31. 6s. 8d. each. At that time there were eight

lords; out of which companies there were twelve of the best chosen, and, at the request of Sir Francis Walsingham, they were sworn the queenes servants, and were allowed wages and liveries as groomes of the chamber: and untill this yeare 1583, the queene had no players. Among these twelve players were two rare men, viz. Thomas Wilson, for a quicke, delicate, refined, extemporall witt, and Richard Tarleton, for a wondrous plentifull pleasant extemporall wit, he was the wonder of his tyme. He lieth buried in Shoreditch church."—" He was so beloved," adds the writer in a note, " that men use his picture for their signes." Stowe's Chron. published by Howes, sub. ann. 1583, edit. 1615.

The above paragraph was not written by Stowe, not being found in the last edition of his Chronicle published in his lifetime, 4to. 1605 and is an interpolation by his continuator, Edmund Howes.

Richard Tarleton, as appears by the register of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, was buried there September the third, 1588.

The following extract from Strype shows in how low a state the stage was at this time:

"Upon the ruin of Paris Garden, [the fall of a scaffold there in January, 1583-4,] suit was made to the Lords [of the Council] to banish plays wholly in the places near London: and letters were obtained of the Lords to banish them on the Sabbath days.

"Upon these orders against the players, the Queen's players petitioned the Lords of the Councel, That whereas the time of their service drew very near, so that of necessity they must needs have exercise to enable them the better for the same, and also for their better keep and relief in their poor livings, the season of the year being past to play at any of the houses without the city: Their humble petition was, that the Lords would vouchsafe to read a few articles annexed to their supplication, and in consideration [that] the matter contained the very stay and state of their living, to grant unto them confirmation of the same, or of as many as should be to their honours good liking; and withal, their favourable letters to the Lord Maior, to permit them to exercise within the city; and that their letters might contain some orders to the Justices of Middlesex in their behalf." Strype's Additions to Stowe's Survey, Vol. I. p. 248.

5 Household-book of Queen Elizabeth in 1584, in the Mu→ seum, MSS. Sloan. 3194. The continuator of Stowe says, she had no players before, (see. n. 4,) but I suspect that he is mis

companies of comedians, each of which performed twice or thrice a week.

6

King James the First appears to have patronized the stage with as much warmth as his predecessor. In 1599, while he was yet in Scotland, he solicited Queen Elizabeth (if we may believe a modern historian) to send a company of English comedians to Edinburgh; and very soon after his accession to the throne, granted the following licence to the company at the Globe, which is found in Rymer's Fœdera.

"Pro LAURENTIO FLETCHER & WILLIELMO SHAKESPEARE & aliis.

"A. D. 1603. Pat.

..

1. Jac. P. 2. m. 4. James by the James by the grace of God, &c. to all justices, maiors, sheriffs, constables, headboroughs, and other our officers and loving subjects, greeting. Know you that wee, of our special grace, certaine knowledge, and meer motion, have licensed and authorised, and by these presentes doe licence and authorize theise our servaunts, Laurence Fletcher, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillippes, John Hemings, Henrie Condel, William Sly, Robert Armin, Richard Cowly, and the rest of their associates, freely to use and exercise the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories, interludes, morals, pastorals, stage-plaies, and such

taken, for Queen Mary, and King Edward the Sixth, both had players on their establishments. See p. 45.

"For reckoning with the leaste the gaine that is reaped of eight ordinarie, places in the citie, (which I know,) by playing but once a weeke, (whereas many times they play twice, and sometimes thrice,) it amounteth to two thousand pounds by the year." A Sermon preached at Paules Crosse, by John Stockwood, 1578.

like other as thei have alreadie studied or hereafter shall use or studie, as well for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure when we shall thincke good to see them, during our pleasure and the said comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, morals, pastorals, stage-plaies, and such like, to shew and exercise publiquely to their best commoditie, when the infection of the plague shall decrease, as well within theire nowe usuall house called the Globe, within our county of Surrey, as also within anie towne-halls or moute-halls, or other convenient places within the liberties and freedom of any other citie, universitie, toun, or boroughe whatsoever, within our said realmes and dominions. Willing and commanding you and everie of you, as you tender our pleasure, not onlie to permit and suffer them herein, without any your letts, hindrances, or molestations, during our pleasure, but also to be aiding or assistinge to them if any wrong be to them offered, and to allow them such former curtesies as hathe been given to men of their place and quallitie; and also what further favour you shall shew to theise our servaunts for our sake, we shall take kindlie at your handes. In witness whereof, &c.

"Witness our selfe at Westminster, the nynteenth daye of Maye.

"Per Breve de privato sigillo."

HAVING now, as concisely as I could, traced the History of the English Stage, from its first rude state to the period of its maturity and greatest splendor, I shall endeavour to exhibit as accurate a delineation of the internal form and economy of our ancient theatres, as the distance at which we stand, and the obscurity of the subject, will per

mit.

The most ancient English playhouses of which I have found any account, are, the playhouse in Blackfriars, that in Whitefriars, the Theatre, of

There was a theatre in Whitefriars, before the year 1580. See p. 45. A Woman's a Weathercock was performed at the private playhouse in Whitefriars in 1612. This theatre was, I imagine, either in Salisbury Court or the narrow street leading into it. From an extract taken by Sir Henry Herbert from the Officebook of Sir George Buc, his predecessor in the office of Master of the Revels, it appears that the theatre in Whitefriars was either rebuilt in 1613, or intended to be rebuilt. The entry is: July 13, 1613, for a license to erect a new play-house in the White-friers, &c. £.20." I doubt, however, whether this scheme was then carried into execution, because a new playhouse was erected in Salisbury Court in 1629. That theatre probably was not on the site of the old theatre in Whitefriars, for Prynne speaks of it as then newly built, not re-built; and in the same place he mentions the re-building of the Fortune and the Red Bull theatres.-Had the old theatre in Whitefriars been pulled down and re-built, he would have used the same language with respect to them all. The Rump, a comedy by Tatham, was acted in 1609, in the theatre in Salisbury Court (that built in 1629). About the year 1670, a new theatre was erected there, (but whether on the site of that last mentioned I cannot ascertain,) known by the name of the Theatre in Dorset Gardens, to which the Duke of York's company, under the conduct of Sir William D'Avenant's widow, removed from Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1671. The former playhouse in Salisbury Court

which I am unable to ascertain the situation, and The Curtain, in Shoreditch. The Theatre, from its name, was probably the first building erected in or near the metropolis purposely for scenick exhi bitions.

In the time of Shakspeare there were seven principal theatres: three private houses, namely, that in Blackfriars, that in Whitefriars, and The Cockpit

could hardly have fallen into decay in so short a period as forty years; but I suppose was found too small for the new scenery introduced after the Restoration. The prologue to Wycherley's Gentleman Dancing Master, printed in 1673, is addressed "To the city, newly after the removal of the Duke's Company from Lincoln's-Inn fields to their new theatre near Salisbury

Maitland, in his History of London, p. 963, after mentioning Dorset Stairs, adds, " near to which place stood the theatre or play-house, a neat building, having a curious front next the Thames, with an open place for the reception of coaches."

8 It was probably situated in some remote and privileged place, being, I suppose, hinted at in the following passage of a sermon by John Stockwood, quoted below, and preached in 1578: "Have we not houses of purpose built with great charges for the maintainance of them, [the players,] and that without the liberties, as who shall say, there, let them say what they will, we will play. I know not how I might, with the godly-learned especially, more discommend the gorgeous playing-place erected in the fields, than to term it, as they please to have it called, a Theatre."

9 The Theatre and The Curtain are mentioned in "A Sermon preached at Paules-Cross on St. Bartholomew day, being the 24th of August, 1578, by John Stockwood," and in an ancient Treatise against Idleness, vaine Plaies and Interludes, by John Northbrook, bl. 1. no date, but written apparently about the year 1580. Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses, p. 90, edit. 1583, inveighs against Theatres and Curtaines, which he calls Venus' Palaces. Edmund Howes, the continuator of Stowe's Chronicle, says, (p. 1004,) that before the year 1570, he "neither knew, heard, nor read of any such theatres, set stages, or play-houses, as have been purposely built within man's

memory.