Status Updates From Shakespeare Without Tears

Again, according to his habit, [Shakespeare] besprinkles the political scenes liberally with the names of off-stage personages, a complication which caused an absent-minded "King Henry" to declare in perfect pentameters that:

The Earl of Whatsisname, Lord Something Else,
Some kind of Bishop and two other guys
Capitulate against us, and are up.

A stock revival, which would always fill a gap, was vividly known as a "get-penny." But the repertory changed very rapidly, and authors were constantly called upon to turn out new plays like sausages from a machine. There was no sitting in a vacuum clasping his domed brow and waiting for the Muse to descend, in Shakespeare's busy life.