue in the parks of Dr Isaac Watts, the theologian (1674-1748), a native of the town, in whose memory the Watts Memorial Hall was erected in 1875. The headquarters of the Royal Southampton and the Royal Southern Yacht Clubs are in the town.
The history of the modern importance of Southampton as a port begins with the creation of a pier and harbour commission in 1803, and the erection of the Royal Victoria Pier (opened by Princess, afterwards Queen, Victoria) in 1831. But its present prosperity really dates from the opening of railway communication with London in 1840. The harbour is one of the finest natural harbours in the kingdom, and has the advantage of a double tide, the tide of the English channel giving it high water first by way of the Solent and two hours later by way of Spithead. In 1892 the docks, which lie at the southern end of the peninsula, became the property of the London & Southwestern Railway Company. They measure about 300 acres, comprising extensive quays in both the Test and the Itchen
