Meres mentions The Merchant of Venice among Shakespeare's comedies. Henslowe's entry concerning a ‘Venetian comedy’ has been discussed elsewhere in this volume (p. 116). The title-page of the ‘good’ Quarto of 1600 presents the play ‘as it hath beene diuers times acted by the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants.’ There is a tradition that Richard Burbadge was the first actor of Shylock and played the part in a red wig; but the evidence for it is confined to an elegy on Burbadge's death in a form of doubtful authenticity printed by Collier:

The Merchant of Venice was acted by the King's company before the Court at Whitehall on Sunday, February 10, 1605, and again, by the King's command, on the following Tuesday, which was Shrove Tuesday.

After the Restoration it was one of the plays allotted to Killigrew in January, 1669. It had to wait long for a hearing. Yet in the early years of the eighteenth century Shylock was a well-known character. The place of The Merchant of Venice was taken by The Jew of Venice, an adaptation from Shakespeare's play by George Granville, later first Lord Lansdowne, which was first acted in 1701, probably in May, at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. Bassanio was played by Betterton; Shylock by Doggett; Antonio by Verbruggen; Gratiano by Booth; Lorenzo by Baily; Nerissa by Mrs Bowman; Jessica by Mrs Porter, and Portia by Mrs Bracegirdle.