a religious order in the Roman Church, so called from their principal founder John Peter Caraffa, then bishop of Theate, or Chieti, in the kingdom of Naples, and afterwards pope, under the name of Paul IV. in 1524. This order was the first who vainly endeavoured, by their example, to revive among the clergy the poverty of the apostles and first disciples of our Saviour. There was something very appropriate in the author of Sylvester Duggerwood locating that strolling actor, for a time, at the little town of Dunstable. The place so named is the Mecca of the players. It was there that one of the earliest English stages was erected. In a house engaged for the occasion, the pious Geoffrey, monk and stage-manager, in the year 1119, superintended the performance of a drama which had St Katherine for a heroine, and her whole life for a subject. Unluckily the house, in one room of which this play was acted, was one day destroyed by fire. Ultra-pietists discerned in this calamity an indication of divine anger against the drama; prophets declared, with a vaticinatory spirit, warranted by results, that a tongue of flame would lap up all such edifices; and Geoffrey, warned by the event, abandoned the pleasures and perils of management, and withdrew to a cell at St Albans. Too many of his successors have been ill-fated enough to fail, as he did, without possessing so tranquil and pleasant a haven as his, wherein to safely moor for life their shattered bark and shipwrecked fortunes.

That show-room at Dunstable, however, marked not the foundation, but the progress of the drama in England. For the former, the inquirer must go back to times very remote, but certainly not so uncivilized as elementary books pronounce, or rather mispronounce, them to have been. The druidical rites contained the elements of dramatic spectacle; the Pagan-Saxon era had its dialogue actors, or buffoons, for the multitude; and when the period of Christianity succeeded, its professors and teachers, whether moved by joyousness or seriousness of spirit, took of the evil epoch what best suited their purposes. In narrative, dialogue, or song, they dramatised the incidents of the lives of saints, and of the history of One greater than saints; and they thus rendered intelligible to listeners what would have been incomprehensible had it been presented to them as readers.

In castle-hall, before farm-house fires, on the bridges, and in the markets, the men who best performed the united parts of missionary and actor were at once the most popular preachers and players of the day. It is told of perhaps the greatest of them all (St Adhelm), that when he found his audience growing a little weary of too much serious exposition, he would take his small harp from under his robes, and strike up a narrative song, that rendered his hearers hilarious. It would, perhaps, be difficult to determine whether these resorted more to the actor or to the preacher—a difficulty which certainly does not authorise any of us to look upon those early gatherings with contemptuous pity. The difficulty has not altogether vanished in these more enlightened days, when there are preachers better skilled in winning hearts to themselves than gaining souls to Christ.

The mixture of the sacred and profane in the early dialogues and drama prevailed for a lengthened period. It would seem that the profane sometimes superabounded, and the higher church authorities had to look to it. The monotony of monastic life had caused the wandering gleemen to be too warmly welcomed within the monastery walls, where there were men who cheerfully employed their energies in furnishing new songs and lively "patter" to the strollers. It was, doubtless, all well meant; but more serious men thought it wise and well to prohibit the indulgence of this peculiar literary pursuit; and, accordingly, the council of Clovershoe, and decrees bearing the king's mark, severally ordained that histrones, or actors, and other vagabonds therein named, should no longer have access to monasteries, and that no priest should henceforth either play the gleeman himself; encourage the members of that disreputable profession, or help them by writing songs, and turning "ale-poets."

Such was the first development of the English Theatre, between which and the phase it has assumed in later days there is no less difference than there was between the cart of Thespis and the stage on which the Athenians expended a hundred thousand pounds, in order to worthily represent one single tragedy of Sophocles.

The further development of the English theatre has been described as a progress through mysteries, or miracle plays, generally illustrating Scripture history or holy legend; moralities, or moral allegories, in which the virtues and vices appeared in person; and, finally, the chronicle plays, which were followed by legitimate tragedy and comedy. The comic "interlude," played between the feast and the banquet, is commonly said to have been the invention of John Heywood, the well-known writer of the Tudor period; but the Canterbury monk, Fitzstephen, who wrote his Description of the most noble City of London during the Norman era, states, that in the theatres of his day, whatever the localities may have been where plays were represented, "common interludes" shared the stage with pieces illustrative of the performance of miracles and the sufferings of martyrs. The latter pieces kept the favour of the public till towards the close of the fifteenth century; in Cornwall they were popular a century later; and it is worthy of notice, that as, under the Normans, some of these pieces were in French and a few in Latin, from the time of the Plantagenet, Edward III., they were written and represented in the English tongue only.

Of the literary value of the miracle and moral plays, of their fitness as a means of instruction, it is not our office to speak. It is ours rather to seek, if there be yet any miracle theatre surviving the wreck of the early period, and if one be found, to direct towards it the notice of our readers. There is one still existing in England; it is known as "Piran Round," and has been visited by many a wayfarer through Cornwall. On a wild, flat, heath, a circular embankment (about 10 feet high, sloping backwards, and cut into steps for seats or standing-places) encloses an ample level area of grassy ground. An audience of 2000 people could sit or stand on this embankment, and look down on the actors in the circus, which formed a stage of above 100 feet in diameter. Previous to the dramatic era at all, Piran Round was a theatre where sports were enjoyed, single combats fought, and rustic councils assembled. The miracle play-actors then took possession of it, performing the rude but well-meant and useful drama in the ancient Cornish language. They were still playing there—those strollers who then were such worthy helps to the clergy—as late as Shakspeare's period, and a specimen of the pieces produced—a five-act piece, entitled, The Creation of the World, with Noah's Flood—was published in 1827 by the learned Davies Gilbert, the Cornish and English versions being on opposite pages. In this historical piece, originally played in the sixteenth century, for edification in Scripture history, the stage directions induce us to believe that varied costumes, variety of scenery, and very complicated machinery, must have been employed,—and all on an open-air stage! How the flood was actually represented it would be hard to say; but it is to be observed that, at the conclusion of this serio-comic history in action, the minstrels "piped," the audience set to dancing, and then, having had their full of amusement, Theatres, they who had converged from so many starting points upon the ancient theatre of Piran Round, scattered again on their several ways homeward, and as the sun went down, thinned away over the heath, the fishermen going seaward, the miners inland, and the agricultural labourers to the cottages and farm-houses dotting here and there the otherwise dreary moor.

With the meekest of our kings, Henry VI., came into fashion the moralities or symbolical dramas which people flocked to see, as amusing and instructive narrative sermons put into action. To this king, however, the English stage owes less than it does to his successor, Richard III., whose tastes and pleasures so ill accorded with most of his principles and actions. In the former he was a thorough Englishman, and his especial love for athletic sports rendered him as popular in the north, among the robust, as his charitable foundations, in and about his house in Wensleydale, won for him the gratitude of the sick and the needy. He was, moreover, the first of our princes who retained near his person a company of players. These plied their vocation, for his pastime; and the young "Duke of Gloucester's servants," as they were called, went from county to county (when their master gave them permission), from mansion to mansion, from one corporation-hall, or from one inn-yard to another, playing securely under the sanction of his name, winning favour for themselves, and a great measure of public regard, probably for their then generous and princely master.

The "poor players" did not, however, yet enjoy a legal recognition, but this enrolment of a company of them by the Duke of Gloucester led to that result in 1572, when Shakspeare was eight years old. The recognition even then was but partial, in this far, that these "servants" of noblemen, with whom it had become the mode to enrol such pleasant retainers in their household, were licensed to play wherever it seemed good to them, without let or hindrance from the law.

Meanwhile, it was not the professional player alone who assumed the sock and buskin. The gentlemen of the inns of court were wont to do this for the edification of kings, and, lacking these, we find the children of the chapel-royal, and the pupils in public schools, often summoned, as a matter of course, to appear in palaces as actors, having kings, queens, and a goodly house of royal and noble "cousins" for their audience. Thus, in 1527, when Henry VIII. was yet one of the true sheep of the Roman fold, the boys of St Paul's went (accompanied by their master) by water to Greenwich, where, in presence of the royal family and illustrious ambassadors from France, they represented a Latin play, descriptive of the then captivity of the Pope, and suggestive of the urgent necessity for his liberation. It was a play in which the old miracle and moral element largely abounded, with a mixture of the chronicle drama, out of which sprung the more legitimately elaborated pieces of a period near at hand. Therein Luther and his wife came in for much abuse—their very dresses, as described in the *dramatis persona*, indicating that they were intended to excite the scorn and the ridicule of the great personages, some, at least, of whom were subsequently the champions of the man who was here pelted as "heretic," and attired "like a party-friar, in russet damask and black taffety."

From this period it may be said that the church, Montague or Capulet, fought for possession of the stage, as an eminence whereupon each party, which happened for the moment to be in power, might deliver its threats, its warnings, its monitions, or its entreaties. "Bilious Bale," as he was styled by his enemies, was the most industrious and the least pleasant-tempered of these party-dramatists. Under Edward VI. he enjoyed the bishopric of Ossory, if this Suffolk man can be said to have enjoyed that which was rendered intolerable to him by the persecutions of the Romanists, who hated him for his desertion of their church and for the (to them) scandal of his marrying—a sanction for which he found in the well-known injunction of St Paul. Bishop Bale, who had seen the world, encountered as much adventure as a hero of romance, and in his breathing time had adapted the most abstruse doctrinal subjects to the purposes of comedy, repaid the abuse of his former colleagues with virulent interest. Of decorum of expression he knew nothing, and in his *John King of England*, he illustrated the wicked policy of Rome towards this country, with such effect that, while one party hotly denounced, the other applauded his coarse and vigorous audacity. So powerful was the influence of the stage when thus applied, that the government of Queen Mary made similar application of them in support of their own views, and a play, by an anonymous author, styled *Respublica*, exhibited to the people the alleged iniquity of the Reformation, the dread excellence of the sovereign herself, personified as Queen Nemesis, and her inestimable qualities—exemplified by the presence of all the virtues, who followed in her train, as maids of honour.

The stage had thus been employed as a controversial pulpit, less to edification than exasperation; and possibly some persons recognised a retributive character in the fact that the first building actually and legally set apart for the exclusive performance of theatrical pieces in England was within the precincts of the dissolved monastery of Blackfriars. This occurred when Elizabeth was queen, in the year 1576. The "company" was the Earl of Leicester's, and at the head of it was James Burbage, father of Richard Burbage, the original Richard III. in the play by William Shakspeare, who, when Burbage and his followers opened the Blackfriars' Theatre, was a little lad of twelve years of age, surmounting the elementary difficulties of Latin and Greek, in the Free School at Stratford-on-Avon.

The assertion of Dryden, that Shakspeare created the English stage, and the remark of Johnson, that before the era of that supreme poet, dramatic literature was in a state of barbarity, have been repeatedly denied. The assertion and remark, however, are well founded. During many years which preceded the appearance of Shakspeare as a writer, the drama may be said to have been in the condition of the mass of marble which is preparing for the hands of a great sculptor. Rude men hew it roughly from the quarry; their successors, scarcely less ignorant, reduce the block to the dimensions required by the artist; workmen, more skilful, chisel it into shape; and a trustier hand cunningly fashions the whole into the appearance of everything but life. That is the peculiar work of the mind guiding the ever-ready hand. What none of the preparers could accomplish is achieved by the inspired craft of the perfect artist. Under his arm the block becomes instinct with beauty, breathes or seems to breathe, and an imperishable work, one that can never be excelled, is at once created. In this sense Shakspeare was the creator of the English drama. Before his time there was many an honest workman, but he was the artist, lacking whom the English theatre would have lacked vigour, beauty, life itself.

In this progress, players and authors had rendered good service; and it is to be remembered that in most cases the writers of plays, even when of the clergy, were actors as well as authors. It is the more singular, perhaps, that the members of the profession were often of a too roystering quality, and that, despite the connection of the church with the stage, the actors themselves were but ill regarded by the church. United, they had helped the drama towards maturity, through miracle-plays and moralities, interludes and chronicles, under the patronage of princes and nobles, till the period of the production of the first regularly-constructed English comedy—*Ralph Roister Doister*, in 1540, by Nicholas Udall, just one year before that harsh master of Eton lost his post, on suspicion of being concerned in a robbery of the college plate.

This comedy by the old Canon of Windsor, never acted we believe, marks the beginning of the new era of the Theatre in England. Twenty-two years later, that is, two years before the birth of Shakspeare, the first English tragedy, *Ferrex and Porrex*, was acted by the gentlemen of the Middle Temple before Queen Elizabeth, in Whitehall. This was the joint work of two lawyers, Norton, and Sackville who was afterwards Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset. Calvinistic Norton was the colleague of Sternhold and Hopkins, in their dreary version of the Psalms; his lively colleague would probably have attained great reputation as an author, had not his country needed his services as a statesman.

We have already noticed one of the predecessors of Shakspeare, Bishop Bale. The Episcopal bench furnishes another, in the person of Bishop Still, whose coarse dialect comedy, *Gammer Gurton's Needle*, was acted at Cambridge in 1566. Then came Gasson, who, from the pulpit and the press, denounced the stage, whereon his own plays had met with but indifferent success. Succeeding to this wrathful city-rector, we have a goodly list—Whetston, soldier, sailor, farmer, adventurer, and playwright, with more heart to enjoy money than resolution to laboriously gain it, but whose *Promos and Cassandra* led to Shakspeare's *Measure for Measure*; musical and poetical Edwards; martial and scholarly Gascoyne; the Templar Wilmot, an author with many colleagues in the finishing of a single piece; prolific Chettle; too sprightly Greene, dying at last of a surfeit of Rhenish wine and pickled herrings; and Lilly, of better reputation and more useful purposes, seeing that this worthy Kentish man, who, if he lost much time at court, compensated for it by his persevering study, his love of poetry, and the ends to which he turned his study and his love. He was the first who shook off the trammels of harsh and obsolete terms in writing, and of uncouth expressions in speaking. He was indeed the founder of Euphism in this country, and, like all Euphists, was addicted to refining over much, whereby affectation had like to become the poor compensation for strength, though that was but a rude vigour at the best. In his own day he was highly esteemed, but now there are only a few who know much, and care even a little, for the "only rare poet" of his time, "the witty, comical, facetiously quick, and unparalleled John Lilly." Blount says of him, that he sat at Apollo's table, that the god gave him "a wreath of his own bays without snatching; and that the lyre he played on had no borrowed strings."

This harp, however, is too highly strung. Of all the dramatic poets who immediately preceded Shakspeare, Marlowe is undoubtedly the first in rank, and the most successful in innovation, for to him we owe the first tragedy that was ever written in blank verse. The jingle of rhyme, and the facilities afforded by it to composition, had allured more or less every preceding writer for the stage who employed the English language in giving utterance to his thoughts. Marlowe was a fair actor and an eminent author. In the first respect he at least equalled, if he did not excel Shakspeare. In the latter, he achieved a success which was only surpassed by that of the poet, whose triumphs are at once the pride and the despair of all aspirants to distinction in dramatic poetry. The love of Marlowe for the theatre was manifested by his abandoning the university for the stage, for which he furnished half a dozen pieces,—all of which were probably familiar to, and influential over, Shakspeare himself. Heywood styled him "the best of poets," and as a theatrical writer he was not undeserving of the name, till the Stratford boy had grown into beauty and strength of intellect. Drayton says that he

"He describes the poet's raptures as being "all air and fire, which made his verses clear;" and he so esteemed some of the exaggerations of this pillar of the stage, as to praise him because

"that fine madness still he did retain Which rightly should possess a poet's brain."

There are several poets, like Marlowe, who were the predecessors and the contemporaries of Shakspeare, and, unlike Marlowe, his survivors also. Marlowe, however, just brought to an end his chequered career as Shakspeare stepped forth to snatch a prize for which human intellect may now strive in vain. The former would have been a better actor, author, and man, had he lived a less riotous life, been influenced by love or even common respect for godly things, and possessed control, or cared to exercise it over his passions. His end was more dramatic than becoming; a wrathful stab, dealt in a love-quarrel with a worthless man, for a worthless woman, led to his death in the year 1633. It was then that the poet of all time had begun to challenge the public approval as a writer for the stage; and henceforth the fame of Marlowe almost pales into nothing before the glory of his immediate and immortal successor.

Between the year of Shakspeare's birth, 1564, and that in which he began to be appreciated as a writer, 1593, the theatre had been a subject which had much occupied the thoughts of statesmen and of the superior clergy. The year in which the great poet was born formed a portion of the period in which (because of the awful plague of 1563) Archbishop Grindall advised Cecil to suppress the vocation of the idle, infamous, youth-infesting players, as the late called them, for a whole year; and "if it were for ever," added he, "it were not amiss."

In spite of the archiepiscopal desire, Elizabeth attended dramatic representations at inns of court and in college-halls; and rehearsals went actively on before the Master of the Revels. Professional actors spread all over the kingdom. Unattached to palace or mansion, they strove to obtain an independent livelihood; but the famous statute of 1572 threatened to deem and deal with them as rogues and vagabonds if they dared to erect a stage unlicensed "by two Justices of the Peace, at the least." Soon after was issued that first royal patent conceded in England to actors, whereby Lord Leicester's servants were authorized to produce such plays as seemed good to them, "as well," says the queen, "for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall think good to see them."

The common council of the metropolis strenuously opposed the carrying out of the full licence contained in this patent, authorizing players to exercise their craft within the city of London and its liberties. The justices of Middlesex supported the opposition in other parts of the county. The players were treated as the devil's missionaries, and such unsavoury terms were flung at them and at playwrights by the city authorities and the county justices, that thereon was founded that animosity which led dramatic authors to represent citizens and justices as the greatest of fools, the basest of knaves, and the unluckiest of husbands.

It was because the city would not tolerate players at all, save under such restrictions as tended to virtually suppress their calling, that Burbage and his gay brethren commenced establishing themselves as near to the city as they could, within the precincts of Blackfriars. Now, on that spot, resided many a quiet and devout noble and lady, who were horror-stricken at the audacity of the actors, declaring that divine worship and sermon would be grievously dis- The remonstrance was all in vain, the playhouse in Blackfriars became an established fact, rivalling the "sumptuous houses," called, the one the "Theatre," the other the "Curtain," which had opened their doors to the delighted suburbs of Shoreditch, and the profound disgust of the city authorities. Pulpit logicians, bewailing both plagues and plays, argued in this wise:— "The cause of plagues is sin, if you look to it well, and the cause of sin are plays; therefore, the cause of plagues are plays." "If these be not suppressed," exclaimed a Paul's Cross preacher, "it will make such a tragedy that all London may well mourn while it is London." Had it not been for the interest taken in the subject by the Earl of Leicester, it would have gone ill with public companies of players, not only in the metropolitan liberties, but throughout the country.

Fashion and the court prevailed over all opposition. Already, for two years at least, the queen had had, for the first time, a band of players of her own; recognised actors, in addition to the company of players of interludes, she had maintained from the beginning of her reign. Lesser authorities, adverse to the public theatres, could only relieve their conscience by grumbling, while sober-going people, with godly magistrates, remarked, that the only quiet days in the city were those in which the theatres in the liberties were temporarily closed.

The early actors there were not wise in their generation. They would have more exceedingly flourished had they been less indiscreet. They bearded authority, played in despite of legal prohibitions, and at last were so imprudent as to introduce matters of state and religion upon their stages. Thence ensued suspensions for definite periods, severe supervision when the actors were permitted to resume, with much alacrity, on the part of the latter, in disobeying all injunctions when they could do so without much risk, even to the playing on a Sunday, which they would unblushingly do in any privileged locality where they conjectured that a warrant could not follow them.

Such were some of the phases of the theatre while Shakespeare himself was yet an actor, and at the time when he added to that title the name of author also. The "theatre" in Shoreditch, of his day, though styled a "sumptuous house," was only a wooden structure, neglected altogether, before Shakespeare himself had been a dramatic writer five or six years. In Holywell Lane (now High Street), Shoreditch, is to be found the site of this the first theatre especially erected in England for the exhibition of plays, with scenery. This house, built at the cost of John Brayne, who laid out L600 upon it, was let, in 1576, to "James Burbadge, joiner," for 21 years, at L14 a year. "Burbadge" was Brayne's son-in-law, and he broke a covenant binding him to give half the theatre and the profits to Brayne, in return for the money advanced. After the death of the covenanting parties, the breach of agreement was made a matter of Star Chamber inquiry; but, although Cuthbert Burbage, the son of James, had, in 1598, also carried off the wood of the theatre to the Bankside, and therewith rebuilt or enlarged the Globe Playhouse, the aggrieved heirs obtained no redress. Thus, one of the first theatres in or near London, gave rise to unsuccessful litigation caused by the fraudulent conduct of the proprietors.

The approach to the site of the second theatre is to this day marked out in the name Curtain Road. It continued, with tolerable success, till the commencement of the reign of Charles I., when stage-plays seem to have given way there to the exhibitions of athletic exercises.

The Surrey side of the Thames was a favourite locality for plays, long before the most famous of the regular and royally sanctioned theatres. The Globe was erected there. The Rose, which was built about 1584, has its site marked in the present Rose Alley, Southwark. This "Little Rose," as it was popularly called, was, however, only the successor of a more ancient building. It had a rival in the Swan, situated, like the Rose, on Bankside; but the fortunes of both houses were of the same character. They fell into decay, as the better companies began to form, and to attract the town; and their own attractions failing, these Surrey theatres were converted into rooms for the exhibitions of fencing and other manly exercises, such as are still to be seen, near the same spot, by an eager public in the more proudly named tenement in Southwark, St George's Hall.

There is no doubt that for a considerable period the Royal Theatre in Blackfriars, despite all opposition, was the house favoured by the highest patronage. Its troop of actors and boys, or apprentices, who were first taught to play female parts, was good. In that company Shakspeare was one of the performers. The "house" was a winter house, the actors crossing over into Surrey, and playing at the Globe in the summer months. After a course of only twenty years, this theatre needed such extensive repairs, that it may be said to have been rebuilt. At that time (1596), Shakspeare and Richard Burbage were sharers. In 1633, the then proprietors, Cuthbert and William Burbage, let the house to the players, at a yearly rent of L50. Twenty-two years later it was pulled down, after a career of something more than three-quarters of a century. Since 1647, however, the year of the suppression of plays, this theatre had been closed. The site, speedily built over, is now occupied by Apothecaries' Hall and Playhouse Yard.

The first of the three theatres which stood between the Thames and Fleet Street was the Whitefriars' Theatre. The old hall of the monastery of the friars formerly located there was converted into a playhouse, about the year 1580. In 1616, the year of Shakspeare's death, it had fallen into complete decay, and was never afterwards used for the representation of dramatic pieces.

The career of the old Globe, the summer-house of Shakspeare and his fellows, lasted from 1594, when it was built, to 1613, when it was destroyed by fire, through some lighted wadding from a gun lodging in the thatched roof. Shakspeare may have seen the new Globe, which was built the following year (chiefly by a royal and noble subscription), and was roofed with tile—a marked advance in usefulness if not in architectural beauty. This also was a wooden tenement, and on its summit its flag, with the cross of St George, waved just ten years, during the hours of performance. In 1654, Sir Matthew Brand, the land-lord, pulled down the house, the name of which still survives in Globe Alley, Southwark.

The Fortune Theatre was next in age to the Globe. It was erected in 1600 for Henslowe (the pawnbroker and money-lender to actors) and Alleyn. Its locality in the parish of St Giles, Cripplegate, is indicated by Playhouse Yard, which connects Whitecross Street with Golding Lane. In 1621, the old square wooden building was burned, and a circular one of brick erected forthwith in its place. There Alleyn achieved that fortune which the old, childless actor devoted to the foundation of God's-Gift College, Dulwich, from whose ample modern revenues no poor player is ever furnished with relief! In 1649, although no performances were going on, "the sectaries of those yeasty times," a party of soldiers, broke into the house and destroyed it; and, a few years later, the site and adjacent ground began to be covered with dwelling-houses.

In addition to these theatres of Shakspeare's time must be mentioned the gardens, the amphitheatres of which sometimes served for the combats of animals, at others for the representation of plays; and the inns, in whose yards stages were erected, for seasons more or less brief. Chief of the latter were the Cross Keys in Gracechurch Street; and, still more renowned, the Bull in Bishopsgate Street. These Theatres were the best patronized places previous to the era of licensing. At the latter, strutted the elder Burbage; there grimaced Tarlton, the prince of clowns; and in a house near the locality resided Anthony Bacon (the brother of the great Francis), whose mother had a wholesome but rather exaggerated dread of her son living in a parish where there was a stupid clergyman and a troop of excellent actors. The Bull is sometimes confounded with the "Red Bull" in St John Street, Clerkenwell, which was an inn converted into a regular theatre, and which was open as late as the period of the "Great Fire," if not for the acting of plays, at least for exhibitions of wrestling and fencing.

The Hope, on Bank Side, Southwark, was the Hope Theatre on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays; and the Hope Garden on the other two days of the week, for bear-baiting and similar sports. It existed, chiefly in its latter capacity, through nearly the whole of the 17th century. In 1614, Jonson's Bartholomew Fair was there played for the first time. When plays were suppressed, the Puritans horsewhipped the actors, and the soldiery shot the bears; but the place rallied after the Restoration. Paris Garden, famed for its cruel but well-patronized sports, was also situated on Bank Side, and, under Henslowe and Alleyn, its circus was turned into a theatre, the richest receipts of which were made on the Sunday, till the law interfered, and respecting propriety, disgusted alike the dramatic public and the impoverished actors.

At one or other of these houses, humble in dimensions rather than in pretensions, were represented the whole of Shakspeare's thirty-five plays, from Pericles down to Twelfth Night; the latter in 1613. Here, actor and author, like Shakspeare, and fostered by him, Ben Jonson saw the triumph of his first plays, reckoning from his Every Man in his Humour, in 1598, and went on writing pieces yearly, and masques, when called upon, till his fire left him, and his last dramatic piece, The New Inn, was hissed from the stage in 1629. On these boards, Beaumont and Fletcher—united, alone, or each with other colleagues—brought forward those five dozen plays—the glory of their genius, often the shame of their taste. Of ardent, graceful Massinger's long list, the early plays alone were acted at the Globe and Blackfriars. Indeed, when the names of our early dramatic authors and their plays are called to mind, it will be found that on the modest stages of these little more than wooden booths, were first represented dramas which later authors have striven in vain to surpass. The dawn of our theatrical day was the brightest; and to this hour it is the reflection of that dawn which alone gives life, warmth, beauty, and dignity to the British theatre.

The old, and partially uncovered playhouses, commenced their performances at one o'clock. Subsequently they began an hour later, and, later still, three o'clock became the fashionable hour; continuing so till towards the close of the seventeenth century. The readers of Pepys' Diary will thus understand how it was that an industrious rake was, after a long morning in his office, and a couple of hours at the theatre, riding abroad in the Park, or eating syllabubs in suburban gardens by daylight.

The prices of admission have considerably varied. In the rooms or boxes at the Blackfriars, the gentry handed them for use. This bad example was followed by Theatres, the apt spectators; and eating, imbibing, and smoking, during the performance of a play, formed for a lengthened period the enjoyment of many, and some annoyance to the few.

In less than a century, the relative value of money had caused a rise in the charges for admittance. In the reign of Queen Anne, admission to boxes, pit, and gallery, at Lincoln's-Inn-Fields and Drury-Lane, was respectively five, three, and two shillings. That is a higher tariff than generally prevails in the metropolitan theatres, where indeed, only recently, at the patent houses the charges were—to the boxes, 7s.; to the pit, 3s. 6d.; and to the galleries, 2s. and 1s. The lower-priced gallery had formerly been free for the livery-servants waiting for their masters and mistresses. The occupants, however, became so riotous and offensively critical and exacting, that they were deprived of their privileges, and the upper gallery was opened to a paying public.

But the emoluments of actors have undergone greater change than the prices of admission. L20 was considered a fair receipt at the Blackfriars, and that could not have left a magnificent distribution of share or salary to the company. It is conjectured that the most eminent actors at that house did not enjoy an income of so much as L100 a year. When Shakspeare was part proprietor, as well as author and actor, his revenue is supposed to have reached about twice that sum. Subsequent to the Restoration, the tragedian Hart received L3 a week during a season of thirty weeks, and 6s. 3d. every acting day, as his proprietary share. Half a century later still, the great Betterton was not considered ill paid at L5 per week, which included L1 for the salary of his wife.

It seems difficult to believe the assertion of Taylor, that of the "forty thousand watermen" who lived and laboured between Windsor Bridge and Gravesend, "the cause of the greater half of that multitude was the players playing on the Bankside; for," he adds, "I have known three companies, besides the bear-baiting, at once there—to wit, the Globe, the Rose, and the Swan." To transport the audiences from the Middlesex to the Southwark side called into active service a host of watermen, who thought the golden time would last for ever, and who fell into great distress when the actors began to confine themselves to the Middlesex side, and that remote from the banks of the then pleasant river.

If the audiences were joyous on their way, by land or water, to their favourite houses, they appear to have been not less so within the theatre. The denouncers of plays have probably much exaggerated their accounts of the unseemly conduct of many spectators. These certainly seem to have been less unrefined at the close of the sixteenth century than French audiences in polite Paris. We obtain satisfactory proof of this fact in a decree published by the magistrates of the French metropolis in February of the year above mentioned, and which is to this effect:—"Every person is prohibited from doing any violence in the Theatre de Bourgogne during the time any piece is performing, as likewise from throwing stones, dust, or anything which may put the audience into an uproar, or create any tumult." It is also worthy of remark, that the liberty of English audiences has never been so tyrannously treated as that of foreign audiences. In 1772, a theatrical riot in the Copenhagen theatre, arising out of a satirical exposure by an author of a critic who had written of him in ultra-severe terms, led to a prohibition of hissing and all equivalent marks of disapprobation! This prohibition was long in force, and it still prevails in continental theatres, out of courtesy, when crowned or royal heads are present. On those occasions the audience neither applaud nor hiss, but leave all demonstrations of approval or censure to the illustrious visitors. Theatres, as if they alone were endowed, for the nonce, with critical acumen.

The noisy audiences of the early period are frequently alluded to by contemporary writers; but the former were soothed as Orpheus soothed the brutes. The value of music, and its efficacy in keeping an audience in good-humour, was very early understood and applied in our closed theatres, as well as in the open one at Piran Round; in proof of which we may cite the lines uttered by Diccon at the close of the second act of *Gammer Gurton's Needle*—

"Into the town will I, my friends, to visit there, And hither straight again to see the end o' this gear: In the meantime, fellows, pipe up your fiddles; I say, take 'em, And let your friends here have such mirth as ye can make 'em."

This custom still continues. Another, which many of us may remember, has ceased altogether, but its antiquity was respectable. We allude to the stepping forward of an actor at the end of a play, to announce the next evening's performance. That this was an observance of early date, is shown in the introductory lines in the folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher. They profess to come from the "Stationer," who says—

"As after the epilogue there comes some one To tell spectators what shall next be shown, So here am I."

Other old customs have only partially disappeared; for instance, the sharing system, whereby the receipts of a theatre are divided among the actors according to their merits, is now confined to strolling and "scratch" companies. It is, however, of very early origin. It was still the practice in Shakspeare's time, after the deduction of between L2 or L3 for expenses. The shares must have been modest enough; for in Davenant's days, when salaries are mentioned, Betterton and other superior performers at one time received only 5s. for each piece in which they acted, except on the occasions of benefits, when the actors "played for their own profit only."

The sharing system, however, was the rule for many a year. Under it the proprietor had, of course, the greatest portion, and Davenant is reported to have made by it, during his brief seasons, L200 a week. No doubt that, from an early period, "bespeaks" were profitable to actors and proprietors, as bringing an increased audience, as well as a fee from the bespeaker. On one occasion, the latter individual, Sir Gilly Meyrick, involved himself in an action for treason by bespeaking an old tragedy, called, *The Deposing of King Richard the Second*. The actors objected to its being old and unattractive, but Sir Gilly laid down forty shillings, and the piece was played. The attempt of Essex against Elizabeth soon followed; and Bacon, in pleading against Gilly, adduced this very bespeak as a proof of his traitorous designs against the crown.

It is in provincial theatres that "sharings" and "bespeaks" are still common. These theatres are of much later date than the "exclusive houses" of the capital. Strolling companies only played at inns or in booths. "There are many nations in the world," says Pryne, "that never knew what stage-plays meant; yea, there are sundry shires and cities in our kingdom where players (who for the most part harbour about London, where only they have constant standing playhouses) never come to make them sport; and yet they never complain for want of pleasures or these unnecessary stage delights; the most, the best of men, live happily, live comfortably without them, yea far more pleasantly than those who most frequent them."

The circumstance which had most embittered the Puritans against the theatre, was the unseemly practice of acting on Sundays. This was encouraged by King James, whose chief theatrical "revels" were held on Sundays at Whitehall, Greenwich, or Hampton. Such encouragement helped forward the profanity, and the king's subsequent attempt to remedy the evil, of which he was one, if not the chief cause, was fruitless. Charles I. introduced better arrangements for the regulation of the five companies licensed to play in London, whenever the plague mortality was under a certain limit; but the character of the theatre had perished in the eyes of godly people, and the rising revolutionary spirit waxed as hot against the stage as against the crown.

The Puritan majority in the Parliament of 1647 realised the most fanatic wishes expressed by Pryne, in his *Histriomastix*, by suppressing theatres, and forbidding actors to exercise their vocation, under penalty of whipping. Little wonder is it that the younger and stronger players sided with the cavaliers, fought for the king, and rose, by their bravery, to various ranks. Shatterel stepped short at quartermaster, but Burt was a cornet, and Hart a lieutenant in Rupert's horse; Allen and Mohun became majors; while one of the three Robinsons, more memorable for his alleged fate than his rank, overcome in fight, laid down his arms to energetic Harrison, and asked for quarter. "Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently!" exclaimed the enthusiastic Puritan, as he shot the defenceless player through the head. Swanston (an actor, of Presbyterian principles) supported the revolutionary party, but rather passively than actively, as he seems, on the suppression of the stage, to have exercised the craft of a jeweller.

The Puritan antipathy was as virulent against the poet as against the player. When a writer, with such an antipathy, had to speak of an opponent, he would class him for godlessness, with Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Davenant, Shirley, and a similar supposed iniquitous fraternity. The editor of the *Mercurius Britannicus*, alluding to an account given by his adversary of the *Aulicus*, touching an outrage on a clergyman of Wantage by Haselrigge, thus characteristicallly stigmatizes dramatic poets and prelatical authors. Aulicus says,—"Haselrigge barbarously cut the clergyman's books into pieces. These were only some Lady Psalter's Cosins' Devotions, Pockington's Altar, Shelford's Sermons, Shakspeare's Works, and such prelatical trash as your clergymen spend their canonical hours on."

Out of the wreck of the companies dispersed by the Puritan act of 1647, one troop was made up whose members strove, in a private way, to make a livelihood, by playing at the Cockpit in Drury Lane. Pit Place is said to have been the site of this precursor of the great patent theatre now existing adjacent to that locality. The acting terminated in three or four days, with the capture of the actors and the destruction of the place by the soldiery. When the poor players were released, they strove again to live by practice of their profession. They played, here and there at inns, notice of performance being circulated by trusty individuals, or they were invited to perform at noblemen's houses—Holland House, Kensington, being the chief of these—where collections were made for them by the nobility and gentry who were present. A bribe to a particular officer at Whitehall, procured them occasional freedom to play in town, and sometimes, under promise of fencing and rope-dancing, a tragedy or comedy was played, and the law was eagerly broken.

In this wise the English theatre progressed or stood still for about a dozen years, till Monk marched up Gray's Inn Lane to Hyde Park, and there, among his first acts, procured from the governing powers a license to Rhodes, the old wardrobe-keeper at the Blackfriars, to form a company and open a playhouse in the capital. The play-loving public had been living on the memories of bygone actors—on Hemings and Condle, on Sly and Armin, on Will Shakspeare, and Burbage, the Garrick of his day. They Theatres had talked of Alleyn, Green, Hamerton, and Swanston; Pollard and Rowley, Hart and Burt, and Clun; they had pitied those who had starved, admired those who had fought; and they had been to the Three Pigeons at Brentford to patronize the landlord, once Prince Hamlet of Denmark, then honest John Lowin, who had heard Shakspeare read aloud; and who was himself as good a landlord as he had been graceful performer.

The theatres of the Restoration were the Cockpit in Drury Lane; otherwise called the Phoenix, and reconstructed out of the older edifice of 1616; the theatre in Salisbury Court, Whitefriars; that of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields; the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Gardens; and, finally, new Drury Lane Theatre. At the Cockpit, Rhodes commenced with such old actors as he could collect, and new ones, among whom Betterton was the most perfect player of his time, and Kynaston one of the most popular performers with the multitude; they had both been apprentices with Rhodes. Appearances soon indicating that managers were about to assume a licence of their own, Charles II., in 1663, granted two patents for two theatres only in London. Under these were formed the king's company and the duke's company. The first was presided over by Killigrew, the second by Davenant, who had been bold enough to produce his *Siege of Rhodes*, at the Red Bull, as early as 1656. In despite of the law then existing, Killigrew and his majesty's servants deposed the manager at the Cockpit, and the actors there uniting with him, the new theatre in Drury Lane was opened in August 1663, with Beaumont and Fletcher's *Humorous Lieutenant*.

Davenant and the duke's company took up temporary quarters in the small theatre in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. This house was built in 1660, on the site of the old granary of Salisbury House, which, as early as 1629, had served as a theatre. Hawes reckons it the "seventeenth stage or common playhouse which hath been new made within the space of three score years within London and the suburbs." So this house, finally destroyed in the great fire, and never rebuilt, Davenant, after playing for a brief while at the Cockpit, took his company, till their new house in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields was ready to receive them. This latter house, the first of three which stood on the same spot, at the rear of the Royal College of Surgeons, had originally been a Tennis Court; there Davenant had "new scenes and decorations, being the first that e'er were introduced in England." This testimony of old Downes establishes the fact of Davenant's peculiar merit in this respect. His scenery and decorations far surpassed anything that had been produced in the earlier theatres.

On Davenant's death, in 1671, the Duke's company removed, under Lady Davenant's rule, to the Duke's theatre, in Dorset Gardens, nearly on the site of the old Salisbury Court Theatre. This house was designed by Wren, and it had not only spacious access for those who came by land, but public stairs to the Thames for visitors by water. In these respective houses, the two companies continued to act till 1682, when Killigrew being dead, the two troops formed into one; and, leaving "Lincoln's-Inn" to tennis-players, "Dorset Gardens" to wrestlers, and both to decay, opened in the new theatre, built by Wren, in Drury Lane (the old one having been burned in 1672) on the 16th of November 1682.

Under this arrangement, the single company at the Theatre-Royal, Drury Lane, as it was called, continued to ask the patronage of the town about twenty years. Before we notice the progress of the English stage during a subsequent period, we will record one great innovation which marked the Killigrew and Davenant period, and which cannot be omitted. Kynaston was a favourite actor of female parts down to the year 1661. In the January of that year, Pepys for the first time saw an actress on the stage, in the *Beggars' Bush*. This was some months before Davenant opened his theatre with women forming a part of his company. As early as 1629, however, there were French actresses occasionally exhibiting in London; and in 1632, Lady Strangloove, in the *Court Beggars*, remarks, "If you have a short speech or two, the boy's a pretty actor; and his mother can play a part; women-actors now grow in request."

This may be accounted for. Actresses may point to an exalted example as warrant for the dignity of their profession. Queen Anne of Denmark, consort of James I., acted in the court masques and pastorals, which were the dear delight of both sovereigns, and indeed of the audiences invited to be present at the performance. Despite the fact that a queen and her noble ladies were the first women-players in England, Pryne roughly assailed, in the coarsest of terms, the sprightly women who resorted to the stage as the public field of their profession, whether they came from France (as some did who acted in Blackfriars') or were native English—welcome to all but a few haters of innovations, and to rigid Puritans, like ponderous Pryne.

The floundering author of the *Histrio mastix* denounced all playing as damnable, but that by actresses as especially "unwomanish." The term is singularly inappropriate. It was *unseemly* for the actors' boys or apprentices to assume the character of girls, and it was an unmanly occupation even for soft Stephen Hamerton, or radiant Hart, for graceful Clun, the lowly-toned Burt, or shrill Goffe, to don, with the attire, the ways, the gait, and as far as in them lay, the allurements of women, according to the requirements of the piece. It may have raised a laugh in an audience, the being told to have patience with a delay in commencing, caused by the circumstance that the queen had yet to shave; but even when the male face had been mown close, if not clean, the counterfeit presentment must have been, at the best, repulsive. How early audiences bore with male Juliiets, Imogens, and Violas, we cannot conjecture at all. A couple of centuries ago, when the empire of woman was publicly acknowledged, the absurdity, to say nothing worse, of such a course, was patent. Yet it was not remedied without an apology, and when one of our early actresses was to walk an English stage, a rhyming address was spoken, the object of which was to justify the innovation by ridiculing the grossness of the previous system. It might have sufficed, we should have imagined, had the fair Mrs Sanderson been allowed to walk on unintroduced, as the gentle Desdemona; but not so; the wits of Charles II.'s reign were first apologetically informed—

"Our women are defective and so sized, You'd think they were some of the guard disguised; For, to speak truth, men set that are between Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen; With brow so large, and nerve so uncompliant, When you call 'Desdemona'—enter, Giant."

The fact, that in early times female characters were sustained by youths or men, will partly account for the gross language assigned to them for utterance. And yet if we contrast those characters in our old dramatists with those introduced into plays immediately after the period when actresses appeared on our stage, it will be found that a still more dangerous grossness pervades the language of their respective parts. This is attributed to the immorality that pervaded all classes after the re-action, when the puritanical severity no longer existed. It was long before the refining influences of female performers were felt, not fully, perhaps, till this century had somewhat advanced, and not perfectly perhaps even then. What was said of the innovation may now, however, with certain exceptions, be said of the rule, namely, that on the stage "nature has taken possession of her rights, the finest feelings are consigned to the fairest forms; the very Muse herself appears in her own sex and..." Theatres.

person; beauty, that gives being to the poet's rapturous vision, a voice that guides his language to the heart, smiles that enchant, tears that dissolve, with looks that fascinate, and dying, plaintive tones that sink into the soul, are now the appropriate and exclusive attributes of the all-conquering sex."

Killigrew and Davenant rendered good service by the introduction of actresses, and by their improvements in scenery. The custom, too, of retaining places in the boxes or "best rooms," was continued under their regime. A prologue, spoken in 1638, and alluding to manners at least a score of years old, says of the public, that

"Thou to the theatres were pleased to come, Ere they had dined, to take up the best room; There sat on benches not adorned with mats, And graciously did veil their high-crown'd hats To every half-dress'd player as he still Through hangings peep'd, to see the galleries fill."

In 1672, we have reference to another custom; a prologue spoken in that year sneeringly alludes to a portion of the public who did not arrive at the theatre till the last moment, and that till they came

"The stinking footman's sent to keep your places."

Down to a late period in the last century, the front rows of the boxes were occupied by livery servants retaining the places previously engaged by their masters or mistresses, who were sometimes impelled thereto by the small vanity of exhibiting stalwart and showily-dressed men-servants. Walpole has many a sarcastic allusion to this custom, now as obsolete as the fashion of the same box-visitors in Lent, who manifested the religious feeling evoked from them by the solemn season, by going to the play in "full mourning."

In addition to the theatres occupied by Killigrew, with the King's, and Davenant, with the Duke's company, there were two houses established for the training of young people for the stage. These were called Nurseries, and were small playhouses in which dramatic pieces were occasionally acted by the regular performers, as well as rehearsed by the pupils. One of the nurseries was in Hatton Garden, where students were trained for the Duke's company; the second, in Moorfields, was the school for future members of the King's company.

"There queens were formed and future heroes bred; There unfeign'd actors learn'd to laugh and cry; There infant punks their tender voices tried, And little Maximus the gods defied."

Thus, for the new career of the English theatre after the Restoration, there were a few veterans of the Tudor school, the younger actors enlisted by the patentees, and the aspiring pupils of the respective nurseries. Greatest of all these, during the last portion of the seventeenth century, was Betterton, the original Jaffier. Next in talent, but far removed from the great actor, were Hart and Major Mollum, the original performers of Alexander the Great and Clytus. Clun and Nokes, and sprightly Price, were also among the first favourites of the public; and great in comedy as Betterton in tragedy, Lacy was long the people's pet comedian, winning golden opinions as the original actor of Teague, of Bayes, and of the hero in the first English version of Tartuffe. Among the actresses, most conspicuous for talent or other sources of attractions, were the two Marshalls, daughters of an old Presbyterian; Eleanor Gwynn, and, worthy colleague of Betterton, Mrs Barry, the first of that stage-honoured name, and the original, and seldom surpassed, Belvidera.

The dramatic authors of this long period were, at the best, but inefficient followers of that tuneful brotherhood comprising Shakspeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Webster, Marston, and others. The masterpieces of these writers were ill-supplied by the swelling nothingness of Davenant, the bombast of Sir Robert Stapleton, the Gallicised manner of Lord Orrery, the affections of the three Howards, the nonsense of Flecknoe, the grossness of Etherege, or even by the most resonant of the periods of Dryden. The Duke of Newcastle supplied the theatre with poor plays; the Duchess wrote even worse; Settle's heroes ranted; Lord Falkland and Sir Charles Sedley's gentlemen were sorry rascals; Aphra Behn's were something more rascally still, and her heroines yet more audacious than her heroes; Wycherley, with more wit, defiled the stage more than Killigrew had done; and many a fine gentleman who could not write with ease imitated his vices, though unable to emulate his excellencies; Otway and Lee, who commenced as actors, were hissed by the audiences who crowned them as authors, full as one is of anachronisms and the other of rant; Duryey's productions failed to uphold the credit of the stage; of Bankes' tragedies it is difficult to say whether he meant them for serious pieces or burlesque extravaganzas; while for Shirley's superior muse there lacked the admirers he merited.

In tragedy, fustian reigned supreme; in comedy, virtue, honour, religion, common morality, were laughed down. Buckingham scarcely exceeded the extravagance of the former by burlesquing it in the Rehearsal, and King Charles gave the sanction of fashion to the latter, by his loudly-expressed preference of French plays and French principles. Thence Shakspeare became neglected, or what was worse, outraged. Davenant amended him, Shadwell corrected him, Dryden altered him, Duryey and Crown improved him, and Nahum Tate, most criminal of these offenders, complacently revised, corrected, and simplified him! Less guilty, perhaps, but not less conceited, were Caryl and Sedley, the first of whom wrote a new Richard III., and the other a new Antony and Cleopatra; but at once the most wicked and most silly assailant of all was Rymer, the critic, who wrote a pamphlet in order to suppress Shakspeare altogether!

Moliere was not more tenderly treated. His comedies were travestied rather than adapted to our stage, and these, unlike the so-called original pieces, were remarkable for their coarseness and personality. In the latter respect, the tragedies sinned as fully; the old comedy of the Greeks was not more unmistakably personal in its allusions to living individuals than many of the serious dramas of the seventeenth century.

It was a prolific period for the stage, but profitless both for itself and for posterity. Of all the pieces produced from the Restoration down to the appearance of Cibber, towards the close of the seventeenth century, there is not one that "keeps" the stage, according to the professional signification of that term. Some are still read out of curiosity, but perhaps Venice Preserved is the only one that is ever now performed, and that but occasionally. It is not a stock-piece, as so many of those of Shakspeare are.

In the period last-named there was no attempt to improve the public mind by teaching it from the stage. "I can no more be serious than you godly," was a phrase put into the mouth of Haines (a clever actor from one of the Nurseries), and it well illustrates the moral tone both of actors and audience. Ravenscroft, who used to write pieces expressly for the young actors to represent for their own profit, on the Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent, did not improve the public morals by introducing the Italian comedy and the freely-speaking harlequin. The new authors misunderstood the object of the old, as Mountfort annihilated the instruction of Marlowe by turning his Faustus into a farce. But authors misconceived their own position too; the dedications of their dramas had nothing in them of the quaint and elegant flattery of those of the Tudor days. They were disgracefully fulsome, the aim Theatres being not to render honour to a nobleman, but to extract from him a couple of guineas and an invitation to dine.

This leads us to a consideration of the profits accruing from a professional dramatic authorship. The rights of theatrical authors included a portion of the proceeds of certain nights' performances of their pieces, as well as what they procured by selling their productions to the managers, or their copyrights to the publishers. In very early times, according to Oldys, an author's benefit took place on the first night, or rather first day of the acting of his drama. Subsequently, this arrangement being too much in favour of dull authors, the day was changed, and, as Davenant has it—

"In the time of mighty Tamburlaine, Of conjuring Faustus and the Beauxchamps bold, Your poets used to have the second day."

At the commencement of the last century, it was the actors who divided the profits of a first night, after all expenses were paid, in order, probably, to remunerate them for the toil and time devoted to learning and rehearsing a new piece. Very early in the same century a new arrangement, previously attempted but now established, was made with authors. Their benefit was deferred to the third representation, and that was sometimes mortgaged. Decker speaks of a playwright—

"Not caring, so he gains A cram'd third day, what filth drops from his brain." And in the epilogue to Caius Marius, authors are asked—

"Now, which amongst you is there to be found Will take his third day's pawn for fifty pound?"

Southerne, certainly not for his best, yet no doubt his then most attractive piece, Sir Anthony Love, was allowed two benefits: he used to make such occasions doubly profitable by hawking about his own tickets; and he is said to have thus acquired £700 by a single play. Farquhar, in acknowledgment of the advantages accruing to the treasury from the long run of his Constant Couple, had four nights allotted to him. This was a singular case, and for many years the author's nights were understood to be the third, sixth, and ninth. At present there is no such understanding; the author sells his drama with or without copyright to the purchaser, and in the latter case he has a small claim upon the receipts of any theatre in the capital or the provinces where his piece may have the good fortune to be played.

There was one curious but temporary system connected with authors and managers, which must not be omitted in an article illustrative of the theatre. Just after the Restoration, when the patronage of play-goers was solicited by the proprietors of two houses, the latter used to engage the services of popular dramatists by a retaining fee of from £1.1 to £2 per week. This worked so ill that it was soon superseded.

At what period authors were first required or permitted to read their new pieces to the players is uncertain. That it was an established custom in the last century we know, and that it was one as likely to mar the author's object as to farther it, is certain. All depended on the reader's power and skill. Lee displayed both in such perfection that the despairing actors accepted their parts with modest conviction of doing the author injustice, and yet, when Lee himself attempted the stage (in Macbeth), his enunciation was extremely defective. Colly Cibber was another of the fine, declamatory, and impressive readers. Rowe, again, possessed this accomplishment so fully, that even Mrs Oldfield acknowledged that all the merit she derived from the modulation of her voice was entirely owing to her hearing Rowe read his own tragedies. Some authors of less note were remarkable for their skill in this important element of success. Nevertheless, several of the greatest and most successful of our dramatic authors were the most incapable readers. Dryden was cold, flat, and unafflicting, although he harmonized the language which he himself pronounced so indifferently. Thompson, between his blundering and his broad Scottish accent, was so unintelligible, that he was compelled to abandon the task to an actor. Congreve put in peril the acceptance of his most lively comedies by his wretched reading of the dialogue; and had not Cibber taken the manuscript of Cato from the hands of the hesitating, unemphatic Addison, a tragedy which, in fame or fortune, enriched author, actors, and proprietors, it would have been summarily and unanimously rejected. Over Bickerstaff's reading of his farcical comedies the actors went to sleep; and stammering, blundering, Irish-tongued Goldsmith was so well aware of his defects, that he was wont to say, "I leave the reading of my pieces to the players, the punctuation of them to the printers; for in truth I know little of either." He was, however, most successful in other respects; receiving sums for his two comedies which had never before been awarded to dramatic authors—namely, £500 for his Good-Natured Man, and £800 for She Stoops to Conquer. In point of lack of excellence in reciting from his own manuscript, Reed, who wrote dull farces and duller tragic pieces, was on a par with Goldsmith. "Sir," said Johnson to Henderson the actor, "I never did the man an injury, yet he would read his tragedy to me." Garrick's almost supernatural ability in reading was so well known that, after his death, the publisher Rivington put forth a pamphlet, now known to have been an imposture, pointing out, for the use of young clergymen, "the manner in which the Common Prayer was read in private by the late Mr Garrick."

One of the greatest annoyances which actors have been compelled to undergo is in the waste of great labour, study, and anxiety in the production of pieces, which proved immediately unsuccessful. To this grievance Le Kain, the great French tragedian, proposed a remedy—to other theatres as well as those of his own nation. The proposition was made in a published letter, in which the author says—

"A thousand instances prove that a dramatic piece is never properly judged of unless upon the stage. Many a tragedy has appeared extremely good on the reading that has proved very defective in representation. The best method in this case would be to act the piece upon the stage, the actors reading their parts from the book of the piece; for to require that the actors should get any new piece by heart, unless there is some chance of success upon the stage, is surely to impose upon them a very cruel, and very often a superfluous and unnecessary task." It is not extraordinary that such a remedy was never resorted to, but it is that it was ever proposed. We will only add to our allusion to this circumstance the record of a fact, that actors themselves have almost invariably proved the most incorrect judges of the probable effect of plays read to them by authors.

Touching the value of dramatic pieces in the eyes of publishers we have a few authentic indications. Dr Young received for the copyright of his Busiris, £84; Smith for his Phaedra and Hippolytus, £50; Rowe obtained only £5s. more for his Jane Shore, which was hardly worth the additional compensation; while his Lady Jane Gray acquired for him a further increase in the sum of £175, 5s. Cibber fared better than the tragic poets, his once popular comedy of the Nonjuror bringing him just one hundred guineas. It was rare for a comedy to be estimated at such a value. Parolle and Izadora was not undervalued at £36, 10s.; but the Lady's Last Stake might have been priced higher than £32, 5s. Exactly half that sum was paid for a twice better comedy, The Double Gallant; the Comical Lovers ran down to £10, 15s.; and his absurd Venus and Adonis, in which the goddess of beauty sang a Theatres, song commencing with "O pleasing horror! O melodious yell!" was considerably overpaid at L5,7s. Cibber's attempt at putting on the stiff classical sock of Corneille was not profitable to him; his Cinna's Conspiracy realizing only a poor L13; but this piece was not one "of circumstance" like the Nonjuror, which was honoured by the attendance of the king, was published in costly and also "people's" editions, and was recommended by moral-essay writers as a work which should find place in every household with the Book of Common Prayer and the Whole Duty of Man! Compared with the sum given for the copyright of the Nonjuror, how unworthy was that handed over by Tonson to Otway for Venice Preserved—only L15! In later days, publishers have been more liberal or more daring. Maturin received three hundred and fifty guineas from the late Mr Murray for his tragedy of Bertram; and the same price was given by Mr Warren to Barry Cornwall [Mr Proctor] for his Mirandola, prior to that tragedy being brought forward on the stage.

The consideration of the profits of the professional author has led us away from that of the condition of the English theatre in the eighteenth century, to which we now return. The concluding years of the seventeenth century were not favourable to the interests of the theatre. A taste for operatic performances had been founded by converting some of the master-pieces of the drama into musical plays. The temper of the times, too, was adverse, and the patentees began to treat agreements with their actors as matters that might be set aside whenever such a course might be profitable to them. The veteran Betterton was at the head of those rebellious and triumphant actors who overthrew the monopoly of the patentees, and obtained a licence from William III. to act in a separate theatre. This triumph was consummated when the succeeding company opened at the new theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, in 1695, with the Love for Love of the brilliant but immoral, and then young writer, Congreve. The old patentees continued at Drury Lane, but occasionally played at the house in Dorset Gardens. At this time, however, the tendency of the "theatre" was so hostile to every virtue and principle of honour, that Collier launched against it his famous philippic, which was but ill answered by either Vanbrugh or Congreve, and with even less effect ridiculed by Durfey laughing in song at

"Stubborn nonjurors, Who, wanting employment, now scourge the hard times;" and groaning at the fact that "Dull, clad-pated ralliers, Smiths, cobblers, and colliers, Had damned all the rhymes."

There was little improvement, however, either in authors, actors, or audiences; but a statute of Queen Anne attempted to find a remedy, and the actors were forbidden, under pain of being silenced, acting anything contrary to religion and good manners; no persons not of the company were to be permitted to go behind the scenes, or be upon the stage during a performance; infamous visard-masks were driven from every part of the house; and payment before admission was strictly enjoined. Thenceforth the Lord Chamberlain began to exercise an authority over the actors seldom before assumed. As immediately subsequent to this, very immoral plays were acted in presence of Queen Anne herself, the statute became a dead letter, except when it was occasionally appealed to by ignoble persons who resorted to the theatre, informing against the actors if they detected them in offending, and who, receiving a portion of the fine, were of course the better pleased the more blasphemy and indecency abounded.

In 1704, Betterton assigned his licence and company to Captain Vanbrugh, who took both to the Haymarket, and commenced a campaign there in the new house, on the site of which the present Opera-House stands. At Drury Theatre Lane, the elder Rich (Christopher) had attained the leadership in the management, made over to him by the representatives of the Davenant family. For four years there existed only a disastrous rivalry, and in 1708 the companies once more united under Rich's management at Drury Lane, the Haymarket house being left under the direction of Swiney, for the production of opera as well as of the regular drama, for the performances of which he raised an independent troop of players "at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket." This arrangement failed to be profitable. The managers then changed houses—they fared no better; then rechanged; and at length Collier, who had succeeded Christopher Rich, opened Drury Lane under a licence, including Wilks, Doggett, and Cibber, in 1711. From this period, by good management, prosperity began to smile upon the undertaking, and continued for twenty years, almost without intermission. During that period the names of Booth, whose acting, and Steele, whose writings in the Tatler had served the theatre, were added to the licence, Collier retiring; and ultimately the licence during pleasure was set aside for a patent, at the head of which was the name of Steele. The patentees met with formidable opposition, however, when, in 1715, the old patent, of which Rich had been deprived, was restored, and again a new theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields was opened under the management of his son, John Rich. The Duke of Newcastle constantly interfered in the affairs of the theatres, by right of his authority as Lord Chamberlain, whereby he could order the closing or opening of a house, or procure any alteration in the patent, as when he expunged and afterwards restored the name of Steele.

The close of the first quarter of the last century was made memorable by the introduction of pantomimes, the attraction of which was far greater than any exercised by the finished actors who then graced the stage. In this sort of entertainment, still tolerated even by intellectual and educated audiences, Rich excelled, eclipsing all the efforts of the Drury Lane management. A new rival to both houses also arose in 1720, in the "Little Theatre in the Haymarket;" but it was not a dangerous one till some years had elapsed. In 1730, a new theatre in remote Goodman's Fields quietly established itself; but it was not considered by the patentees menacing to their interests. In 1732, Rich removed to the new theatre in Covent Garden, the house that was subsequently burned down in 1808. The old house in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields had a short subsequent career as a theatre. In 1756 it was converted into a barracks, and finally it was the well-known Copeland's China repository, till 1848, when the old theatre, with its playhouse-look to the last, was taken down to afford space for the enlarging of the Royal College of Surgeons. Meanwhile, in 1733, certain discontented actors suddenly left their respective houses, in Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and appeared at the Haymarket. Their alleged grievance consisted in their being transferred, after the death of the old patentees, to new proprietors, without their consent. This division was not mended till Fleetwood, a man of fortune, purchased the whole patent of Drury Lane, and effected a reconciliation. From this time it became a rule that actors and managers should be bound by signed articles.

In a brief space of time, the political allusions which began to abound on the stage, and especially in Fielding's Pasquin, led in 1737 to that licensing act, which was so eloquently resisted by Lord Chesterfield, and whereby the number of theatres was limited, and no piece, not even a prologue or epilogue, could be produced without the approval of a licencer. The first who exercised his office was William Chetwynd, with a salary of L400 per annum. His trifling labours were relieved by a deputy, at half his The appearance of Garrick at Goodman's Fields, in 1741, marks the commencement of a new era in the history of the English theatre. Fleetwood allured him to Drury Lane, by offering him the highest salary that had ever yet been given to an English actor—600 guineas a year. Fleetwood's management, however, threatened to ruin the theatre, and he was obliged to dispose of the patent to Lacy and two others; with whom, after playing for a time under Rich at Covent Garden, Garrick was united in 1746. Thence commenced the triumphant career of Old Drury, down to the retirement of the English Roscius in 1776. Garrick then held half the patent, which share was sold to Sheridan, Lindley, and Forde, for £35,000. Lacy's half was subsequently purchased by Sheridan for £45,000. Meanwhile, the Covent Garden patent, in 1767, after Rich's death, passed to Harris, Rutherford, the elder Colman, and Powell, at a cost of £60,000. Colman soon seceded; and that these high prices were not profitable, became manifest, in 1778, by the coalition, as it was called, whereby the actors played at either house, as the exigency of circumstances might require. In 1792, "Old Drury" was pulled down, and till 1794, when the new house, erected by Holland, was opened, the actors played at the Opera-House. The new edifice was destroyed by fire in 1809; and, in October 1812, the present house (the fourth theatre), built by B. Wyatt, was opened, with a prologue by Lord Byron. The property was now in the hands of a committee of proprietors, by whose exertions £400,000 had been raised, a tenth of which was appropriated to purchasing the old patent, Sheridan's share being bought for £20,000. The like sum was divided between the remaining old patentees, Mrs Lindley, Mrs Richardson, and T. Sheridan. From that period to the present time, the theatre has been let by the committee to various enterprising managers, but one or two of whom have realized a profit by their speculations. The most successful, perhaps, of these, certainly the one who most deserved to be so, was Mr Macready, whose "revivals" gave a lustre to the stage which it had never before known; but which have been imitated, as far as less ample means would allow, by Mr C. Kean. Mr Macready's management closed in 1843, since which period the drama has had no proper and settled home on the stage of this magnificent theatre.

The fortunes of the other patented house have not been brighter. In 1803, John Kemble became one of the proprietors; and, five years subsequently, Rich's old edifice, which had been nearly rebuilt in 1792, was burned to the ground. In less than a year (in 1809), the new building by Smirke was opened, at advanced prices, which led to those famous O. P. riots, which lasted sixty-seven nights. Twenty years later, its affairs were in a bankrupt condition; subscriptions were solicited from the public, and the leading actors of various theatres performed gratuitously, in order to release the proprietors from embarrassment and the players from distress. Temporary success ensued; but the fortunes of the theatre were not permanently restored. In April 1847, it was, after much alteration, opened as an Italian Opera. In 1856, at the close of a masquerade-ball, it fell a prey to the flames; and on its site, in 1858, the "Royal Italian Opera" commenced its difficult and doubtful career.

But the history of these great edifices, without some notice of the actors and the pieces produced, would be like describing a gallery of pictures by expatiating on the frames rather than on the works of art. We have alluded to the pieces and the players of the earlier days. For a lengthened subsequent period, comedies were made up of grossness and smartness, tragedies, first of rant and then of such dulness, that we can only wonder how the audience could keep awake; that they did so is the most satisfactory testimony to the powers, the judgment, and the feeling of the actors. Then succeeded the comedy of sentiment, the comedy of conversation, and the comedy of farce. Tragedy remained as heavy as before; that quarry had been worked out by the noble craftsmen of earlier years. In its place, rose melodrama, mingling serious and comic, and giving music as an aid to expression. In later days, just as the habits of society began to be adverse to the theatre, the tone of dramatic writers improved; and at the present time, there are at once more nature and more refinement on the stage than at any other period,—with room, however, for farther improvement.

Of the actors who adorned the stage between the commencement of the eighteenth century and the first appearance of Garrick in 1741, many, of course, belonged to the century preceding, and one, at least, maintained within the theatre the traditions of the Shakspeare period. That one was Betterton, who for more than half a century (1659-1710) reigned without a rival, and

"Whose setting sun still shot a glimm'ring ray, Like ancient Rome's, majestic in decay."

In the space of time indicated above, this incomparable actor created one hundred and thirty new characters, of which two only can be said to retain possession of the modern stage, viz., Jaffier and Valentine, in Love for Love. From 1661 to 1706, Underhill, tall, corpulent, and clumsy, delighted those who came to laugh rather than to learn, and established a reputation by his creation of Sir Sampson Legend. A greater comedian than he, however, was Haines (1672-1700), whose Tom Errand, in the Conscious Lovers, was the crowning original effort of his theatrical career of eight-and-twenty years. Mrs Barry left the stage the same year as Betterton, after "treading" it majestically since 1673. The range of the powers of this really illustrious actress may be seen in the fact, that she was not only the original representative of Monimia, of Belvidera, and of Isabella, heroines of the tragedies of Otway—and of "such another poet as Otway"—as Dryden called Southern—but also created Clarissa in the Confederacy, and similar, but now less known, parts, belonging to a first comic actress. Perhaps, the best pupil she ever had was Mrs Knight, who, from 1684 to 1724, was the great representative of "ladies," and in Mrs Barry's absence was her most efficient "double." The following list contains the names of the other leading actors who commenced their career in the seventeenth, and ended it in the succeeding century. Such a list will afford some idea of the quality of the actors; and, in the names of one or two original parts, will show the leading dramatists who then challenged the approbation of the town. The dates exhibit the years of the first and last appearances of the respective players on the stage.

1680-1707. Mrs Bracegirdle, Angelica, in Love for Love. 1681-1703. Mrs Verbruggen (Mountfort). Bizarre, in the Incostant. 1687-1714. Powel. Orestes, in Phillips' Distressed Mother. 1688-1707. Verbruggen. Oroonoko, in Southern's tragedy; and Bajazet, in Rowe's Timourlen. 1689-1715. Bowen. Sir Joseph Witol, in Old Bachelor. 1690-1732. Wilks. Sir Harry Wildair, in the Constant Couple; Young Mirabel, in the Incostant; Plume, in the Recruiting Officer; and Archer, in the Brazen Strategies.—all pieces by Farquhar; Sir George Airy, in Mrs Centlivre's Busy Body; Juba, in Addison's Cato; Don Felix, in Mrs Centlivre's Wonder; and Lord Townly, in the excellent original comedy of a writer famous for his skilful adaptations of French plays to the English stage, The Provoked Husband of Sir John Vanbrugh. 1691-1713. Doggett. He played Shylock as a comic character and bequeathed a coat and badge, still rowed for, and cake and wine still enjoyed, on the 12th of August. 1691-1733. Colley Cibber, the creator of seventy-three new characters. Among which were Lord Foppington, in the Relapse; Richard III., in his own alteration and desolation of Shakespeare's tragedy; Gilber, in the Beau Stratagem; Gloster, in Rowe's Jane Shore; and Sir Francis Wranghead in the Provoked Husband.

1692-1719. Mrs Rogers. Remarkable for her reluctance to play any but "good ladies." She was the long celebrated original Oriana, in the Incasentant.

1692-1723. Pinkethaman. The first of comic grimaces, and the original Beau Clincher of the Constant Couple.

1693-1724. Mrs Cross. Miss Hoyden, in the Relapse; and Miranda, in the Busy Body.

1695-1726. William Balloch. Gibby, in the Wonder. Trade Love, in Bold Stroke for a Wife.

1695-1736. Mills, whose versatility is marked by the fact of his creation of two such opposite characters as Colonel Briton, in the Wonder, and Zanga, in Dr Young's Revenge. He was the first actor who received more than £6 per week; a circumstance unprecedented previous to 1709.

1696-1741. Ben Jonson. This namesake of the poet

"Built the streets of London, the comedies,

Begat the grins, and gave the comical jokes;

And, the upon the stage, appeared no player."

His most remarkable original characters were Alderman Smuggler, in the Constant Couple; and Vellum, in Addison's Drummer.

1699-1730. Norris. A small comedian, with a shrill voice, whose most famous original parts were Jubilee Dicky, in the Conscious Lovers; and Scrub, in the Beau Stratagem. This man, one of the drollest of comic actors, used to play Cato to country audiences.

1699-1741. Mrs Porter, of the school of Mrs Barry. In tragedy, she seemed inspired, and has never been excelled in her original part of Hermione, in the Distressed Mother.

Such were some of the actors who commenced in the last half of the seventeenth century, the closing year of which (1700) introduced, if we may so speak, to the succeeding century, judicious and perfect, Booth, whose genius was equal to the brazen Dick of Steele's Confederacy and the Cato of Addison's famous tragedy. His brilliant career lasted from 1700 to 1728. Contemporary therewith was the career of Mrs Oldfield, continuing, however, two years longer. As Booth ultimately replaced Betterton, so did Mrs Oldfield replace Mrs Barry. The range of this actress's characters was as wide, too, as that of the great actor, and his contrasts in Dick and Cato were matched by hers in Jane Shore and Violante, Andromache and Lady Townly, of which she was the original representative. Having noticed apart this couple, who worthily led the stage during rather more than the first quarter of the last century, the subjoined list is added to show of what other noble materials the English theatre consisted down to the accession of Garrick.

1700-1721. Park. Brass, in the Confederacy; Obadiah Prim, in Bold Stroke for a Wife.

1702-1721. Mrs Saunders, celebrated for her "maids." Flora, in the Wonder.

1703-1713. Mrs Bradshaw. Dorinda, in Beau Stratagem; Arabella Zeal, in Fair Quaker.

1704-1710. Batcourt. Kite, in Recruiting Officer; Sir Francis Gripe, in Busy Body.

1706-1721. Mrs Bicknell, in whose lowest rusticity there was grace, and who was the original Cherry in the Beau Stratagem.

1709-1738. Spiller, the comic actor of his day, who most completely identified himself with his part and forgot his audience. He has been seldom equaled, except by W. Farren, in old men.

1709-1738. Miller, who being unable to read with facility, had his parts read to him by his wife. He was admirable in his original character of John Moody, and similar parts.

1710-1757. Ryan, a lover and fine gentleman, for more than thirty years. His conception was better than his execution. He could not play Richard; but Garrick witnessing the attempt, discovered the aim which Ryan could not reach, and not only attained, but went beyond it.

1714-1750. Mrs Horton, the "second" of Mrs Oldfield.

1714-1731. Quin. His Comus is the most distinguished of the few parts he originally played and which have come down to us. In the last year of his acting, his salary was £1,000 per annum, the largest known down to that period.

1715-1739. Walker. For thirteen years he played lovers and young tragic heroes, before he was cast for, and became famous as Captain Macbeth. Rich said of him that he was the only actor he knew who could both speak and sing well.

1718-1730. Bohema. Deserving of notice, because he excelled Booth in a point where that great actor failed—the expression of plaintive distress.

From 1720 to 1759, Theophilus Cibber, whose burlesque tradition of ancient Pistol is followed by modern actors, sustained a respectable position on the stage, where he originated George Barnwell. Between the year of his appearance and that of Garrick, the most remarkable actors were—brilliant Palmer; Hippisley, famed for his expression of avarice and amorous dotage; Milward, loud, yet harmonious, who first represented Thompson's Alfred in the theatre at princely Clidden; Mrs Clive, who from 1728 to 1769 had no equal, and was the very Comic Muse herself; Mrs Pritchard the first of our tragic actresses who spoke in natural tones, and who was as mirth-inspiring in Tag (in Miss in her Teens) as she was literally heartrending in Mrs Beverley, characters of which she was the original representative; Mrs Cibber, whose Ophelia succeeding ladies have vainly striven to emulate; and last, Mrs Margaret Woffington, who, from 1740 to 1757, kept the theatrical world, whether followers of the tragic or the comic muse, in a state of delicious wonder and ecstasy.

It was when the English stage was thus composed, as regards its chief supporters, that the little theatre at Ipswich sent up to London, Garrick. From that period, 1741, to that of the great actor's retirement in 1776, he was, though not without worthy rivals, yet the chief, perhaps the sole true glory of the British theatre. Reynolds's well-known picture, which places him between Tragedy and Comedy, equally ready to follow either, is, as far as painting can express it, the most perfect illustration of his wonderful powers. He originated about forty new characters, and these can be nearly divided as tragic or comic parts. Of the plays to which they belonged, however, only two are now often represented—the Gamester, in which he was the Beverley; and the Jealous Wife, in which he originally played Oakley.

From the year 1744 to the end of his career, his most dangerous rival was silver-toned Barry—the original Young Norval (in London), and Evander in the Grecian Daughter. Barry remained on the stage one year later than Garrick; and when both had withdrawn from their profession, the prospects of the drama seemed hopelessly dull indeed.

During the period last-named, the English theatre was perhaps at its brightest, taken as a whole. Then flourished, in addition to many of those noticed above, Shuter, Weston, Woodward, Foote (1744-76), Ross and Reddish, Yates, Digges, and Lee Lewes, "Gentleman Smith" and Macklin, who commenced in 1735 with recollections of Betterton, and ended his career in 1791, the contemporary of a few aged actors who have only recently departed from among us; King (1748-1802); Edwin, Palmer, and Quick; Hull (1759-1803); Lewis (1770-1809.)

The chief actresses of the Garrick period, besides those already named, were—Mrs Barry (subsequently Mrs Crawford); Miss Macklin and Miss Barsanti; Perdita Robinson and Mrs Green; Mrs Hartley; the brilliant Mrs Bellamy; Mrs Yates; Mrs Abington; Miss Pope, whose long career ran through fifty-two years, commencing from 1756; and Mrs Mattocks, whose longer career embraced the distant years 1752-1808.

In recalling the names of the actors who came upon the stage after Garrick had left it, but whose career was concluded previous to the nineteenth century, the only names of eminence are those of Henderson and Bensley; among actresses, that of Miss Farren is the most conspicuous. Mrs Siddons, indeed, belongs also to the Garrick period, for she stepped from the strollers' platform to the stage of old Drury in 1775; but she seldom played with "Roscius," and her career of triumph, commencing after his retirement, was brought to a final close at Covent Garden in 1819, when Edmund Kean was the Roscius of the new century.

From 1783, when John Kemble first appeared in London, to 1817, when he retired from the stage, the dignity of the British theatre was splendidly upheld by that founder of a school whose peculiar declamatory style has still an exponent in Mr Cooper. Great tragedian as Kemble was, none of his original tragic characters fixed themselves on the stage as an inheritance to younger actors. The parts which he was the first to play, and which are, at this day, more or less popular, belong to melodrama or sentimental comedy. They are Octavian (Mountaineers), Rolla, Sir Edward Mortimer (Iron Chest), Penruddock (Wheel of Fortune), Reuben Glenroy (Town and Country), and the Stranger. Kemble's power was at its highest when a formidable rival appeared in George Frederick Cooke (1800-1810), of whom, however, it has been happily said, that he played many parts ill, but that in the few he played well no living actor could at all approach him; two of those parts were Richard III. and Sir Pertinax Macsycophant. For about a quarter of a century, reckoning from 1807, there was not a more accomplished or refined actor on the stage than Charles Young. His eminent position was not won without a struggle, as few opportunities of distinguishing himself were afforded him during the first years of his acting in the same company with John Kemble. To the school of that actor he belonged to the last, but it was a school whose prestige failed before the nature, impulse, freedom, and terrible earnestness of Edmund Kean. As Macklin won the town by dropping the old intoning cadences of the earlier tragedians, so did the elder Kean delight it by avoiding the solemn declamation and imposing enunciation of the Kemble period; and, giving unshackled freedom to the promptings of the heart, kept them at the same time under the control of his head. In other words, his feelings and his judgment went in bright companionship, and, if he displayed Shakspeare "by flashes of lightning," he could as easily rule as he could raise the storm.

With the name of Edmund Kean the history of the modern theatre, and of actors who have passed away from the real as well as the mimic stage, properly ceases. The contemporary players who have survived him, and his successors who still occupy the scene, may be registered by future writers treating of theatrical annals. To render as complete as the brevity of an article will permit the details of the progress of the English theatre, the list of actors and actresses of high and low comedy, whose talents ennobled their art during the last quarter of the past and the commencement of the present century, might worthily be inserted here. Their names, however, and their histories are better known to many, and more accessible to all, than those of the earlier professors; and with this allusion to them we may close the subject. One additional circumstance alone demands to be recorded—namely, the increase of theatres since the time when the old patents were in force, and the performances of the various playhouses were restricted to pieces of a certain style, the legitimate drama, as it is called, being legally represented only in the theatres protected by the patents. On the Surrey side of the Thames, remote, however, from the site of the old Shakespearian theatres, stand now the well-frequented houses, the Surrey, Astley's, and Victoria. On the Middlesex side, Drury Lane and Covent Garden are the successors rather than the representatives of the old king's and duke's companies. What were once "summer-houses," such as the Haymarket, Lyceum, and Sadler's Wells, are now open all the year round, or without reference to season. In addition to these, the play-going public have the Strand, the Olympic, and the Adelphi—the last, the newest, and most commodious of our London houses; the St James's and the Marylebone, on the north-west of the metropolis;—the Princess's, in Oxford Street; and the Queen's, in Tottenham Court Road, do not indicate any peculiar privileges in their names. With these are to be noticed, the City of London Theatre, and the splendid suburban houses which have sprung out of the old music saloons, and which invite audiences from among the inhabitants of Whitechapel, Shoreditch, Hoxton, City Road, and even of the southern borders of Essex and Hertfordshire. These new theatres include the National Standard, near the terminus of the Eastern Counties Railway; the Britannia, in Hoxton High Street; the Grecian Theatre, in the City Road; and the Pavilion, in Whitechapel. In these spacious and highly decorated houses every species of performance, from tragedy and opera to farce and pantomime, is represented with an ability and effect which are not surpassed in the theatres lying more westward.

Revolutions only inferior to those which swept over the ancient Greek theatre have been undergone by our own. In Greece, the edifice, so-named from θεάτρον (I see), was devoted not only to plays, but to the solemn business of the state, of which the citizens formed the audience, and to which, even when the seats ceased to be free, the poor were admitted gratis, or by money provided for them by the state. In the crowded theatres, the successors of the apostles preached the gospel; and from some of the uses to which the locality was applied, a sense of degradation was connected with the verb θεατρίζειν (θεαπλέω), because there the innocent as well as the guilty "were made a gazing-stock, both by reproaches and afflictions." In England, although the playhouses themselves, from being private and not state or public property, have not been converted to as many various uses as in Greece, they have served for many purposes besides those of the drama. The most striking and significant change that has come over some of them is that by which "congregations" have been induced to assemble therein on Sunday evenings, and to listen to the word of God preached to them by zealous ministers, from the stage. This circumstance brings the English and Greek theatres in close connection; and with this allusion to it, which we could not omit when treating of such a subject, we take leave of our audience, and give up the stage we have occupied to more worthy actors.

(J. D-R-N.)