Chapter VII
ON THE DIVERSIONS OF THE METROPOLIS, AND THE COURT—THE STAGE; ITS USAGES, AND ECONOMY.
Of the diversions of the metropolis and court, some were peculiar, and some were shared in common with the country. "The countrey hath his recreations," observes Burton, "the city his several Gymnicks and exercises, feasts and merry meetings."—"What so pleasant as to see some Pageant or sight go by, as at Coronations, Weddings, and such like solemnities, to see an Embassadour or a Prince met, received, entertained, with Masks, Shews, Fireworks, &c."[168:A]; and an old dramatic poet of 1590, gives us a still more copious list of town amusements:—
"—— Let nothing that's magnifical, Or that may tend to London's graceful state, Be unperform'd, as showes and solemne feastes, Watches in armour, triumphes, cresset lights, Bonefires, belles, and peales of ordinaunce And pleasure. See that plaies be published, Mai-games and maskes, with mirth and minstrelsie, Pageants and school-feastes, beares and puppet-plaies.[168:B]
"Every palace," continues Burton, "every city almost, hath his peculiar walks, cloysters, terraces, groves, theatres, pageants, games, and several recreations[168:C];" and we purpose, in this chapter, giving some account of the leading articles thus enumerated, but more particularly of the stage, as being peculiarly connected with the design and texture of our work.
As the principal object, therefore, of the present discussion, will be the amusements usually appropriated to the capital; those which it has in common with the country shall be first enumerated, though in a more superficial way.
Of these, card-playing seems to have been as universal in the days of Elizabeth, as in modern times, and carried on, too, with the same ruinous consequences to property and morals; for though Stowe tells us, when commemorating the customs of London, that "from All-Hallows eve to the day following Candlemas-day, there was, among other sports, playing at cards for counters, nails, and points, in every house, more for pastime than for gain," yet we learn from contemporary satirists, from Gosson, Stubbes, and Northbrooke[169:A], that all ranks, and especially the upper classes, were incurably addicted to gaming in the pursuit of this amusement, which they considered equally as seductive and pernicious as dice.
The games at cards peculiar to this period, and now obsolete, are, 1. Primero, supposed to be the most ancient game of cards in England. It was very fashionable in the age of Shakspeare, who represents Henry the Eighth playing "at primero with the duke of Suffolk[169:B];" and Falstaff exclaiming in the Merry Wives of Windsor, "I never prospered since I foreswore myself at primero."[169:C]
The mode of playing this curious game is thus described by Mr. Strutt, from Mr. Barrington's papers upon card-playing, in the eighth volume of the Archæologia:—"Each player had four cards dealt to him one by one, the seven was the highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which counted for twenty-one, the six counted for sixteen, the five for fifteen, and the ace for the same, but the two, the three, and the four, for their respective points only. The knave of hearts was commonly fixed upon for the quinola, which the player might make what card or suit he thought proper; if the cards were of different suits, the highest number won the primero, if they were all of one colour he that held them won the flush."[170:A]
2. Trump, nearly coeval in point of antiquity with primero, and introduced in Gammer Gurton's Needle, a comedy, first acted in 1561, where Dame Chat, addressing Diccon, says,—
"We be fast set at trump, man, hard by the fyre;"[170:B]
and we learn from Decker that, in 1612, it was much in vogue:—"To speake," he remarks, "of all the sleights used by card-players in all sorts of games would but weary you that are to read, and bee but a thanklesse and unpleasing labour for me to set them down. Omitting, therefore the deceipts practised (even in the fayrest and most civill companies) at Primero, Saint Maw, Trump, and such like games, I will, &c."[170:C]
3. Gleek. This game is alluded to twice by Shakspeare[170:D]; and from a passage in Cook's Green's Tu Quoque, appears to have been held in much esteem:—
"Scat. Come, gentlemen, what is your game?
Staines. Why, gleek; that's your only game;"[170:E]
it is then proposed to play either at twelve-penny gleek, or crown gleek.[170:F]
To these may be added, Gresco, Mount Saint, New Cut, Knave Out of Doors, and Ruff, all of which are mentioned in old plays, and were favourites among our ancestors.[170:G]
Tables and Dice, enumerated by Burton after cards, include some games unknown to the present day; such as tray-trip, mum-chance, philosopher's game, novum, &c.; the first is noticed by Shakspeare in Twelfth Night, and appears, from a note by Mr. Tyrwhitt, to have been a species of draughts[171:A]; the second was also a game at tables, and is coupled by Ben Jonson in the Alchemist with tray-trip[171:B]; the third is mentioned by Burton[171:C], and is described by Mr. Strutt from a manuscript in the British Museum.—"It is called," says the author, "'a number fight,' because in it men fight and strive together by the art of counting or numbering how one may take his adversary's king and erect a triumph upon the deficiency of his calculations[171:D];" and the fourth is introduced by Shakspeare in Love's Labour's Lost[171:E];—"it was properly called novum quinque," remarks Mr. Douce, "from the two principal throws of the dice, nine and five;—was called in French quinque-nove, and is said to have been invented in Flanders."[171:F]
The immoralities to which dice have given birth, we are authorised in considering, from the proverbial phraseology of Shakspeare, to have been as numerous in his time as at present. The expressions "false as dice[171:G]," and "false as dicers' oaths[171:H]," will be illustrated by the following anecdote, taken from an anonymous MS. of the reign of James the First:—"Sir William Herbert, playing at dice with another gentleman, there rose some questions about a cast. Sir William's antagonist declared it was a four and a five; he as positively insisted that it was a five and a six; the other then swore with a bitter imprecation, that it was as he had said; Sir William then replied, 'Thou art a perjured knave; for give me a sixpence, and if there be a four upon the dice, I will return you a thousand pounds;' at which the other was presently abashed, for indeed the dice were false, and of a high cut, without a four."[172:A]
Dancing was an almost daily amusement in the court of Elizabeth; the Queen was peculiarly fond of this exercise, as had been her father Henry the Eighth, and the taste for it became so general, during her reign, that a great part of the leisure of almost every class of society was spent, and especially on days of festivity, in dancing.
To dance elegantly was one of the strongest recommendations to the favour of Her Majesty; and her courtiers, therefore, strove to rival each other in this pleasing accomplishment; nor were their efforts, in many instances, unrewarded. Sir Christopher Hatton, we are told, owed his promotion, in a great measure, to his skill in dancing; and in accordance with this anecdote, Gray opens his "Long Story" with an admirable description of his merit in this department, which, as containing a most just and excellent picture, both of the architecture and manners of "the days of good Queen Bess," as well as of the dress and agility of the knight, we with pleasure transcribe. Stoke-Pogeis, the scene of the narrative, was formerly in the possession of the Hattons:—
"In Britain's isle, no matter where, An ancient pile of building stands; The Huntingdons and Hattons there Employ'd the pow'r of Fairy hands
To raise the cieling's fretted height, Each pannel in achievements clothing, Rich windows that exclude the light, And passages that lead to nothing.
Full oft within the spacious walls, When he had fifty winters o'er him, My grave Lord-Keeper led the brawls; The seal and maces danc'd before him.
His bushy beard and shoe-strings green, His high-crown'd hat and sattin doublet, Mov'd the stout heart of England's Queen. Tho' Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it."
The Brawl, a species of dance, here alluded to, is derived from the French word braule, "indicating," observes Mr. Douce, "a shaking or swinging motion.—It was performed by several persons uniting hands in a circle, and giving each other continual shakes, the steps changing with the tune. It usually consisted of three pas and a pied-joint, to the time of four strokes of the bow; which, being repeated, was termed a double brawl. With this dance, balls were usually opened."[173:A]
Shakspeare seems to have entertained as high an idea of the efficacy of a French brawl, as probably did Sir Christopher Hatton, when he exhibited before Queen Elizabeth; for he makes Moth in Love's Labour's Lost ask Armado,—"Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?" and he then exclaims, "These betray nice wenches."[173:B] That several dances were included under the term brawls, appears from a passage in Shelton's Don Quixote:—"After this there came in another artificial dance, of those called Brawles[173:C];" and Mr. Douce informs us, that amidst a great variety of brawls, noticed in Thoinot Arbeau's treatise in dancing, entitled Orchesographie, occurs a Scotish brawl; and he adds that this dance continued in fashion to the close of the seventeenth century.[173:D]
Another dance of much celebrity at this period, was the Pavin or Pavan, which, from the solemnity of its measure, seems to have been held in utter aversion by Sir Toby Belch, who, in reference to his intoxicated surgeon, exclaims,—"Then he's a rogue. After a passy-measure, or a pavin, I hate a drunken rogue."[174:A] This is the text of Mr. Tyrwhitt; but the old copy reads,—"Then he's a rogue, and a passy measure's pavyn," which is probably correct; for the pavan was rendered still more grave by the introduction of the passamezzo air, which obliged the dancers, after making several steps round the room, to cross it in the middle in a slow step or cinque pace. This alteration of time occasioned the term passamezzo to be prefixed to the name of several dances; thus we read of the passamezzo galliard, as well as the passamezzo pavan; and Sir Toby, by applying the latter appellation to his surgeon, meant to call him, not only a rogue, but a solemn coxcomb. "The pavan, from pavo a peacock," observes Sir J. Hawkins, "is a grave and majestick dance. The method of dancing it was anciently by gentlemen dressed with a cap and sword, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by princes in their mantles, and by ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof in the dance resembled that of a peacock's tail. This dance is supposed to have been invented by the Spaniards, and its figure is given with the characters for the step, in the Orchesographia of Thoinot Arbeau.—Of the passamezzo little is to be said, except that it was a favourite air in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Ligon, in his History of Barbadoes, mentions a passamezzo galliard, which, in the year 1647, a Padre in that island played to him on the lute; the very same, he says, with an air of that kind which in Shakspeare's play of Henry the Fourth was originally played to Sir John Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, by Sneak, the musician, there named."[174:B]
Of equal gravity with the "doleful pavin," as Sir W. D'Avenant calls it, was The Measure, to tread which was the relaxation of the most dignified characters in the state, and formed a part of the revelry of the inns of court, where the gravest lawyers were often found treading the measures. Shakspeare puns upon the name of this dance, and contrasts it with the Scotch jig, in Much Ado about Nothing, where he introduces Beatrice telling her cousin Hero,—"The fault will be in the musick, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him, there is measure in every thing, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero: Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical: the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave."[175:A]
A more brisk and lively step accompanied the Canary dance, which was, likewise, very fashionable:—"I have seen a medicine," says Lafeu in All's Well that Ends Well, alluding to the influence of female charms,—
"That's able to breathe life into a stone; Quicken a rock, and _make you dance canary, With spritely fire and motion_;"[175:B]
and Moth advises Armado, when dancing the brawl, to Canary it with his feet.[175:C]
The mode of performing this dance, is thus given by Mr. Douce, from the treatise of Thoinot Arbeau:—"A lady is taken out by a gentleman, and after dancing together to the cadences of the proper air, he leads her to the end of the hall; this done he retreats back to the original spot, always looking at the lady. Then he makes up to her again, with certain steps, and retreats as before. His partner performs the same ceremony, which is several times repeated by both parties, with various strange fantastic steps, very much in the savage style."[175:D]
Beside the brawl, the pavan, the measure, and the canary, several other dances were in vogue, under the general titles of corantoes, lavoltos, jigs, galliards, and fancies, but the four which we have selected for more peculiar notice, appear to have been the most celebrated.
It is a melancholy proof of the imperfect state of civilisation during the reign of Elizabeth, that the barbarous sport of Bear and Bullbeating should have been as favourite a diversion of the court, nobility, and gentry, as of the lowest class of society. Indeed it would appear, from an order issued by the privy council, in July, 1591, that the populace had earlier than their superiors become tired of this cruel spectacle, and had given a marked preference to the amusements of the stage; for it is enacted in the above order, that there should be no plays publickly exhibited on Thursdays; because on Thursdays, bear-baiting and such like pastimes had been usually practised; and four days afterwards an injunction to the same effect was sent to the Lord Mayor, in which, after justly reprobating the performance of plays on the Sabbath, it is added, that on "all other days of the week in divers place the players do use to recite their plays to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting, and like pastimes, which are maintained for her Majesty's pleasure."[176:A]
History informs us that Elizabeth's pleasure was thus gratified at an early period of her life, and continued to be so to the close of her reign. When confined at Hatfield house, she, and her sister, Queen Mary, were recreated with a grand exhibition of bear-baiting, "with which their highnesses were right well content."[176:B] Soon after she had ascended the throne, she entertained the French ambassadors with bear and bull baiting, and stood a spectatress of the amusement until six in the evening; a similar exhibition took place the next day at Paris-Garden, for the same party; and even twenty-seven years posterior, Her Majesty could not devise a more welcome gratification for the Danish ambassador, than the display of such a spectacle at Greenwich.
So decided a partiality for this savage pastime would, of course, induce her courtiers to take care that their mistress should not be disappointed in this respect, and more especially when she honoured them with one of her periodical visits. Accordingly Laneham tells us, that when she was at Kenelworth Castle, in 1575, not less than thirteen bears were provided for her diversion, and that these were baited with a large species of ban-dogs.[177:A]
An example thus set by royalty itself, soon spread through every rank, and bear and bull baiting became one of the most general amusements in England. Shakspeare has alluded to it in more than twenty places, and it has equally attracted the notice of the foreign and domestic historian. Hentzner, whose Itinerary was printed in Latin A. D. 1598, was a spectator at one of these exhibitions, which he describes in the following manner: speaking of the theatres he says, "there is still another place, built in the form of a theatre, which serves for the baiting of bulls and bears; they are fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs, but not without great risque to the dogs, from the horns of the one, and the teeth of the other; and it sometimes happens they are killed on the spot; fresh ones are immediately supplied in the places of those that are wounded or tired." He then adds an account of a still more inhuman pastime:—"To this entertainment, there often follows that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or six men, standing circularly with whips, which they exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape from them because of his chain; he defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach, and are not active enough to get out of it, and tearing the whips out of their hands, and breaking them."[177:B] Stowe, in the edition of his Survey printed in 1618, remarks, that "as for the bayting of Bulles and Beares, they are till this day much frequented, namely, in Beare-gardens on the Bankside, wherein be prepared Scaffolds for beholders to stand upon."[177:C]
The admission to these gardens was upon easy terms, for we are told that the spectators paid "one pennie at the gate, another at the entrie of the scaffold, and a third for quiet standing."[178:A] It was usual also for the bearward to parade the streets with his animal, who had frequently a monkey on his back and was preceded by a minstrel. The bear was generally complimented with the name of his keeper: thus, in Shakspeare's time, there was a celebrated one at Paris Garden called Sackerson. "I have seen Sackerson loose," says Slender, "twenty times; and have taken him by the chain: but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shriek'd at it, that it pass'd:—but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things[178:B];" in the "Puritan" published in 1607, occurs one named George Stone; and in the "Humorous Lovers," by the Duke of Newcastle, printed in 1617, Tom of Lincoln is the appellation of another.
A diversion infinitely more elegant and pleasing in all its accompaniments, once of great utility, and unattended with the smallest vestige of barbarism or inhumanity, we have now to record as resulting from the use of the long bow, which, though greatly on the decline, in the days of Elizabeth, as a weapon of warfare, still lingered amongst us as a species of amusement. Various attempts, indeed, had been made by the nearly immediate predecessors of Elizabeth, to revive the use of the long bow as a military weapon; but with very partial success:—"the most famous, prudent, politike and grave prince K. Henry the 7," says Robinson, "was the first Phenix in chusing out a number of chiefe Archers to give daily attendance upon his person, whom he named his Garde. But the high and mighty renowmed prince his son, K. H. 8. (ann. 1509) not onely with great prowes and praise proceeded in that which his father had begon; but also added greater dignity unto the same, like a most roial renowmed David, enacting a good and godly statute (ann. 33 H. 8. cap. 9.) for the use and exercise of shooting in every degree. And further more for the maintenance of the same laudable exercise in this honourable city of London by his gratious charter confirmed unto the worshipful citizens of the same, this your now famous order of Knightes of Prince Arthure's Round Table or Society: like as in his life time when he saw a good Archer indeede, he chose him and ordained such a one for a knight of the same order."[179:A]
To this "Auncient Order, Societie, and Unitie Laudable, of Prince Arthure," as it was termed, and to which Shakspeare alludes, under the character of Justice Shallow, in the second part of King Henry the Fourth[179:B], Archery owed, for some time, considerable support; but ultimately, it contributed to hasten its decline. Under the auspices of Prince Arthur, eldest son of King Henry VII., and who was so expert a bowman, that every skilful shooter was complimented with his name, the society flourished abundantly; its captain being honoured with his title, and the other members being termed his knights. His brother Henry was equally attached to the art, but unfortunately, having appointed a splendid match at shooting with the long bow, at Windsor, an inhabitant of Shoreditch, London, joining the archers, exhibited such extraordinary skill, that the King, delighted with his performance, humorously gave him the title of Duke of Shoreditch, an appellation which not only superseded the former title, but, being copied by the inferior members, in assuming the rank of Marquis, Earl, &c., threw such a degree of burlesque and ridicule over the business, as finally brought contempt upon the art itself.
The Society, however, still subsisted with much magnificence during the reign of Elizabeth; and in the very year that Robinson published his book in support of Archery, namely, in 1583, "a grand shooting match was held in London, and the captain of the archers assuming his title of Duke of Shoreditch, summoned a suit of nominal nobility, under the titles of Marquis of Barlo, of Clerkenwell, of Islington, of Hoxton, of Shacklewell, and Earl of Pancrass, &c., and these meeting together at the appointed time, with their different companies, proceeded in a pompous march from Merchant Taylors' Hall, consisting of three thousand archers, sumptuously apparelled; nine hundred and forty-two of them having chains of gold about their necks. This splendid company was guarded by four thousand whifflers and billmen, besides pages and footmen. They passed through Broad-street, the residence of their captain, and thence into Moorfields, by Finsbury, and so on to Smithfield, where having performed several evolutions, they shot at a target for honour."[180:A]
Notwithstanding this brilliant celebration, it appears that, thirteen years afterwards, the disuse of archery was so general, that the "Companies of Bowyers and Fletchers" made heavy complaints, and procured a work to be written, in order to place before "the nobility and gentlemen of England," their distress, and deprivation of subsistence, from the neglect of the bow. The work is entitled, "A briefe Treatise, To proove the necessitie and excellence of the Vse of Archerie. Abstracted out of ancient and moderne writers, by R. S. Perused and allowed by Aucthoritie." 4to. 1596. This was one of the last attempts to revive the bow as a weapon of defence, and it records a contemporary and successful effort to repel cavalry by its adoption on the part of a rebel force.
"About Bartholomew tyde last, 1595," relates the author, "there came out of Scotland one James Forgeson, bowyer to the King of Scots, who credibly reported, that about two years past, certaine rebelles did rise there against the King, who sent against them five hundred horsemen well appointed. They meeting three hundred of the rebel's bowmen, encountered each with other, when the bowemen slue two hundred and fourscore of their horses, and killed, wounded, and sore hurt most part of the Kinge's men. Whereupon the said Forgeson was sent hether from the King with commission to buy up ten thousande bowes and bowstaves: but because he could not speed heer, he went over into the East countries for them."[181:A]
The Toxophilus of Ascham, first published in 1544, was written in order "that stil, according to the olde wont of Englande, youth should use it for the most honest pastime in peace, that men might handle it as a most sure weapon in warre."[181:B] The latter of these purposes so completely failed, that the use of the bow as an offensive or defensive weapon of warfare totally ceased in the time of James the First; but the former was partially gained, as the treatise of Ascham certainly contributed to prolong the reign of archery as a mere recreation, though it could not retrieve its character as an instrument for the destruction of game. So early, indeed, as 1531, we learn from Sir Thomas Elyot's "Boke named the Governour," that cross-bows and guns had then superseded the long-bow, in the sports of the field:—"Verylye I suppose," says he, "that before crosbowes and handegunnes were broughte into this realme, by the sleyghte of our enemies, to the entent to distroye the noble defence of archerye, continuall use of shootynge in the longe bowe made the feate soo perfecte and exacte among englyshemen, that thei than as surely and soone kylled suche game whiche thei lysted to have, as thei nowe can do with the crossebowe or gunne."[181:C]
The cross-bow was the fashionable instrument for killing game, even with the ladies, in the days of Elizabeth; the Queen was peculiarly fond of the sport, and her example was eagerly followed by the female part of her court. Shakspeare represents the Princess and her ladies, in Love's Labour's Lost, thus employed[182:A]; and Mr. Lodge informs us, through the medium of a letter, written by Sir Francis Leake in 1605, that the Countess of Shrewsbury, and the ladies of the Cavendish family, were ardently attached to this diversion.[182:B]
That the honest pastime of shooting with the long bow was often commuted, in the capital, for amusements of a much less innocent nature, we learn from Stowe, who attributes the decline of archery, as a diversion, to the enclosure of common grounds in the vicinity of the metropolis:—"What should I speake," says he, "of the ancient dayly exercises in the long Bow by citizens of this citie, now almoste cleane left off and forsaken: I over passe it: for by the meanes of closing in of common grounds, our Archers for want of roome to shoote abroad, creep into bowling allies, and ordinarie dicing-houses neerer home, where they have roome enough to hazard their money at unlawfull games."[182:C]
Among the amusements more peculiarly belonging to the metropolis, and which better than any other exhibits the fashionable mode, at that time, of disposing of the day, we may enumerate the custom of publickly parading in the middle isle of St. Paul's Cathedral. During the reign of Elizabeth and James, Paul's Walk, as it was called, was daily frequented by the nobility, gentry, and professional men; here, from ten to twelve in the forenoon, and from three to six in the afternoon, they met to converse on business, politics, or pleasure; and hither too, in order to acquire fashions, form assignations for the gaming table, or shun the grasp of the bailiff, came the gallant, the gamester, and the debtor, the stale knight, and the captain out of service; and here it was that Falstaff purchased Bardolph; "I bought him," says the jolly knight, "at Paul's."[183:A]
Of the various purposes for which this temple was frequented by the loungers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Decker has left us a most entertaining account, and from his tract on this subject, published in 1609, we shall extract a few passages which throw no incurious light on the follies and dissipation of the age.
The supposed tomb of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, but in reality that of Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, appears to have been a privileged part of the Cathedral:—"The Duke's tomb," observes Decker, addressing the gallant, "is a sanctuary; and will keep you alive from worms, and land rats, that long to be feeding on your carcass: there you may spend your legs in winter a whole afternoon; converse, plot, laugh, and talk any thing; jest at your creditor, even to his face; and in the evening, even by lamp-light, steal out; and so cozen a whole covey of abominable catch-polls."[183:B]
Such was the resort of the male fashionable world to this venerable Gothic pile, that it was customary for trades-people to frequent its aisles for the purpose of collecting the dresses of the day. "If you determine to enter into a new suit, warn your tailor to attend you in Pauls, who, with his hat in his hand, shall like a spy discover the stuff, colour, and fashion of any doublet or hose that dare be seen there, and, stepping behind a pillar to fill his table books with those notes, will presently send you into the world an accomplished man; by which means you shall wear your clothes in print with the first edition."[183:C]
The author even condescends to instruct his beau, when he has obtained his suit, how best to exhibit it in St. Paul's, and concludes by pointing out other recourses for killing time, on withdrawing from the cathedral. "Bend your course directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the church may appear to be yours; where, in view of all, you may publish your suit in what manner you affect most, either with the slide of your cloak from the one shoulder: and then you must, as 'twere in anger, suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside, if it be taffeta at the least; and so by that means your costly lining is betrayed, or else by the pretty advantage of compliment. But one note by the way do I especially woo you to, the neglect of which makes many of our gallants cheap and ordinary, that by no means you be seen above four turns; but in the fifth make yourself away, either in some of the semsters' shops, the new tobacco-office, or amongst the booksellers, where, if you cannot read, exercise your smoke, and inquire who has writ against this divine weed, &c."[184:A]
After dinner it was necessary that the finished coxcomb should return to Paul's in a new dress:—"After dinner you may appear again, having translated yourself out of your English cloth into a light Turkey grogram, if you have that happiness of shifting; and then be seen, for a turn or two, to correct your teeth with some quill or silver instrument, and to cleanse your gums with a wrought handkerchief: it skills not whether you dined, or no; that is best known to your stomach; or in what place you dined; though it were with cheese, of your own mother's making, in your chamber or study."[184:B]
The fopperies exhibited in a place, which ought to have been closed against such unhallowed inmates, rival, if not exceed, all that modern puppyism can produce. The directions which Decker gives to his gallant on quitting St. Paul's in the forenoon, clearly prove, that the loungers of Shakspeare's time are not surpassed, either in affectation or the assumption of petty consequence, by the same worthless class of the nineteenth century:—"in which departure," enjoins the satirist, "if by chance you either encounter, or aloof off throw your inquisitive eye upon any knight or squire, being your familiar, salute him not by his name of Sir such a one, or so; but call him Ned, or Jack, &c. This will set off your estimation with great men: and if, though there be a dozen companies between you, 'tis the better, he call aloud to you, for that is most genteel, to know where he shall find you at two o'clock; tell him at such an ordinary, or such; and be sure to name those that are dearest, and whither none but your gallants resort."[185:A]
A still more offensive mode of displaying this ostentatious folly, sprang from a custom then general, and even now not altogether obsolete, of demanding spur-money from any person entering the cathedral during divine service, with spurs on. This was done by the younger choristers, and, it seems, frequently gave birth to the following gross violation of decency: "Never be seen to mount the steps into the quire, but upon a high festival day, to prefer the fashion of your doublet; and especially if the singing-boys seem to take note of you; for they are able to buzz your praises above their anthems, if their voices have not lost their maiden heads: but be sure your silver spurs dog your heels, and then the boys will swarm about you like so many white butterflies[185:B]; when you in the open quire shall draw forth a perfumed embroidered purse, the glorious sight of which will entice many countrymen from their devotion to wondering: and quoit silver into the boy's hands, that it may be heard above the first lesson, although it be read in a voice as big as one of the great organs."[185:C]
The tract from which we have taken these curious illustrations, contains also a passage which serves to show, that London, in the time of our poet, was not unprovided with exhibitions of the docility, sagacity, and tricks of animals; and this, with similar relations, will tend to prove, that the ingenious Mr. Astley, and the Preceptor of the learned pig, had been anticipated both in skill and perseverance. Decker, after conducting his "mere country gentleman" to the top of St. Paul's, proceeds thus:—"Hence you may descend, to talk about the horse that went up; and strive, if you can, to know his keeper; take the day of the month, and the number of the steps; and suffer yourself to believe verily that it was not a horse, but something else in the likeness of one: which wonders you may publish, when you return into the country, to the great amazement of all farmer's daughters, that will almost swoon at the report, and never recover till their bans be asked twice in the church."[186:A]
This is the dancing-horse alluded to by Shakspeare, in Love's Labour's Lost[186:B]; an English bay gelding, fourteen years old, and named Morocco. He had been taught by one Banks, a Scotchman, and their fame was spread over a great part of Europe; "if Banks had lived in older times," remarks Sir Walter Raleigh, "he would have shamed all the inchanters in the world: for whosoever was most famous among them, could never master, or instruct any beast as he did."[186:C] It was the misfortune, indeed, of this man and his horse to be taken for enchanters; while at Paris, they had a narrow escape, being imprisoned for dealing with the devil, and at length liberated, on the magistrates discovering that the whole was merely the effect of human art[186:D]; but at Rome they fell a sacrifice to the more rivetted superstitions of the people, and were both burnt as magicians; a fate to which Ben Jonson adverts in the following lines:—
"But amongst those Tiberts, who do you think there was? Old Bankes the juggler, our Pythagoras, Grave tutor to the learned horse. Both which, Being, beyond sea, burned for one witch, Their spirits transmigrated to a cat."[186:E]
Nor were the feats of this sagacious horse unrivalled by the wonderful acquirements of other animals. The praise of Morocco is frequently combined by the poets and satirists of the age, with an account of the extraordinary tricks of his contemporary brutes: thus John Taylor, the water-poet, places Holden's camel on a level with Banks's horse:—
"Old Holden's camel, or fine Bankes his cut;"
and Bishop Hall, in his satires, brings us acquainted with a sagacious elephant, to which he kindly adds a couple of wonders of a different description; a bullock with two tails, and a fiddling friar. He is describing the metamorphosis which London had produced in the person and manners of a young farmer, and adds,
"The tenants wonder at their landlord's sonne, And blesse them at so sudden coming on, More than who vies his pence to view some trick Of strange Marocco's dumb arithmetick, Of the young elephant, or two-tayl'd steere, Or the rigg'd camel, or fiddling frere."[187:A]
The catalogue of wonders, monsters, and tricks, may be augmented by a reference to Ben Jonson, who, in his Bartholomew Fair, among other spectacles, speaks of a Bull with five legs and two pizzles, Dogs dancing the morrice, and a Hare beating the Tabor.[187:B]
But of all the amusements which distinguish the age of Shakspeare, none could vie in richness, splendour, or invention, with the costly spectacles, called MASQUES, and PAGEANTS. The frequency of these exhibitions during the reigns of Elizabeth and James is astonishing, if we consider the immense expense which was lavished on their production; the most celebrated poets and the most skilful artists often assisted in their formation; nor was it uncommon to behold nobility, or even royalty itself, assuming the part of actors in these romantic entertainments.
What a gorgeous and voluptuous court could effect, in seconding the efforts of consummate skill, through the medium of machinery, decoration, and dress, may be collected from the numerous Masques of Ben Jonson, who seems to feel the inadequacy of language to express the beauty, grandeur, and sumptuousness of the devices employed on these occasions. Thus, in his Hymenæi, or the Solemnities of Masque and Barriers at a Marriage, he manifestly labours to paint the scene, and, at length, professes himself unequal to the task of conveying the impressions which it had made upon him. "Hitherto," says he, "extended the first night's solemnity, whose grace in the execution left, not where to add to it, with wishing: I mean (nor do I court them) in those, that sustained the nobler parts. Such was the exquisite performance, as (beside the pomp, splendor, or what we may call apparelling of such presentments), that alone (had all else been absent) was of power to surprise with delight, and steal away the spectators from themselves. Nor was there wanting whatsoever might give to the furniture or complement; either in riches, or strangeness of the habits, delicacy of dances, magnificence of the scene, or divine rapture of musick. Only the envy was, that it lasted not still; or, (now it is past) cannot by imagination, much less description, be recovered to a part of that spirit it had in the gliding by."[188:A]
Nothing, indeed, shows the romantic disposition of Elizabeth, and, indeed, of her times, more evidently than the Triumph, as it was called, devised and performed with great solemnity, in honour of the French commissioners for the Queen's marriage with the Duke of Anjou, in 1581. The contrivance was for four of her principal courtiers, under the quaint appellation of "four foster-children of Desire," to besiege and carry, by dint of arms, "The Fortress of Beauty;" intending, by this courtly ænigma, nothing less than the Queen's Majesty's own person. The actors in this famous triumph were, the Earl of Arundel, the Lord Windsor, Master Philip Sidney, and Master Fulk Grevil. And the whole was conducted so entirely in the spirit and language of knight-errantry, that nothing in the Arcadia itself is more romantic.[189:A]
The example of the court was followed with equal profusion by the citizens, and various corporate bodies of the capital, who contended with each other in the cost bestowed on these performances. In 1604, when King James and his Queen passed triumphantly from the Tower to Westminster, the citizens erected seven gates or arches, in different parts of the space through which the procession had to proceed. Over the first arch "was represented the true likeness of all the notable houses, towers, and steeples, within the citie of London.—The sixt arche or gate of triumph was erected above the Conduit in Fleete-Streete, whereon the Globe of the world was seen to move, &c. At Temple-bar a seaventh arche or gate was erected, the forefront whereof was proportioned in every respect like a Temple, being dedicated to Janus, &c.—The citie of Westminster, and dutchy of Lancaster, at the Strand, had erected the invention of a rainbow, the moone, sunne, and starres, advanced between two Pyramids."[190:A]
In 1612-13, the gentlemen of the inns of court presented a masque in honour of the marriage of the Elector Palatine of the Rhine, with the Princess Elizabeth, of which the poetry was the composition of Chapman, and the machinery the invention of Inigo Jones. The expense of this pageantry amounted, according to Dugdale[190:B], to one thousand and eighty-six pounds eight shillings and eleven pence, and was conducted with uncommon splendour. "First rode," relates Howes, "fiftie choyce gentlemen richly attyred, and as gallantly mounted, with every one his footemen to attend him: These rode very stately like a vauntguard." Next to these appeared an antique or mock-masque. "After them came two chariots triumphal, very pleasant and full of state, wherein rode the choyce musitians of this kingdome, in robes like to the Virginian priests, with sundry devises, all pleasant and significant, with two rankes of torches: Then came the chiefe maskers with great State in white Indian habit, or like the great princes of Barbary, richly imbrodered with the golden sun, with suteable ornaments in all poynts, about their necks were rufs of feathers, spangled and beset with pearle and silver, and upon their heads lofty corronets suteable to the rest."[190:C]
Nor were these fanciful and ever varying pageants productive merely of amusement; they had higher aims, and more important effects, and, while ostensibly constructed for the purposes of compliment and entertainment, either indirectly inculcated some lesson of moral wisdom, or more immediately obtained their end, by impersonating the vices and the virtues, and exhibiting a species of ethic drama.
They had also the merit of conveying no inconsiderable fund of instruction from the stores of mythology, history, and philosophy. Of this the masques of Jonson afford abundant proof, containing, as they do, not only the common superficial knowledge on these subjects, but displaying such a mass of recondite learning, illustrative of the manners, opinions, customs, and antiquities of the ancient world, as would serve to extend the information of the educated, while they delighted and instructed the body of the people.
To these classical diversions, these eruditæ voluptates, which were remarkably frequent during the whole era of Shakspeare's existence, we may confidently ascribe some portion of that intimacy with the records of history, the fictions of paganism, and the reveries of philosophy which our poet so copiously exhibits throughout his poems and plays, as well as no small accession to the wild and fantastic visionary forms that so pre-eminently delight us in the golden dreams of his imagination.
Among the numerous scenes and descriptions which owe their birth, in our author's dramas, to these superb combinations of mechanism and poesy, we shall select two passages that more peculiarly point out the manner in which he has availed himself of their scenery and arrangement.
"There is a passage in Antony and Cleopatra," observes Mr. Warton, "where the metaphor is exceedingly beautiful; but where the beauty both of the expression and the allusion is lost, unless we recollect the frequency and the nature of these shows (the Pageants) in Shakspeare's age. I must cite the whole of the context, for the sake of the last hemistick.
"Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish, A vapour sometime, like a bear or lion; A towred citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon't, that nod unto the world, And mock our eyes with air: Thou hast seen these signs; They are Black Vesper's Pageants."[191:A]
This illustrious critic, however, should have continued the quotation somewhat further; for the next three lines include a piece of imagery immediately taken from the same source, and more worthy of remark than any preceding allusion:—
"Eros. Ay, my lord.
Ant. That, which is now a horse; even with a thought, The Rack dislimns; and makes it indistinct, As water is in water."[192:A]
The meaning of the expression, "The Rack dislimns," is clearly ascertained by a reference to Ben Jonson's Hymenæal Masque already quoted, in which occurs the following striking passage:—"Here the upper part of the scene, which was all of clouds, and made artificially to swell and ride like the Rack, began to open, and the air clearing, in the top thereof was discovered Juno sitting in a throne, supported by two beautiful peacocks.—Round about her sate the spirits of the ayre, in several colours, making musique. Above her the region of fire, with a continual motion, was seen to whirl circularly, and Jupiter standing in the top (figuring the heaven) brandishing his thunder. Beneath her the rainbow Iris, and, on the two sides eight ladies, attired richly, and alike, in the most celestial colours, who represented her powers, as she is the Governess of Marriage."[192:B]
This extract, also, together with the one given in a preceding page, descriptive of the Citizen's Pageant in honour of James and his Queen, 1604, will throw a strong light on a celebrated passage in the Tempest, and fully prove our poet's extensive obligations to these very ingenious devices:—
"Our revels now are ended: These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea all, which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind."[193:A]
The towers, the temples, and the great globe itself of these lines, we find exhibited in the pageant of 1604, eight or ten years anterior to the representation of this play; while in the masque of Jonson, we perceive the occasion of its performance to have been similar to that which gave origin to the insubstantial pageant of Prospero, both being Hymenæal Masques, both likewise including among their actors the characters of Iris and Juno, and both being accompanied by spirits of the ayre making musick.
Here the term rack, in both quotations from our poet, manifestly appears, from the passage in Ben Jonson's masque, to have been drawn from the machinery of the pageant, and to have implied masses of clouds in motion; the lines from Antony and Cleopatra, alluding to their mutability and endless diversity, and those in the Tempest importing their utter insignificance and instability when compared with the more durable materials of the pageant; and hence emphatically founding on their evanescence, a complete picture of entire dissolution, that, like the insubstantial pageant which had just vanished from their eyes, not only towers, palaces, temples, and the globe itself, should disappear, but even not the most trifling part of the fabric of the world, not even the passing clouds, the fleeting rack, should be left behind, as a memorial of existence.
Upon no occasions were these imposing spectacles, the masque, the pageant, and the triumph, gotten up with more gorgeous splendour, than during the PROGRESSES which Elizabeth so frequently made throughout the course of her long reign. Every nobleman's house was thrown open for her reception whilst thus engaged, and the keenest rivalry was excited amongst them, with regard to the expense, magnificence, variety, and duration of the entertainments which they lavished upon her. Nor was the Queen at all scrupulous in accepting their invitations, for she considered this hospitality, however ruinous to the individual, as a necessary attention, and, in fact, entered the mansions of her courtiers with the same feelings of property, as when she sate down beneath the roof of what might more strictly be termed her own palaces. That her subjects were complaisant enough to acquiesce in this assumption, is evident from a passage in Harrison's Description of England, who mentioning the variety of the Queen's houses, adds,—"But what shall I need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the queen's majesty hath? Sith all is hirs; and when it pleaseth hir in the summer season to recreate hirself abroad, and view the state of the countrie, and hear the complaints of hir unjust officers or substitutes, every nobleman's house is hir palace, where she continueth during pleasure, and till she returne again to some of hir owne." One of the most striking proofs of the frequency and oppression of these royal visits, has been recorded by Mr. Nichols, who tells us, that "she was twelve times at Theobald's, which was a very convenient distance from London. Each visit cost Cecil two or three thousand pounds; the Queen lying there at his Lordships charge, sometimes three weeks, or a month, or six weeks together."[194:A]
These Progresses, however, of which Mr. Nichols has presented us with a most curious and ample collection, serve, more than any other documents which history could afford, to impress us with an accurate and interesting idea of the hospitality, diversions, costume, and domestic economy, of the great Baronial Chieftains of our last romantic reign. From them, observes their very ingenious editor, "much of the manners of the times may be learned. They give us a view into the interior of the noble families, display their state in house-keeping, and other articles, and set before our eyes their magnificent mansions long since gone to decay, or supplanted by others of the succeeding age."[194:B]
Perhaps the most splendid reception which Elizabeth met with, in the whole course of her Progresses, was at Kenelworth-castle, in Warwickshire, the seat of the once all-powerful Earl of Leicester. Some slight notice of this place, as having probably attracted the attention of young Shakspeare, during the visit of Her Majesty, has already been given in a former part of our work; but it will be necessary here, in order to impart a just conception of the costly entertainments which awaited the Queen on these excursions, to give a brief catalogue of the ten days "princely pleasures" of Kenelworth castle.
Her Majesty reached Lord Leicester's on Saturday, the ninth of July, 1575, and was greeted, on her approach to the castle, by a Sibyl, prophesying prosperity to her government. Six giants stood ready to receive her at the outer gate apparently blowing trumpets, which were in reality sounded by persons placed behind them, while the Porter, representing Hercules, addressed her in a metrical speech, "proclaiming open gates and free passage to all, and yielding to her on his knees, his club, keys, and office." Arriving at the base court, a female figure, appropriately dressed, "came all over the pool, being so conveyed, that it seemed she had gone upon the water; she was attended by two water-nymphs, and calling herself the Lady of the Lake," complimented Her Majesty, who, passing on to the inner court, crossed the bridge, which was ornamented with seven pillars on each side, exhibiting on their summits, birds in cages, fruits in silver bowls, corn in similar vessels, wine and grapes in silver pots, fishes in trays, weapons of war, and musical instruments, the respective gifts of Silvanus, Pomona, Ceres, Bacchus, Neptune, Mars, and Apollo. Then, preceded by a noble band of music, the Queen crossed the inner court, alighted from her horse, and entered her apartments.
On Sunday evening, she beheld a grand display of fire-works, a species of amusement which had been little known previous to her reign: "after a warning piece or two," says Laneham, "was a blaze of burning darts flying to and fro, beams of stars coruscant, streams and hail of fire-sparks, lightnings of wild fire on the water; and on the land, flight and shot of thunder-bolts, all with such continuance, terror, and vehemence, the heavens thundered, the waters surged, and the earth shook."
Monday was occupied by hunting, conducted on a large and magnificent scale, during which Her Majesty was ingeniously complimented through the medium of several sylvan devices.
Music, dancing, and pageantry on the water, formed the diversions of the Tuesday.
Hunting and field sports consumed the Wednesday; bear-baiting, tumbling, and fire-works, were the recreations of the Thursday; and, the weather not permitting any out-door diversions on Friday, the time was spent in banquetting, shows, and domestic games.
On Saturday, the morning being fine, the Queen was highly entertained by the representation of a country bride-ale, by running at the quintain, and by the "Old Coventry Play of Hock Thursday;" while the evening diversions were a regular play, a banquet, and a masque.
The amusement of hunting was resumed on the Monday, returning from which Her Majesty was highly gratified by a pageant on the water, exhibiting, among other spectacles, Arion seated upon a dolphin twenty-four feet in length, and singing a song, accompanied by the music of six performers, who were snugly lodged in the belly of the fish.
The Coventry play not having been finished on the preceding Saturday, was repeated, at the desire of the Queen, on the Tuesday, and on Wednesday the 20th, she bade adieu to Kenelworth, greatly delighted with the hospitality and princely splendour of its noble owner.[196:A]
The Hall and the Tiltyard were two of the most striking features at Kenelworth, and they designate with sufficient precision two of the leading characteristics of the age of Elizabeth, its hospitality, and attachment to chivalric costume; the former was carried on upon a scale to which modern usage is a perfect stranger; for, as Bishop Hurd remarks, "the same bell, that called the great man to his table, invited the neighbourhood all around, and proclaimed a holiday to the whole country[197:A];" and the latter cherished its predilections, and romantic ardour, by cultivating tilting, the sole remaining offspring of the gorgeous tournament, with scientific skill. The latter half of the sixteenth, and the commencement of the seventeenth, century, saw, indeed, the diversion of running at the ring carried to its highest degree of perfection, from which, however, it very soon afterwards began to decline, and may be said to have expired with the reign of James the First.
Yet the influence of this amusement, in exciting the heroism of the Elizabethan age, was by no means inconsiderable, and we may view the tilt-yard of Kenelworth, with the eyes of Dr. Hurd, "as a nursery of brave men, a very seed-plot of warriors and heroes.—And, as whimsical a figure as a young tilter may make in a modern eye, who will say that the virtue was not formed here, that triumphed at AXELL, and bled at ZUTPHEN."[197:B]
To complete the picture of Kenelworth-castle during this festive period, it would be desirable, could we ascertain what were the domestic economy and usages which were adopted in so large a household, and how the Queen, her ladies, and attendants, contrived to pass the hours, when the weather forbade exterior diversions, and when the masque, the banquet, and the fete, had exhausted their attractions. Fortunately we possess a sketch of this kind, from the communicative pen of Laneham, who seems to have been gifted, if we may trust his own account, with great powers of pleasing, and to have enjoyed, in an extraordinary degree, the favour and confidence of the high-born dames of honour who followed in the train of Elizabeth.
"Methought it my part," he relates in a letter to his friend, "somewhat to impart unto you how it is here with me, and how I lead my life, which indeed is this:—
"A mornings I rise ordinarily at seven o'clock: Then ready, I go into the Chapel; soon after eight, I get me commonly into my Lord's chamber, or into my Lord's presidents. There at the cupboard, after I have eaten the manchet served overnight for livery (for I dare be as bold, I promise you, as any of my friends the servants there: and indeed could I have fresh, if I would tarry; but I am of wont jolly and dry a mornings): I drink me up a good bol of ale: when in a sweet pot it is defecated by all night's standing, the drink is the better, take that of me: and a morsel in a morning, with a sound draught; is very wholesome and good for the eye-sight: Then I am as fresh all the forenoon after, as had I eaten a whole piece of beef. Now, Sir, if the Council sit, I am at hand; wait at an inch, I warrant you: If any man make babbling, 'Peace,' say I, 'wot ye where ye are?' If I take a listener, or a pryer in at the chinks or at the lock-hole, I am by and by in the bones of him: But now they keep good order, they know me well enough: If a be a friend, or such a one as I like, I make him sit down by me on a form or a chest; let the rest walk, a God's name.
"And here doth my language now and then stand me in good stead: My French, my Spanish, my Dutch, and my Latin: Sometime among Ambassador's men, if their Master be within the Council: Sometime with the Ambassador himself, if he bid call his lacky, or ask me what's a clock; and I warrant ye I answer him roundly; that they marvel to see such a fellow there: then laugh I and say nothing: Dinner and supper I have twenty places to go to, and heartily prayed to: Sometime get I to Master Pinner; by my faith, a worshipful Gentleman, and as careful for his charge as any her Highness hath: there find I alway good store of very good viands; we eat, and be merry, thank God and the Queen. Himself in feeding very temperate and moderate as ye shall see any: and yet, by your leave, of a dish, as a cold pigeon or so, that hath come to him at meat more than he looked for, I have seen him een so by and by surfeit, as he hath plucked off his napkin, wiped his knife, and eat not a morsel more; like enough to stick in his stomach a two days after: (some hard message from the higher officers; perceive ye me?) upon search, his faithful dealing and diligence hath found him faultless.
"In afternoons and a nights, sometime am I with the right worshipful Sir George Howard, as good a Gentleman as any lives: And sometime, at my good Lady Sidneys chamber, a Noblewoman that I am as much bound unto, as any poor man may be unto so gracious a Laday; and sometime in some other place. But always among the Gentlewomen by my good will; (O, ye know thatt comes always of a gentle spirit:) And when I see company according, then can I be as lively too: Sometime I foot it with dancing: now with my gittern, and else with my cittern, then at the virginals: Ye know nothing comes amiss to me: Then carol I up a song withal; that by and by they come flocking about me like bees to honey: And ever they cry, 'Another, good Langham, another!' Shall I tell you? When I see Mistress —— (A, see a mad Knave; I had almost told all!) that she gives once but an eye or an ear; why then, man, am I blest; my grace, my courage, my cunning is doubled: She says, sometime, 'She likes it;' and then I like it much the better; it doth me good to hear how well I can do. And to say truth; what with mine eyes, as I can amorously gloat it, with my Spanish sospires, my French heighes, mine Italian dulcets, my Dutch hoves, my double releas, my high reaches, my fine feigning, my deep diapason, my wanton warbles, my running, my timing, my tuning, and my twinkling, I can gracify the matters as well as the proudest of them, and was yet never stained, I thank God: By my troth, Countryman, it is some time high midnight, ere I can get from them. And thus have I told ye most of my trade, all the live-long day: what will ye more, God save the Queene and my Lord."[199:A]
Of this magnificent castle, the unrivalled abode of baronial hospitality, and chivalric pageantry, who can avoid lamenting the present irreparable decay, or forbear apostrophising the mouldering reliques in the pathetic, and picturesque language, which Bishop Hurd has placed in the mouth of his admired Addison?
"Where, one might ask, are the tilts and tournaments, the princely shows and sports, which were once so proudly celebrated within these walls? Where are the pageants, the studied devices, and emblems of curious invention, that set the court at a gaze, and even transported the high soul of our Elizabeth? Where now, pursued he, (pointing to that which was formerly a canal, but at present is only a meadow, with a small rivulet running through it) where is the floating island, the blaze of torches that eclipsed the day, the lady of the lake, the silken nymphs her attendants, with all the other fantastic exhibitions surpassing even the whimsies of the wildest romance? What now is become of the revelry of feasting? of the minstrelsy that took the ear so delightfully as it babbled along the valley, or floated on the surface of this lake? See there the smokeless kitchens, stretching to a length that might give room for the sacrifice of a hecatomb; the vaulted hall, which mirth and jollity have set so often in an uproar; the rooms of state, and the presence-chamber: what are they now but void and tenantless ruins, clasped with ivy, open to wind and weather, and representing to the eye nothing but the ribs and carcase, as it were, of their former state? And see, said he, that proud gate-way, once the mansion of a surly porter, who, partaking of the pride of his lord, made the crowds wait, and refused admittance, perhaps, to nobles whom fear or interest drew to these walls, to pay their homage to their master: see it now the residence of a poor tenant, who turns the key but to let himself out to his daily labour, to admit him to a short meal, and secure his nightly slumbers."[200:A]
To this account of some of the principal diversions of the court and the metropolis, we have now to subjoin, in a compass corresponding with the scale of our work, a clear, but necessarily a brief view, of an amusement which, more than any other, is calculated to interest, and to influence every class of society. The state, economy, and usages of THE STAGE, therefore, during the age of Shakspeare, will occupy the remainder of this chapter, forming an introduction to a sketch of dramatic poetry, at the period of Shakspeare's commencement as a writer for the stage.
The reader is probably aware, from the very copious and bulky, though somewhat indigested, collections, which have been published on this subject, that the following detail, consisting of an arrangement of minute facts, and which aims at nothing more than a neat and lucid compendium of an intricate topic, must necessarily, at almost every step, be indebted to previous researches; in order, therefore, to obviate a continual parade of reference, let it suffice, that we acknowledge the basis of our disquisition to have been derived from the labours of Steevens and Malone, as included in the last variorum edition of Shakspeare; from the two Apologies of Mr. Chalmers; from Decker, as reprinted by Nott; and occasionally, from the pages of Warton, Percy, Whiter, and Gilchrist. Where references, however, are absolutely essential, they will be found in their due place.
It has been justly observed by Mr. Chalmers, that "what Augustus said of Rome, may be remarked of Elizabeth and the stage, that she found it brick, and left it marble."[201:A] At her accession in 1558, no regular theatre had been established, and the players of that period, even in the capital, were compelled to have recourse to the yards of great Inns, as the most commodious places which they could obtain for the representation of their pieces. These, being surrounded by open stages and galleries, and possessing, likewise, numerous private apartments and recesses from which the genteeler part of the audience might become spectators at their ease, while the central space held a temporary stage, uncovered in fine weather, and protected by an awning in bad, were not ill calculated for the purposes of scenic exhibition, and, most undoubtedly, gave rise to the form and construction, adopted in the erection of the licensed theatres.
In this stage of infancy was the public stage at the birth of Shakspeare; nor would it so rapidly have emerged into importance, had not the Queen, though occasionally yielding to the enmity and fanaticism of the puritans with regard to this recreation, been warmly attached to theatric amusements. So early as 1569, was she frequently entertained in her own chapel-royal, by the performance of plays on profane subjects, by the children belonging to that establishment; and the year following has been fixed upon as the most probable era of the erection of a regular play-house, very appropriately named The Theatre, and supposed to have been situated in the Blackfriars.
We shall not be surprised, therefore, to find, that in 1574 a regular company of players was established by royal licence, granting to James Burbage, John Perkyn, John Lanham, William Johnson, and Robert Wilson, servants of the Earl of Leicester, authority, under the privy seal, "to use, exercyse and occupie the arte and facultye of playenge commedies, tragedies, enterludes, stage-playes, and such other like as they have alreadie used and studied, or hereafter shall use and studie, as well for the recreation of our lovinge subjects as for our solace and pleasure when we shall thinke good to see them—throughoute our realme of England."[202:A]
This may be considered then, with great probability, as the first general licence obtained by any company of players in England; but, with the customary precaution of Elizabeth, it contains a clause, subjecting all dramatic amusements to the previous inspection of the Master of the Revels, an officer who, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, had been created to superintend a part of the duties which until then had fallen to the province of the Lord Chamberlain, and who now had the sphere of his control augmented by this prudent enactment, providing "that the saide commedies, tragedies, enterludes and stage-playes be by the Master of our Revels for the tyme beynge before sene and allowed."
The officers who exercised this authority, during the life of Shakspeare, were Sir Thomas Benger, Edmond Tilney, and Sir George Bucke. Sir Thomas Benger, who succeeded Sir Thomas Cawerden in 1560, lived not to see Shakspeare's entrance into the scenic world, but, dying in 1577, Tilney's appointment took place in 1579. This gentleman continued to regulate the stage for the long period of thirty-one years; he beheld the dawn and the mid-day splendour of Shakspeare's dramatic genius, and in his official capacity, he enjoyed the opportunity of licensing not less than thirty of his dramas, commencing with Henry the Sixth, and terminating with Antony and Cleopatra. On his death, in 1610, Sir George Bucke, who had obtained a reversionary patent for the office in 1603, and had executed its duties for twelvemonth previous to Tilney's decease, became Master of the Revels, and had the felicity of reading, and the honour of licensing, some of the last and noblest productions of our immortal poet, namely, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Othello, the Tempest, and Twelfth Night. He also lived to deplore the premature extinction of this unrivalled bard, and he died in the year which presented to the public the first folio edition of his plays.
The erection of a theatre in 1570; the establishment by royal authority of a regular company in 1574; and the subjection of both to highly respectable officers, operated so strongly in favour of dramatic amusements, that we find Stubbes, the puritanic satirist, bitterly inveighing in 1583 against the great popular support of the theatres in his day, which he sarcastically terms Venus' Palaces, and immediately afterwards designates by a general application of the names which had been given at that time to the two principal structures: "marke," says he, "the flocking and running to theaters and curtens, daylie and hourely, night and daye, tyme and tyde, to see playes and enterludes."[204:A]
This passion for the stage continued rapidly to increase, and before the year 1590 not less than four or five theatres were in existence. The patronage of dramatic representation made an equal progress at court; for though Elizabeth never, it is believed, attended a public theatre, yet had she four companies of children who frequently performed for her amusement, denominated the Children of St. Pauls, the Children of Westminster, the Children of the Chapel, and the Children of Windsor. The public actors too, who were sometimes, in imitation of these appellations, called the Children of the Revels, were, towards the close of Her Majesty's reign especially, in consequence of a greatly acquired superiority over their younger brethren, often called upon to act before her at the royal theatre in Whitehall. Exhibitions of this kind at court were usual at Christmas, on Twelfth Night, at Candlemas, and at Shrove-tide, throughout the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and the plays of Shakspeare were occasionally the entertainment of the night: thus we find Love's Labour's Lost to have been performed before our maiden Queen during the Christmas-holydays, and King Lear to have been exhibited before King James on St. Stephen's night.[204:B]
On these occasions, the representation was generally at night, that it might not interfere with the performances at the regular theatres, which took place early in the afternoon; and we learn from the Council-books, that the royal remuneration, in the age of Elizabeth, for the exhibition of a single play at Whitehall, amounted to ten pounds, of which, twenty nobles, or six pounds thirteen shillings, and four-pence, formed the customary fee; and three pounds, six shillings, and eight-pence, the free gift or bounty. If, however, the performers were required to leave the capital for any of the royal palaces in its neighbourhood, the fee, in consequence of the public exhibition of the day being prevented, was augmented to twenty pounds.
The protection of the drama by Elizabeth and her ministers, though it did not exempt the public players, except in one instance, from the penalties of statutes against vagabonds, yet it induced, during the whole of her long reign, numerous instances of private patronage from the most opulent of her nobility and gentry, who, possessing the power of licensing their own domestics as comedians, and, consequently of protecting them from the operation of the act of vagrancy, sheltered various companies of performers, under the denomination of their servants, or retainers,—a privilege which was taken away, by act of parliament, on the accession of James, and, as Mr. Chalmers observes, "put an end for ever to the scenic system of prior times."[205:A]
To this private patronage of the latter half of the sixteenth century, we must ascribe not less than fourteen distinct companies of players, that, in succession, contributed to exhilarate the golden days of England's matchless Queen, and, in their turn, enjoyed the honour of contributing to her amusement. Of these, the following is a chronological enumeration:—Soon after the accession of Elizabeth, appeared Lord Leicester's company, the same which, in 1574, was finally incorporated by royal licence; in 1572, was formed Sir Robert Lane's company; in the same year Lord Clinton's; in 1575, companies were created by Lord Warwick, and the Lord Chamberlain, the name of Shakspeare being enrolled among the servants of the latter, who, in the first year of the subsequent reign, became entitled to the appellation of His Majesty's servants; in 1576, the Earl of Sussex brought forward a theatrical body, and in 1577, Lord Howard another, neither of which, however, attained much eminence; in 1578, the Earl of Essex mustered a company of players, and in 1579, Lord Strange, and the Earl of Derby, followed his example; in 1591, the Lord Admiral produced his set of comedians; in 1592, the Earl of Hertford effected a similar arrangement; in 1593, Lord Pembroke protected an association of actors, and, at the close of Her Majesty's reign, the Earl of Worcester had in pay, also, a company of theatrical performers.
In the mean time theatres, both public and private, were greatly on the increase, and, during the period that Shakspeare immortalised the stage, not less than seven of these structures, of established notoriety, were in existence. Four of them were considered as public theatres, namely, The Globe on the Bankside, The Curtain in Shoreditch, The Red Bull in St. John's Street, and The Fortune in Whitecross Street; and three were termed private houses, one, for instance, in Blackfriars, another in Whitefriars, and The Cockpit or Phœnix, in Drury-Lane. As The Globe, however, and the theatre in Blackfriars were the property of the same set of players, only six companies of comedians were formed, or wanted, for the purposes of representation.
Beside these principal play-houses, several others, possessing a more ephemeral existence, as The Swan, The Rose, &c., sprung up and fell in succession, forming altogether such a number, as justly gave alarm and offence to the stricter clergy, and at length attracted the attention of the privy-council, who, on the 22d of June, 1600, issued an order for the reduction of the number of play-houses, limiting these buildings to two, selecting that called The Fortune for Middlesex, and fixing on The Globe for Surrey. To such a degree, however, had now arisen the attachment of the people to dramatic recreations, that notwithstanding these orders were re-issued, with still stronger injunctions, the following year, they could never be carried into any effectual execution.
Much as Elizabeth favoured the stage, it appears to have been patronised by her successor with equal, if not superior, zeal. James may be said, indeed, to have given a dignity and consequence to the profession, to which it had hitherto been a stranger, and to have introduced into the theatric world, a new, and better constituted arrangement of its parts. No sooner had he ascended the throne, than three companies were formed under his auspices; the Lord Chamberlain's servants he adopted as his own; the Queen chose the Earl of Worcester's, and Prince Henry fixed upon the Earl of Nottingham's; and on the 19th of May, only twelve days after his arrival in London, he granted to his own company, being that performing at The Globe, the following licence, which was first published in Rymer's Fœdera, in 1705:—
"PRO LAURENTIO FLETCHER ET WILLIELMO SHAKESPEARE ET ALIIS.
"A.D. 1603. Pat.
"1. Jac. P. 2. m. 4. James by the grace of God, &c. to all justices, maiors, sheriffs, constables, headboroughs, and other our officers and loving subjects, greeting. Know you that wee, of our special grace, certaine knowledge, and meer motion, have licensed and authorised, and by these presentes doe licence and authorize theise our servaunts, Laurence Fletcher, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillippes, John Hemings, Henrie Condel, William Sly, Robert Armin, Richard Cowly, and the rest of their associates, freely to use and exercise the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories, interludes, morals, pastorals, stage-plaies, and such like other as thei have alreadie studied or hereafter shall use or studie, as well for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure when we shall thincke good to see them, during our pleasure: and the said comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, morals, pastorals, stage-plaies, and such like, to shew and exercise publiquely to their best commoditie, when the infection of the plague shall decrease, as well within theire nowe usuall house called the Globe, within our county of Surrey, as also within anie towne-halls or moute-halls, or other convenient places within the liberties and freedom of any other citie, universitie, toun, or boroughe whatsoever, within our said realmes and dominions. Willing and commanding you and everie of you, as you tender our pleasure, not onelie to permit and suffer them herein, without any your letts, hindrances, or molestations, during our pleasure, but also to be aiding or assistinge to them if any wrong be to them offered, and to allow them such former curtesies as hathe been given to men of their place and quallitie; and also what further favour you shall shew to theise our servaunts for our sake, we shall take kindlie at your handes. In witness whereof, &c.
"Witness our selfe at Westminster, the nynteenth daye of Maye,
"Per Breve de private sigillo."[208:A]
To The Globe mentioned in this licence, and to the play-house in Blackfriars, as being the theatres exclusively belonging to Shakspeare's company, and where all his dramas were performed, we shall now confine our attention, the customs and usages of these, the one being a public, and the other a private theatre, pretty accurately applying to the rest.
The exact era of the building of The Globe has not been ascertained. Mr. Malone, from the documents which he consulted, conceives it to have been erected not long anterior to the year 1596; and Mr. Chalmers, resting on the evidence of Norden's map of London, concludes it to have been built before the year 1593.[208:B] Its scite appears to have been on the southern side of the Thames, called the Bankside, and its form, which was of considerable size, to have been externally hexagonal, and internally circular. It was constructed of wood, and only partly thatched, its centre being open to the weather. It was probably named The Globe, not from the circularity of its interior, but from its sign exhibiting Hercules supporting the globe, under which was inscribed, Totus mundus agit histrionem.
Being a public theatre, The Globe was likewise distinguished by a pole erected on its roof, to which, during the hours of exhibition, a flag was attached; for, by reason of its central exposure, it necessarily became a summer theatre, its performers, the King's company, usually commencing their season here during the month of May. The exhibitions at the Globe were frequent, and it is said, chiefly calculated for the lower class of people, the upper ranks, and the critics, generally preferring the private theatres, which were smaller, and more conveniently fitted up. The advantages of elegance and decoration, however, were no longer wanting to The Globe, in 1614; for the old structure, consisting of wood and thatch, being burnt down on the 29th of June, 1613, the subsequent year saw it rise from its ashes with considerable splendour.[209:A]
The Theatre in Blackfriars may be classed among the earliest buildings of the kind, being certainly in existence before 1580. It was erected near the present site of Apothecaries' Hall, and being without the liberties of the city of London, had the good fortune to escape the levelling fury of the fanatics, who, shortly after the above period, obtained leave to destroy all the play-houses within the jurisdiction of the city.
It does not appear that Shakspeare's company, or the King's servants, had any interest in this theatre before the winter of 1604, at which period, or in the following spring, they became its purchasers; the children of the Revels, or, as they were sometimes called, the children of Blackfriars, being the usual performers at this house, prior to that event.
The distinctions subsisting between Blackfriars and The Globe, seem to have been nothing more, than that the former being a private, and a winter, house, was smaller, more compactly put together, and, as the representations were by candle-light, better calculated for the purposes of warmth and protection. As the internal structure, however, with the exception of the open centre, was similar to that of The Globe, and as the economy and usages were, there is every reason to believe, the same, not only in both these houses, but in every other contemporary theatre, the subsequent notices may be considered as applying, where not otherwise expressed, to the general state of the Elizabethan stage, though immediately derived from the costume of The Globe.
The interior architectural arrangements of this ancient theatre have been, in their leading features, preserved to the present day. The galleries, or scaffolds, as they were sometimes called, were constructed over each other, occupying three sides of the house, and assuming, according to the plan of the building, a square or semicircular form. Beneath these were small apartments, called rooms, intended for the genteeler part of the audience, and answering, in almost every respect, to our modern boxes. In The Globe, these were open to all who chose to pay for them, but at Blackfriars and other private theatres, there is some reason to conclude, that they were occasionally the property of individuals, who secured their claim through the medium of a key.[210:A]
It has been remarked, that the centre of The Globe, or summer theatre, was open to the weather, and, from the first temporary play-houses having been built in the area of inns or common osteries, this was usually called The Yard. It had neither floor nor benches, and the common people standing here to see the performance, were, therefore, termed by Shakspeare groundlings; an epithet repeated by Decker, who speaks of "the groundling and gallery commoner, buying his sport by the penny."[211:A] The similar space at Blackfriars was named the Pit, but seems to have differed in no other respect than in being protected by a roof. It was separated from the stage merely by a railing of pales, for there was no intervening orchestra, the music, consisting chiefly of trumpets, cornets, hautboys, lutes, recorders, viols, and organs, being executed by a band of eight or ten performers, who were stationed in an elevated balcony nearly occupying that part of the house which is now denominated the upper stage-box.
The stage itself appears to have been divided into two parts, namely the lower and the upper stage; the former with nearly the same relative elevation with regard to the pit as in the theatres of our own times; the latter, resembling a balcony in shape, was placed towards the rear of the former, having its platform not less than eight or nine feet from the ground. This was a contrivance attended with much conveniency; here was represented the play before the King in Hamlet; here, in several of the old plays, part of the dialogue was carried on, and here, having curtains which drew in front, were occasionally concealed, from the view of the audience, persons whose seclusion might be necessary to the business of the plot.
Curtains also of woollen, or silk, were hung in the front of the greater or lower stage, not suspended, in the modern style, by lines and pullies, but opening in the middle, and sliding on an iron rod.
Beside the accommodation of boxes, pit, and galleries, in the usual parts of the house, two boxes, one on each side, were attached to the balcony or upper stage, and were termed private boxes; but, being inconveniently situated, and, as Decker remarks, "almost smothered in darkness," were seldom frequented, except from motives of eccentricity, by characters higher than waiting-women and gentlemen-ushers.[211:B] Seats, also, at the private theatres, were allowed to be placed on the stage, and were generally occupied by the wits, gallants, and critics of the day: thus Decker observes,—"by sitting on the stage, you have a signed patent to engross the whole commodity of censure; may lawfully presume to be a girder, and stand at the helm to steer the passage of scenes."[212:A]
The passage in italics which closes this quotation, would seem to be decisive of the long agitated question relative to the use of scenery; Mr. Malone asserting,—"that the stage of Shakspeare was not furnished with moveable painted scenes, but merely decorated with curtains, and arras or tapestry hangings, which, when decayed, appear to have been sometimes ornamented with pictures[212:B];" and Mr. Steevens contending, that where so much machinery as the plays of Shakspeare require, is allowed to have been employed, the less complicated adjunct of scenes could scarcely be wanting; for that where "the column is found standing, no one will suppose but that it was once accompanied by its usual entablature.—In short," he adds, "without characteristic discriminations of place, the historical dramas of Shakspeare in particular would have been wrapped in tenfold confusion and obscurity; nor could the spectator have felt the poet's power, or accompanied his rapid transitions from one situation to another, without such guides as painted canvas only could supply.—But for these, or such assistances, the spectator, like Hamlet's mother, must have bent his gaze on mortifying vacancy; and with the guest invited by the Barmecide, in the Arabian tale, must have furnished from his own imagination the entertainment of which his eyes were solicited to partake."[212:C]
If the machinery accompanying trap-doors, tombs, and cauldrons, the appearance of ghosts, phantoms, and monsters, the descent of gods, the magic evanishment of articles of furniture and provision, and the confliction of the elements, were not strangers to the Shakspearean theatre, it surely would have been an easy matter to have transferred the frame-work and painted canvas which, according to Holinshed, and even preceding chroniclers, decorated the pageants and tournaments of those days, to the business of the stage. Nor can we, indeed, conceive, as Mr. Steevens has remarked, how the minute inventory of Imogen's bedchamber, and the accurate description of the exterior of Inverness Castle, could have been rendered intelligible or endurable without such assistance.
It is highly, probable, therefore, from these considerations, and from the passage in Decker, that, notwithstanding the mass of negative evidence collected by Mr. Malone, moveable painted scenes were occasionally introduced on the stage during the age of Shakspeare; and it may be further reasonably concluded, that, from the phrase of STEERING the PASSAGE of scenes, the mechanism was formed and conducted on a plan approximating that which is now familiar to a modern audience.
The conjecture of Mr. Steevens, however, that private theatres had no scenes, while the public had, owing to the former admitting part of the audience on the stage, who might interfere with the convenient shifting of such an apparatus, is annihilated by the quotation from Decker, who expressly says, that "by SITTING ON THE STAGE, you have a signed patent to stand at the helm to steer the passage of the scenes," by which it would appear, that those who obtained seats on the private stage, occasionally amused themselves by assisting the regular mechanists in the adjustment of the scenery.
We learn, also, from Heywood[213:A], that the internal roof of the stage was either painted of a sky-blue colour, or hung with drapery of a similar tint, in order to represent the HEAVENS; and there is much reason to suppose, with a very ingenious commentator, that when the idea of a gloomy and starless night was to be impressed, these heavens were hung with black, whence, among many passages in Shakspeare illustrative of this position, the following line manifestly owes its origin:—
"Hung be the Heavens with black, yield day to night."[214:A]
It has, likewise, been asserted, and, indeed, to a certain extent, proved, by the same learned writer, that the lower part of the stage was distinguished by the name of HELL; and he quotes the annexed passage from Chapman as decisive on the subject:—
"The fortune of a Stage (like fortune's self) Amazeth greatest judgments: and none knows The hidden causes of those strange effects, That rise from this HELL, or fall from this HEAVEN."[214:B]
From this connection of the celestial and infernal regions with the stage, Mr. Whiter has inferred, through the medium of numerous pertinent quotations from Shakspeare and his contemporaries, that a vast mass of imagery was so blended and associated in the mind of our great poet, as to form an intimate union in his ideas between HELL and NIGHT; the DARKENED HEAVENS and the STAGE of TRAGEDY[214:C]; and this, too, at an early period, even during the composition of his Rape of Lucrece, which contains some striking instances of this theatrical combination.
To these notices on the interior structure of the Shakspearean theatre, we shall now add the most material circumstances relative to its economy and usages.
The mode of announcing its exhibitions, if we except the medium of newspapers, a resource of subsequent times, seems to have been not less effectual and extensive than that of the present day. Play-bills were printed, expressing the title of the piece or pieces to be performed, but containing neither the names of the characters, nor of the actors; these were industriously circulated through the town, and affixed to posts and public buildings, a custom which forms the subject of a repartee recorded by Taylor the water-poet, who began to write towards the close of Shakspeare's life:—"Master Field, the player," he relates, "riding up Fleet-street a great pace, a gentleman called him, and asked him, what play was played that day. He being angry to be staied on so frivolous a demand, answered, that he might see what play was plaied upon every poste. I cry you mercy, said the gentleman, I tooke you for a poste, you rode so fast."[215:A]
In the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, the Days of Acting, at the public theatres, were chiefly confined to Sundays, Her Majesty's licence to Burbage in 1574, granting such exhibition on that day, out of the hours of prayer; and this was the day which the Queen herself usually selected for dramatic representation at court. The rapidly increasing taste, however, for theatric amusement soon induced the players to go beyond the limits of permission, and we find Gosson, in 1579, exclaiming, that the players, "because they are allowed to play every Sunday, make four or five Sundays, at least, every week."[215:B] A reformation more consonant to morality and decorum took place in the subsequent reign; for, though plays were still performed on Sundays, at the court of James the First, yet they were no longer tolerated on that day at the public theatres, permission being now given, on application to the Master of the Revels, for their performance every day, save on the Sabbath, during the winter, and with no further exception than the Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, which were at that time called sermon-days.
The Hours of Acting, during the whole period of Shakspeare's career, continued to be early in the afternoon. In 1598, we are informed by an epigram of Sir John Davies, that one o'clock was the usual time for the commencement of the play:—
"Fuscus doth rise at ten, and at eleven He goes to Gyls, where he doth eat till one, Then sees a play."
and, in 1609, when Decker published his Gull's Horn-book, the hour was thrown back to three, nor did it become later until towards the close of the seventeenth century. The time visually consumed in the exhibition appears, from the prologue to Henry the Eighth, to have been only two hours:—
——————————— "Those that come— I'll undertake, may see away their shilling Richly in two short hours."[216:A]
The mention of payment in this passage, leads to the consideration of the Prices of Admission, and the sum here specified, contemporary authority informs us, was demanded for entrance into the best rooms or boxes.[216:B] Sixpence also, and sometimes a shilling, was paid for seats or stools on the stage. Sixpence was likewise the price of admission to the pit and galleries of the Globe and Blackfriars; but at inferior houses, a penny, or at most two-pence, gave access to the "groundling," or the "gallery-commoner." Dramatic poets, as in the present day, were admitted gratis. We may also add, that, from some verses addressed to the memory of Ben Jonson, by Jasper Mayne, and alluding to his Volpone or the Fox, acted in 1605, it is allowable to infer, that the prices of admission were, on the first representation of a new play, doubled, and even sometimes trebled.[217:A]
There is every reason to suppose, that while Shakspeare wrote for the stage, the Number of Plays performed in One Day, seldom, if ever, exceeded one tragedy, comedy, or history, and that the entertainment was varied and protracted, either by the extempore humour and tricks of the Clown after the play was over, or by singing, dancing, or ludicrous recitation, between the acts.
The house appears to have been pretty well supplied with Lights; the stage being illuminated by two large branches; the body of the house by cresset lights, formed of ropes wreathed and pitched, and placed in open iron lanterns, and these were occasionally assisted by the interspersion of wax tapers among the boxes.
The Amusements of the Audience before the Play commenced seem to have been amply supplied by themselves, the only recreation provided by the theatre, during this tedious interval, being the music of the band, which struck up thrice, playing three flourishes, or, as they were then called, three soundings, before the performance began; but these were of course short, being principally intended as announcements, similar to those which we now receive from the prompter's bell. To kill time, therefore, reading and playing cards were the resources of the genteeler part of the audience: "Before the play begins," says Decker to his gallant, "fall to cards; you may win or lose, as fencers do in a prize, and beat one another by confederacy, yet share the money when you meet at supper: notwithstanding, to gull the ragamuffins that stand aloof gaping at you, throw the cards, having first torn four or five of them, round about the stage, just upon the third sound, as though you had lost."[217:B]
Of the less refined amusements of these gaping ragamuffins, "the youths that thunder at a play-house, and fight for bitter apples[218:A]," we find numerous traces in Decker, Jonson, and their contemporaries, which enable us to assert, that they chiefly consisted in smoking tobacco, drinking ale, cracking nuts, and eating fruit, which were regularly supplied by men attending in the theatre, and whose vociferation and clamour, or, as a writer of that time expresses it, "to be made adder-deaf with pippin-cry[218:B]," were justly considered as grievous nuisances; more especially the use of tobacco, which must have been intolerable to those unaccustomed to its odour, and, indeed, occasionally drew forth the execration of individuals: thus in a work entitled, "Dyets Dry Dinner," we find the author commencing an epigram on the wanton and excessive use of tobacco, in the following terms:—
"It chaunc'd me gazing at the Theater, To spie a Dock-Tabacco-Chevalier, _Clouding the loathing ayr with foggie fume Of Dock-Tabacco;— — — — I wisht the Roman lawes severity: Who smoke selleth, with smoke be done to dy_."[218:C]
The most rational of the amusements which occupied the impatient audience, was certainly that of reading, and this appears to have been supplied by a custom of hawking about new publications at the theatre; at least this may be inferred from the opening of an address to the public, prefixed by William Fennor, to a production of his, entitled "Descriptions," and published in 1616. "To the Gentlemen readers, worthy gentlemen, of what degree soever, I suppose this pamphlet will hap into your hands, before a play begin, with the importunate clamour of BUY A NEW BOOKE, by some needy companion, that will be glad to furnish you with worke for a turn'd teaster."[219:A]
As soon as the third sounding had finished, it was usual for the person whose province it was to speak the Prologue, immediately to enter. As a diffident and supplicatory manner were thought essential to this character, who is termed by Decker, "the quaking Prologue," it was the custom to clothe him in a long black velvet cloak, to which Shirley adds, a little beard, a starch'd face, and a supple leg.[219:B]
On withdrawing the curtain, the stage was generally found strewed with rushes, which, in Shakspeare's time, as hath been remarked in our first volume, formed the common covering of floors, from the palace to the cottage[219:C]; but, on very splendid occasions, it was matted entirely over; thus, Sir Henry Wotton, in a letter which describes the conflagration of the Globe Theatre, in 1613, says, that on the night of the accident, "the King's Players had a new play, called All is true, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage."[219:D]
The performance of tragedy appears to have been attended with some peculiar preparations; one of which was hanging the stage with black, a practice which dwelt on Shakspeare's recollection when, in writing his Rape of Lucrece, he speaks of
"Black stage for tragedies, and murthers fell;"[220:A]
and is put out of dispute by a passage in the Induction to an anonymous tragedy, entitled, A Warning for fair Women, 1599, where History, addressing Comedy, says:—
"Look, Comedie, I mark'd it not till now, The stage is hung with blacke, and I perceive The auditors prepar'd for tragedie:"
to which Comedy replies:—
"Nay then, I see she shall be entertain'd; These ornaments beseem not thee and me."[220:B]
If the decorations of the stage itself could boast but little splendour, the wardrobe, even of The Globe and Blackfriars, could not be supposed either richly or amply furnished; in fact, even Jonson, in 1625, nine years after Shakspeare's death, betrays the poverty of the stage-dresses, when he exclaims in the Induction to his Staple of News, "O curiosity, you come to see who wears the new suit to-day; whose clothes are best pen'd, &c.—what king plays without cuffs, and his queen without gloves: who rides post in stockings, and dances in boots."[220:C] It is evident, therefore, that the dramas of our great poet could derive little attraction from magnificence of attire, though it appears, from a passage in Jonson, that not only was there a prompter, or book-holder, but likewise a property, or tire-man, belonging to each theatre, in 1601.[221:A] Periwigs, which came into fashion about 1596, were often worn on the stage by male characters, whence Hamlet is represented calling a ranting player, "a robustious periwig-pated fellow[221:B];" masks or vizards were also sometimes used by those who personated female characters; thus Quince tells Flute, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, on his objecting to perform a woman's part, that he "shall play it in a mask."[221:C]
Female characters indeed, were on the old English stage, as they had been on the Grecian and Roman, always personated by men or boys, a practice which continued with us until near the period of the Restoration. Italy and France long preceded us in the introduction of women on the theatric boards; for Coryate writing from Venice in 1608, and describing one of the theatres of that city, says, "the house is very beggarly and base, in comparison of our stately play-houses in England;" and he then adds, what must give us a wretched idea of the state of the stage at that time in Italy, "neither can their actors compare with us for apparell, shewes, and musicke. Here," he continues, "I observed certaine things that I never saw before; for I saw women act, a thing that I never saw before."[221:D]
The mode of expressing dislike of, or censuring a play, was as decided in the days of Shakspeare as in the present age, and sometimes effected by the same means. Decker gives us two methods of expressing disapprobation; one, by leaving the house with as many in your train as you can collect, the other, by staying, in order to interrupt the performance: "you shall disgrace him (the poet) worse," he observes, "than by tossing him in a blanket, or giving him the bastinado in a tavern, if, in the middle of his play, be it pastoral or comedy, moral or tragedy, you rise with a screwed and discontented face from your stool to be gone;"—and "salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spread either on the rushes, or on stools about you; and draw what troop you can from the stage after you:" but, "if either the company, or indisposition of the weather bind you to sit it out;—mew at passionate speeches; blare at merry; find fault with the musick; whew at the children's action; whistle at the songs[222:A];" modes of annoyance sufficiently provoking, and occasionally very effectual toward the final condemnation of a play, as Ben Jonson experienced in more instances than one.[222:B]
It was usual also for the critics and coxcombs of the day, either from motives of curiosity, vanity, or malevolence, to carry to the theatre table-books, made of small plates of slate bound together in duodecimo, and to take down passages from the play, for the purpose either of retailing them in taverns and parties, or with the view of ridiculing and degrading the author; "to such, wherever they sit concealed," says the indignant Jonson in 1601, "let them know, the author defies them and their writing-tables."[222:C]
An Epilogue, sometimes spoken by one of the Dramatis Personæ, and sometimes by an extra character, was not uncommon at this period; and, when employed, generally terminated, if in a public theatre, with a prayer for the king or queen; if, in a private one, for the lord of the mansion. The prayer, however, was, almost always, a necessary form, whether an epilogue were adopted or not; and, on these occasions, whatever may have been the nature of the preceding drama, the players, kneeling down, solemnly addressed themselves to their devotions: thus Shakspeare concludes his Epilogue to the Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, by telling his audience, "I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;—but, indeed, to pray for the queen[223:A];" and Sir John Harrington closes his Metamorphosis of Ajax, 1596, with the following sarcastic mention of this custom as retained in private theatres:—"But I will neither end with sermon nor prayer, lest some wags liken me to my L. (——) players, who when they have ended a baudie comedy, as though that were a preparative to devotion, kneele down solemnly, and pray all the companie to pray with them for their good lord and maister." Considering the place chosen for its display, this is, certainly, a custom
"More honour'd in the breach, than the observance."
With regard to the Remuneration of Actors, during the age of Shakspeare, it has been ascertained, that, after deducting forty-five shillings, which were the usual nightly, or rather daily, expenses at the Globe and Blackfriars, the net receipt never amounted to more than twenty pounds, and that the average receipt, after making a similar deduction, may be estimated at about nine pounds. This sum Mr. Malone supposes to have been in our poet's time "divided into forty shares, of which fifteen were appropriated to the house keepers or proprietors, three to the purchase of copies of new plays, stage-habits, &c. and twenty-two to the actors." He further calculates, that, as the acting season lasted forty weeks, and each company consisted of about twenty persons, six of whom probably were principal, and the others subordinate performers, if we suppose two shares to have been the reward of a principal actor; one share that of a second class composed of six, and half a share the portion of the remaining eight, the performer who had two shares, would, on the calculation of nine pounds clear per night, receive nine shillings as his nightly dividend, and, at the rate of five plays a week, his weekly profit would amount to two pounds five shillings. "On all these data," adds Mr. Malone, "I think it may be safely concluded, that the performers of the first class did not derive from their profession more than ninety pounds a year at the utmost. Shakspeare, Heminge, Condell, Burbadge, Lowin, and Taylor had without doubt other shares as proprietors or leaseholders; but what the different proportions were which each of them possessed in that right, it is now impossible to ascertain."[224:A] If we consider, however, the value of money during the reign of Elizabeth, and the relative prices of the necessary articles of life, it will be found that these salaries were not inadequate to the purposes of comfortable subsistence.
The profits accruing to the original source of the entertainment, or, in other words, the Remuneration given to the Dramatic Poet, was certainly, if we compare the claims of genius between the two parties, on a scale inferior to that which fell to the lot of the actor.
The author had the choice of two modes in the disposal of his property; he either sold the copy-right of his play to the theatre, or retained it in his own hands. In the former instance, which was frequently had recourse to in the age of Shakspeare, the only emolument was that derived from the purchase made by the proprietors of the theatre, who took care to secure the performance of the piece exclusively to their own company, and whose interest it was to defer its publication as long as possible; in the latter instance, not only had the poet the right of publication and the benefit of sale in his own option, but he had, likewise, a claim upon the theatre for a benefit. This, towards the termination of the sixteenth century, took place on the second day[224:B], but was soon afterwards, as early indeed as 1612, postponed to the third day.[225:A]
From a publication of Robert Greene's, dated 1592, it appears, that the price of a drama, when disposed of to the public players, was twenty nobles, or six pounds thirteen shillings and four pence; but that private companies would sometimes give double that[225:B] sum. It has been recorded, indeed, by Oldys, in one of his manuscripts, but upon what authority is not mentioned, that Shakspeare received but five pounds for his Hamlet![225:C]
What a bookseller gave for the copyright of a play at this period is unknown; but we have sufficient foundation, that of the bookseller's Preface to the quarto edition of our poet's Troilus and Cressida in 1609, for asserting, that sixpence was the sale price of a play when published.[225:D] It may also be affirmed, on grounds of equal security, that forty shillings formed the customary compliment for the flattery of a dedication.[225:E]
To these notices concerning the pecuniary rewards of poets and performers, may be added the conjecture of Mr. Malone, that Shakspeare, "as author, actor, and proprietor, probably received from the theatre about two hundred pounds a year."[225:F]
From this description of the architecture, economy, and usages of the Shakspearean Stage, it must be evident, how trifling were the obligations of our great poet to the adventitious aid of scenery, machinery, and decoration, notwithstanding we have admitted these to be somewhat more elaborate than is usually allowed. The Art of Acting, however, had, during the same period, made very rapid strides towards perfection, and dramatic action and expression, therefore, coadjutors of infinitely more importance than the most splendid scenical apparatus, exhibited, we have reason to believe, powers in a great degree competent to the task of doing justice to the imperishable productions of this unrivalled bard of pity and of terror.
FOOTNOTES:
[168:A] Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, fol., 8th edit., p. 171. col. i.
[168:B] "The Pleasant and Stately Morall of the Three Lordes and Three Ladies of London," &c., London. Printed by Jhones, at the Rose and Crowne, neere Holburne Bridge, 1590. Vide Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, Introduct., p. xxviii.; and Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. i. p. 350, 351.
[168:C] Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 172. col. i.
[169:A] "Schoole of Abuse," "Anatomie of Abuses," and "Treatise against Diceing, Card-playing," &c.
[169:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 170. Act v. sc. 1.
[169:C] Ibid. vol. v. p. 186, 187. Act iv. sc. 5.
[170:A] Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, 4to. 1810, p. 291, 292.
[170:B] Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 111. col. 1.
[170:C] Belman of London, sig. F 2.
[170:D] Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. sc. 1. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 401. Romeo and Juliet, act iv. sc. 5. Reed's Shakspeare vol. xx. p. 221.
[170:E] Ancient British Drama, vol. ii. p. 551. col. 1.
[170:F] In the Compleat Gamester, 2nd edit. 1676, p. 90., may be found the mode of playing this game.
[170:G] The first of these games is mentioned in Eastward Hoe, printed in 1605, and written by Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston; the second in the Dumb Knight, the production of Lewis Machin, 1608; the third in A Woman killed with Kindness, written by Thomas Heywood, 1617, where are also noticed Lodam, Noddy, Post and Pair, a species of Brag, Knave out of Doors, and Ruff, this last being something like Whist, and played in four different ways, under the names of English Ruff, French Ruff, Double Ruff, and Wide Ruff.—Vide Ancient British Drama, vol. ii. p. 444, 445.
[171:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 335. note.
[171:B] Works of Ben Jonson; act v. sc. 4.
[171:C] Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 172. col. 2.
[171:D] Sports and Pastimes, 4to. p. 277.
[171:E] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 183. Act v. sc. 2.
[171:F] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 243.
[171:G] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. pp. 227, 228. Winter's Tale, act i. sc. 2.
[171:H] Ibid. vol. xviii. p. 240. Hamlet, act iii. sc. 4.
[172:A] Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 272.
[173:A] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 217.
[173:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 52. Act iii. sc. 1.
[173:C] Part II. p. 129
[173:D] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. pp. 219, 220.
[174:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 406.
[174:B] Ibid. vol. v. p. 407. note.
[175:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. pp. 38, 39.
[175:B] Ibid. vol. viii. p. 260, 261.
[175:C] Ibid. vol. vii. p. 52.
[175:D] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 221.
[176:A] Chalmers's Apology, p. 380.
[176:B] Warton's Life of Sir Tho. Pope, sect. iii. p. 85.
[177:A] Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 249.
[177:B] Hentzner's Travels, pp. 29, 30.
[177:C] P. 147.
[178:A] Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent, 1570, p. 248.
[178:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. pp. 33, 34. M. W. of Windsor, act i. sc. 1.
[179:A] "The Auncient Order, Societie, and Vnitie Laudable, of Prince Arthure, and his knightly Armoury of the Round Table. With a Threefold Assertion frendly in favour and furtherance of English Archery at this day. Translated and Collected by R. R." (Richard Robinson) 4to. 1583.—Vide British Bibliographer, vol. i. p. 125. 127.
[179:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 144.
[180:A] Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 62., from Strype's London, vol. i. p. 250.—In 1682, appeared "A remembrance of the worthy show and shooting by the Duke of Shoreditch and his associates the worshipful citizens of London, upon Tuesday the 17th of September 1583, set forth according to the truth thereof, to the everlasting honour of the game of shooting in the long bow. B. W. M."
[181:A] Vide British Bibliographer, vol. i. pp. 448. 450.
[181:B] Ascham's Works apud Bennet, 4to. p. 55.
[181:C] The Boke named the Governour; the edition of 1553. p. 83.
[182:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 71. Act iv. sc. 1.
[182:B] Lodge's Illustrations of British History, vol. iii. p. 295.
[182:C] Stowe's Survey of London, 4to. 1618. p. 162.
[183:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 29. Henry IV. Part ii. act i. sc. 2.
[183:B] The Gull's Horn-book, 4to. 1609. Reprint of 1812, p. 99.
[183:C] Ibid. pp. 101, 102.
[184:A] Gull's Horn-book, pp. 95, 96.
[184:B] Ibid. pp. 97, 98.
[185:A] Gull's Horn-book, p. 97.
[185:B] They are thus called, from wearing white surplices.
[185:C] Gull's Horn-book, pp. 99, 100.
[186:A] Gull's Horn-book, pp. 104, 105.
[186:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 26. Act i. sc. 2.
[186:C] History of the World, First Part, p. 178.
[186:D] Vide Douce's Illustrations, vol. i. pp. 213, 214.
[186:E] Ben Jonson's Works, fol. edit. 1640. Epigrammes, p. 46.
[187:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. v. p. 274. col. 2. Satires, book iv. sat. 2.
[187:B] Works of Ben Jonson; act v. sc. 4.
[188:A] The Workes of Benjamin Jonson, folio. 1640. Masques, p. 143.—Of the costly magnificence of this spectacle, an idea may be formed from that part which relates to the attire of the actors: "that of the Lords," describes the poet, "had part of it taken from the antique Greek statue; mixed with some moderne additions: which made it both gracefull, and strange. On their heads they wore Persick crowns that were with scroles of gold-plate turned outward, and wreathed about with a carnation and silver net-lawne; the one end of which hung carelessly on the left shoulder; the other was tricked up before, in severall degrees of folds, between the plates, and set with rich jewels, and great pearles. Their bodies were of carnation cloth of silver, richly wrought, and cut to expresse the naked, in manner of the Greek Thorax; girt under the brests with a broad belt of cloth of gold imbroydered, and fastened before with jewels: Their Labels were of white cloth of silver, laced, and wrought curiously between, sutable to the upper halfe of their sleeves; whose nether parts with their bases, were of watchet cloth of silver, chev'rond all over with lace. Their Mantils were of severall colour'd silkes, distinguishing their qualities as they were coupled in paires; the first, skie colour; the second, pearle colour; the third, flame colour; the fourth, tawny: and these cut in leaves, which were subtilly tack'd up, and imbroydered with Oo's, and between every ranck of leaves, a broad silver lace. They were fastened on the right shoulder, and fell compasse down the back in gracious folds, and were again tyed with a round knot, to the fastening of their swords. Upon their legs they wore silver greaves." P. 143.
[189:A] Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i. Preface, p. 10.
[190:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 137. note by Malone, from Stowe's Annals.
[190:B] Origines Juridiciales, folio, p. 346, edit. 1671.
[190:C] Stowe's Annales, by Howes, folio, p. 1006. edit. 1631.
[191:A] History of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 365. note.
[192:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. pp. 235, 236. Act iv. sc. 12.
[192:B] The Workes of Benjamin Jonson, fol. 164. Masques, p. 135.
[193:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. pp. 135-137. Act iv. sc. 1.
[194:A] Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i. Preface, p. 19.
[194:B] Ibid. p. 24.
[196:A] This enumeration is abridged from Laneham's Letter, and the "Princely Pleasures at Kenelworth Castle," reprinted in Nichols's Progresses, vol. i.
[197:A] Hurd's Moral and Political Dialogues, vol. i. p. 160. edit. of 1788.
[197:B] Ibid. vol. i. p. 150.
[199:A] Nichols's Progresses, vol. i. Laneham's Letter, p. 81-84.
[200:A] Hurd's Moral and Political Dialogues, vol. i. pp. 148-150.
[201:A] Chalmers's Apology, p. 353.
[202:A] See Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 48.
[204:A] Anatomie of Abuses, edit. 1583, p. 90.
[204:B] See Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 363. note.
[205:A] Apology, p. 393.
[208:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. pp. 51, 52.
[208:B] See Malone's Inquiry, p. 87.; Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 64.; and Chalmers's Apology, p. 115.
[209:A] Of the perishable materials, and inconvenient construction of the old theatre, we have some remarkable proofs, in two letters extant, describing the accident. The first written by Sir Henry Wotton, and dated July 2. 1613, concludes by asserting that "nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks;" and the second from Mr. John Chamberlaine to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated July 8. 1613, remarks, that "it was a great marvaile and fair grace of God that the people had so little harm, having but two narrow doors to get out."—Reliquiæ Wotton, p. 425. edit. 1685; and Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 469.
[210:A] See Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 394. note.
[211:A] Gull's Horn-book, Nott's reprint, p. 132.
[211:B] Ibid. p. 135.
[212:A] Gull's Horn-book, p. 138.
[212:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. pp. 106-108.
[212:C] Ibid. p. 109. note.
[213:A] Apology for Actors, 1612. sig. D.
[214:A] Whiter's Specimen of a Commentary on Shakspeare, pp. 157, 158.
[214:B] Ibid. pp. 178. 183.; and see Prologue to All Fools, by Chapman, 1605, in Old Plays, vol. iv. p. 116.
[214:C] Whiter's Specimen, p. 184.
[215:A] Taylor's Works, p. 183.—Mr. Malone is of opinion that to these play-bills we owe "the long and whimsical titles which are prefixed to the quarto copies of our author's plays.—It is indeed absurd to suppose, that the modest Shakspeare, who has more than once apologized for his untutored lines, should in his manuscripts have entitled any of his dramas most excellent and pleasant performances." Thus:—
"The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice, 1600."
"A most pleasant and excellent conceited Comedie of Syr John Falstaffe and the Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602."
"The late and much-admired Play, called Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609," &c. &c. Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. pp. 163-165.
[215:B] Schoole of Abuse.—Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 154.
[216:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 4.
[216:B] Decker's Gull's Horn-book, reprint, p. 18. note.
[217:A] Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 175. note.
[217:B] Gull's Horn-book, reprint, p. 146.
[218:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 205. Henry VIII. act v. sc. 3.
[218:B] Notes from Black-fryers, by H. Fitz-Jeoffery, 1617.
[218:C] "Dyets Dry Dinner: consisting of eight several courses. 1. Fruites. 2. Hearbes. 3. Flesh. 4. Fish. 5. Whitmeats. 6. Spice. 7. Sauce. 8. Tabacco. All served in after the order of time universall. By Henry Buttes, Maister of Artes, and Fellowe of C. C. C. in C.
Qui miscuit utile dulci. Cicero. Non nobis solum nati sumus, sed Ortus nostri sibi vendicant.
Printed in London by Tho. Creede, for William Wood, and are to be sold at the West end of Powles, at the signe of Tyme, 1599." Small 8vo.
[219:A] "Fennors Descriptions, or a true relation of certaine and divers speeches, spoken before the King and Queene's most excellent Majestie, the Prince his highnesse, and the Lady Elizabeth's Grace. By William Fennor, his Majestie's Servant. London, Printed by Edward Griffin, for George Gibbs, and are to bee sold at his shop in Paul's Church-yard, at the signe of the Flower-De-luce, 1616." 4to.
[219:B] Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 120. note.
[219:C] Vide Decker's Gull's Horn-book, reprint, p. 135.
[219:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 68. note.
[220:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 517.—"The hanging however was," remarks the editor, "I suppose, no more than one piece of black baize placed at the back of the stage, in the room of the tapestry which was the common decoration when comedies were acted."
[220:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 111. note.
[220:C] Whalley's Works of Ben Jonson; Prologue in Induction.
[221:A] Whalley's Jonson; Cynthia's Revels, Induction.
[221:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 181. Act iii. sc. 2.
[221:C] Ibid. vol. iv. p. 338. Act i. sc. 2.
[221:D] Coryate's Crudities, 4to. 1611, p. 247.
[222:A] Gull's Horn-book, reprint, pp. 147-149.
[222:B] Sejanus, Catiline, and The New Inn, were all condemned.
[222:C] "There is reason to believe," remarks Mr. Malone, "that the imperfect and mutilated copies of one or two of Shakspeare's dramas, which are yet extant, were taken down by the ear, or in short-hand, during the exhibition."—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 151.
[223:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 263.
[224:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 190.
[224:B] In Davenant's Play-house to be Let, occurs the following passage:—
"There is an old tradition, That in the times of mighty Tamberlane, Of conjuring Faustus and the Beauchamps bold, You poets used to have the second day."
[225:A] On the authority of Decker's Prologue to one of his comedies entitled, If this be not a good Play the Devil's in't, 1612:—
———————— "Not caring, so he gains A cram'd third day."
[225:B] "Master R. G., would it not make you blush—if you sold Orlando Furioso to the queenes players for twenty nobles, and when they were in the country, sold the same play to Lord Admirals men, for as much more?"—Defence of Coney-catching, 1592.
[225:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 172.
[225:D] "Had I time I would comment upon it, though I know it needs not, (for so much as will make you thinke your testerne well bestowd) but for so much worth, as even poore I know to be stuft in it."—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 226.
[225:E] "I did determine not to have dedicated my play to any body, because forty shillings I care not for; and above, few or none will bestow on these matters."—Dedication to A Woman's a Weathercock, a comedy by N. Field, 1612.
[225:F] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 191.
Chapter VIII
A BRIEF VIEW OF DRAMATIC POETRY, FROM THE BIRTH OF SHAKSPEARE TO THE PERIOD OF HIS COMMENCEMENT AS A WRITER FOR THE STAGE, ABOUT THE YEAR 1590; WITH CRITICAL NOTICES OF THE DRAMATIC POETS WHO FLOURISHED DURING THAT INTERVAL.
It is remarkable that the era of the birth of Shakspeare should occur in almost intermediate contact with those periods which mark the first appearance of what may be termed legitimate tragedy and comedy. In 1561-2, was exhibited the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, written by Thomas Norton, and Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, "the first specimen," observes Mr. Warton, "in our language of an heroick tale written in verse, and divided into acts and scenes, and cloathed in all the formalities of a regular tragedy[227:A];" in 1564, as is well known, the leading object of our work, the great poet of nature, was born; and, in 1566, was acted at Christ's College, Cambridge, under the quaint title of Gammer Gurton's Needle, the first play, remarks Wright, "that looks like a regular comedy."[227:B]
Previous to the exhibition of these pieces, the public had been contented with Mysteries, Moralities, and Interludes; the first of these, exclusively occupied by miracles and scriptural narratives, originated with the ecclesiastics so far back as the eleventh century[227:C]; the second, consisting chiefly of allegorical personification, seems to have arisen about the middle of the fifteenth century[227:D]; and the third, a species of farce, or, as Jonson defines them, something played at the intervals of festivity, became prevalent during the reign of Henry the Eighth.
The examples, however, which were now furnished by Sackville and Still, in the production of Gorboduc[228:A], and Gammer Gurton, were not lost upon their age; and to the ideas of legitimate fable emanating from these sources, are also to be added those derived from the now frequent custom of acting plays in the schools and universities, in imitation of the dramas of Plautus and Terence. To these co-operating causes may be ascribed the numerous tragedies and plays which appeared between the years 1566 and 1590, principally written by men who had been educated at the universities, and who, in the serious drama, endeavoured to support the stately and declamatory style of Gorboduc.
It is to this period, also, that we must refer for the epoch of the historical drama, or, what were called, in the language of their times, Histories, a gradual improvement, it is true, on the allegorical Dramatis Personæ of the moralities, but which, in the interval elapsing between 1570 and 1590, received a consistency and form, a materiality and organisation, which only required the animating fire of Shakspeare's muse to kindle into life and immortality.
For the prevalence and popularity of this species of play, anterior to the productions of our poet, we are probably indebted to the publication of The Mirrour for Magistrates, a poetical miscellany, of which four editions were printed between 1564 and 1590, and where the most remarkable personages in English history are brought forward relating the story of their own disasters.
Another and very popular species of dramatic composition, at this era, may be satisfactorily deduced from the strong attachment still existing for the ancient moralities, in which the most solemn and serious subjects were often blended with the lowest scenes of farce and broad humour; for though the taste of the educated part of the public was chastened and improved by the classical tragedy of Sackville, and by the translations also of Gascoigne, who, in 1566, presented his countrymen with Jocasta from Euripides, and The Supposes, a regular comedy, from Ariosto, yet the lower orders still lingered for the mingled buffoonery of their old stage, and tragi-comedy became necessary to catch their applause. This apparently heterogenous compound was long the most fascinating entertainment of the scenical world; nor were even the wildest features of the allegorical drama unrepresented; for the interlude and, subsequently, the masque, were frequently lavish in the creation of personages equally as extravagant and grotesque as any which the fifteenth century had dared to produce.
To this enumeration of the various kinds of dramatic poetry which preceded the efforts of Shakspeare, one more, of a very singular nature, must be added, the production of Richard Tarleton, the celebrated jester and comedian, who, previous to 1589, or during the course of that year, exhibited a play in two parts, called "The Seven Deadlie Sins."[229:A] The piece itself has perished, but the Platt, or groundwork, of the Second Part, having been preserved, we find that the preceding portion had been occupied in exemplifying the sins of Pride, Gluttony, Wrath, and Avarice, while Envy, Sloth, and Lechery, were reserved for its successor. The plan which Tarleton pursued, in illustrating the effects of these sins, was by selecting scenes and passages from the plays of various authors, and combining them into a whole by the connecting medium of chorusses, interlocutors, and pantomimic show. Thus the Second Part is composed from three plays, namely, Sackville's Gorboduc, and two, now lost, entitled Sardanapalus and Tereus, while the moralisation and connection are introduced and supported by alternate monologues in the persons of Henry the Sixth, and Lidgate, the monk of Bury. This curious specimen of scenic exhibition may not unaptly receive the appellation of the Composite Drama.
After this short general sketch of the progress of dramatic poetry from 1564 to 1591, it will be necessary to descend to some particular criticism on the chief productions which graced the stage during this interval; an attempt which we shall conduct chronologically, under the names of their respective authors.
1. SACKVILLE, THOMAS. Though the tragedy of Sackville was exhibited before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, on the 18th of January, 1561-2, it did not reach the press until 1565, when a spurious edition was published under the title of The Tragedie of Gorboduc. This piracy brought forth a legitimate copy in 1571, from the press of John Daye, which was now called The Tragedie of Ferrex and Porrex; but the nomenclature was again altered in a third edition, printed for Edward Alde, in 1590, reassuming its first and more popular denomination of The Tragedie of Gorboduc.
The first and third editions inform us in their title-pages, that "three acts were written by Thomas Norton, and the two last by Thomas Sackville," a co-partnership which, but for this intimation, would not have been suspected, for the whole has the appearance, both in matter and style, of having issued from one and the same pen.
If the mechanism of this play, which Warton justly calls the "first genuine English Tragedy[230:A]," approximate in the minor parts of its construction to a classical type, being regularly divided into acts and scenes, with a chorus of British sages closing every act save the last, yet does it evince, in many other respects, the infancy of dramatic art in this country. Every act is preceded by an elaborate Dumb Show, allegorically depicting the business of the immediately succeeding scenes, a resource, the crude nature of which sufficiently points out the stage of poetry that gave it birth. Nor is the conduct of the fable less inconsistent with the exterior formalities of the piece, the unities of time and place being openly violated, and the chronological detail of history, or rather of the fabulous annals of the age, closely followed. The plot, too, is sterile and uninteresting, and the passions are touched with a feeble and ineffective hand.
The great merit, indeed, of Gorboduc, is in its style and versification, in its moral and political wisdom, qualities which recommended it to the notice and encomium of Sir Philip Sidney, who tells us, that "Gorboduc is full of stately speeches, and well sounding phrases, climbing to the heighth of Seneca his style, and as full of notable morality, which it doth most delightfully teach."[231:A] Declamation and morality, however, are not the essentials of tragedy; the first, indeed, is a positive fault, and the second should only be the result of the struggle and collision of the passions. We must, therefore, limit the beneficial example of Sackville to purity and perspicuity of diction, to skill in the structure of his numbers, and to truth and dignity of sentiment. If to these virtues of composition, though occasionally encumbered by a too unbending rigidity of style, his contemporaries had paid due attention, we should have escaped that torrent of tumor and bombast which, shortly afterwards, inundated the dramatic world, and which continued to disgrace the national taste during the whole period to which this chapter is confined.
2. EDWARDS, RICHARD. This poet, one of the gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth's chapel, and master of the children there, was the author of two plays, under the titles of Damon and Pithias, and Palamon and Arcite. The former of these was acted before the Queen, at court, in 1562, and first published in 1571, by Richard Jones, who terms it The excellent comedie of two the moste faithfullest freendes Damon and Pithias; it is an early specimen of tragi-comedy, and written in rhyme, the inferior characters exhibiting a vein of coarse humour, and the more elevated, some touches of pathos, which the story, indeed, could scarcely fail to elicit, and some faint attempts at discrimination of character. The versification is singular, consisting generally of couplets of twelve syllables, but frequently intermixed with lines varying upwards from this number, even as far as eighteen. Palamon and Arcite, which was considered as far surpassing his first drama, had the honour also of being performed before Elizabeth, at Christ-Church Hall, Oxford, in 1566; it is likewise termed a comedy, and is said to have gratified Her Majesty so highly, that, sending for the author, after the play was finished, she greatly commended his talents, thanked him for the entertainment which his muse had afforded her, and promised to befriend him more substantially hereafter, an intention, however, which was frustrated by the death of the poet during the course of that very year.
Edwards appears to have been very popular, and highly estimated as a writer. Puttenham has classed him with those who "deserve the highest price for comedy and interlude[232:A]," and Thomas Twine calls him, in an epitaph on his death,
—— "the flowre of all our realme, And Phœnix of our age,"
assigning him immortality expressly on account of his dramatic productions.[232:B]
3. STILL, JOHN, a prelate to whom is ascribed, upon pretty good foundation, the first genuine comedy in our language. He was Master of Arts of Christ's College, Cambridge, at the period of producing Gammer Gurton's Needle, and subsequently became rector of Hadleigh, in the county of Suffolk, archdeacon of Sudbury, master of St. John's and Trinity Colleges, and lastly bishop of Bath and Wells.
Gammer Gurton's Needle, which, as we have already remarked, had been first acted in 1566, was committed to the press in 1575, under the following title:—"A ryght pithy, pleasant, and merie Comedy, intytuled Gammer Gurton's Nedle; played on the stage not longe ago in Christes Colledge, in Cambridge. Made by Mr. S. master of art. Imprented at London in Fleetestreat, beneth the Conduit, at the signe of S. John Evangelest, by Thomas Colwell."
The humour of this curious old drama, which is written in rhyme, is broad, familiar, and grotesque; the characters are sketched with a strong, though coarse, outline, and are to the last consistently supported. The language, and many of the incidents, are gross and indelicate; but these, and numerous allusions to obsolete customs, mark the manners of the times, when the most learned and polished of the land, the inmates of an University, could listen with delight to dialogue often tinctured with the lowest filth and abuse. It must be confessed, however, that this play, with all its faults, has an interest which many of its immediate, and more pretending successors, have failed to attain. It is evidently the production of a man of talents and observation, and the second act opens with a drinking song, valuable alike for its humour, and the ease and spirit of its versification.
4. GASCOIGNE, GEORGE. At the very period when Still produced his comedy in rhyme, Gascoigne presented the public with a specimen of the same species of drama in prose. This is a translation from the Italian, entitled, "The Supposes. A comedie written in the Italian tongue by Ariosto, Englished by George Gascoigne of Graies-inn esquire, and there presented, 1566."
"The dialogue of this comedy," observes Warton, "is supported with much ease and spirit, and has often the air of a modern conversation. As Gascoigne was the first who exhibited on our stage a story from Euripides, so in this play he is the first that produced an English comedy in prose."[233:A]
The translation from the Phœnissæ of Euripides, or, as Gascoigne termed it, Jocasta, was acted in the refectory of Gray's Inn, in the same year with the Supposes. It was the joint production of our poet and his friend Francis Kinwelmersh, the first and fourth acts being written by the latter bard. Jocasta is more a paraphrase than a translation, and occasionally aspires to the honours of original composition, new odes being sometimes substituted for those of the Greek chorus. The dialogue of this play is given in blank verse, forming one of the earliest specimens of this measure, and, like Gorboduc, each act is preceded by a dumb show, and closed by a long ode, in the composition of which, both Gascoigne and his coadjutor have evinced considerable lyric powers.
Shakspeare seems to have been indebted to the Supposes of Gascoigne for the name of Petruchio, in the Taming of the Shrew, and for the incident which closes the second scene of the fourth act of that play.[234:A]
5. WAGER, LEWIS, the author of an Interlude, called Mary Magdalen, Her Life and Repentance, 1567. 4to. This, like most of the interludes of the same age, required, as we are told in the title-page, only four persons for its performance. The subject, which is taken from the seventh chapter of St. Luke, had been a favourite with the writers of the ancient Mysteries, of which pieces one, written in 1512, is still preserved in the Bodleian Library.[234:B]
6. WILMOT, ROBERT, a student of the Inner Temple, the publisher, and one of the writers of an old tragedy, intitled Tancred and Gismund or Gismonde of Salerne, the composition of not less than five Templers, and performed before Elizabeth in 1568. Each of these gentlemen, says Warton, "seems to have taken an act. At the end of the fourth is Composuit Chr. Hatton, or Sir Christopher Hatton, undoubtedly the same that was afterwards exalted by the Queen to the office of lord keeper for his agility in dancing."[234:C]
Wilmot, who is mentioned with approbation in Webbe's "Discourse of English Poetrie[235:A]," corrected and improved, many years after the first composition, the united labours of himself and his brother Templers, printing them with the following title: "The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismond. Compiled by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before Her Majestie. Newly revived and polished according to the decorum of these daies. By R. W. London. Printed by Thomas Scarlet, and are to be solde by E. C. R. Robinson. 1592."
In a dedication to his fellow-students, the editor incidentally fixes the era of the first production of his drama: "I am now bold to present Gismund to your sights, and unto your's only, for therefore have I conjured her by the love that hath been these twenty-four years betwixt us, that she wax not so proud of her fresh painting, to straggle in her plumes abroad, but to contain herself within the walls of your house; so am I sure she shall be safe from the tragedian tyrants of our time, who are not ashamed to affirm that there can no amorous poem favour of any sharpness of wit, unless it be seasoned with scurrilous words."
From a fragment of this play as originally written, and inserted in the Censura Literaria, it appears to have been composed in alternate rhyme, and, we may add, displays both simplicity in its diction, and pathos in its sentiment. An imperfect copy of Wilmot's revision, and perhaps the only one in existence, is in the Garrick Collection.[235:B]
7. GARTER, THOMAS. To this person has been ascribed by Coxeter, The Commody of the moste vertuous and godlye Susanna; it was entered on the Stationers' books in 1568, and probably first performed about that period; its being in black letter, in metre, and not divided into acts, are certainly strong indications of its antiquity. It was reprinted in 4to. 1578.
8. PRESTON, THOMAS, was master of arts, and fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards doctor of laws, and master of Trinity-Hall. Taking a part in the performance of John Ritwise's Latin tragedy of Dido, got up for the entertainment of the Queen when she visited Cambridge in 1564, Her Majesty was so delighted with the grace and spirit of his acting, that she conferred upon him a pension of twenty pounds a year, being rather more than a shilling a day; a transaction which Mr. Steevens conceives to have been ridiculed by Shakspeare in his Midsummer-Night's Dream, where Flute, on the absence of Bottom, exclaims, "O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a-day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a-day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a-day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence a-day, in Pyramus, or nothing."[236:A]
Nor was this the only sly allusion which Preston experienced from the pen of Shakspeare. Langbaine, Theobald, and Farmer consider the following speech of Falstaff as referring to a production of this writer:—"Give me a cup of sack," says the Knight, "to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in king Cambyses' vein."[236:B]
The play satirised under the name of this monarch, is entitled, "A Lamentable Tragedy, mixed ful of pleasant Mirth, conteyning the Life of Cambises, King of Percia, from the beginning of his Kingdome, unto his Death, his one good deed of execution; after that many wicked deeds, and tirannous murders committed by and through him; and last of all, his odious Death, by God's justice appointed. Don in such order as followeth, by Thomas Preston." Imprinted at London, by Edwarde Allde. 4to. B. L.
This curious drama, which was written and published about 1570, being in the old metre, a species of ballad stanza, the allusion in Shakspeare must have been rather to the effect, than to the form, of King Cambyses' vein, perhaps referring solely, as Dr. Farmer observes, to the following marginal direction,—"At this tale tolde, let the queen weep."[237:A]
From the Division of the Partes, as given by Mr. Beloe, this very scarce tragi-comedy seems to have been partly allegorical, and, from the specimen produced in the Biographia Dramatica, to have justly merited the ridicule which it was its fate to excite.[237:B]
9. WAPUL, GEORGE, the author of a play called "Tide Tarrieth for No Man. A most pleasaunte and merry Comedie, ryght pithy and fulle of delighte." It was entered on the Stationers' books in October, 1576, and reprinted in 1611, 4to. B. L. This drama appears to be irrecoverably lost, as we can find no trace of it, save the title.
10. LUPTON, THOMAS. Of this writer nothing more is known, than that he wrote one play, which is to be found in the Collection of Mr. Garrick, and under the appellation of "A Moral and Pitieful Comedie, entitled All for Money. Plainly representing the Manners of Men and Fashion of the World nowe adaies. Compiled by T. Lupton. At London, printed by Roger Warde and Richard Mundee, dwelling at Temple Barre. Anno 1578." It is written in rhyme, printed in black letter, the pages unnumbered, and the style very antique and peculiar. The characters are altogether figurative and allegorical, and form one of the most grotesque examples of Dramatis Personæ extant. We have Learning with Money, Learning without Money, Money without Learning, and Neither Money nor Learning; we have also Mischievous Helpe, Pleasure, Prest for Pleasure, Sinne, Swift to Sinne, Damnation, Satan, Pride, and Gluttonie; again, Gregoria Graceless, William with the two Wives, St. Laurence, Mother Crooke, Judas, Dives, and Godly Admonition, &c. &c. Like many other dramatic pieces of the same age, it is evidently the offspring of the old Moralities, an attachment to which continued to linger among the lower classes for many subsequent years.
11. WHETSTONE, GEORGE. To this bard, more remarkable for his miscellaneous than his dramatic poetry, we are indebted for one play, viz. "The right excellent and famous Historye of Promos and Cassandra. Devided into two Commicall Discourses." 4to. B. L. 1578.
An extrinsic importance affixing itself to this production, in consequence of its having furnished Shakspeare with several hints for his Measure for Measure, has occasioned its re-publication.[238:A] "The curious reader," remarks Mr. Steevens, "will find that this old play exhibits an almost complete embryo of Measure for Measure; yet the hints on which it is formed are so slight, that it is nearly as impossible to detect them, as it is to point out in the acorn the future ramifications of the oak."[238:B]
The fable of Promos and Cassandra furnishes little interest, in the hands of Whetstone; nor are the diction and versification such as can claim even the award of mediocrity. It is chiefly written in alternate rhyme, with no pathos in its serious, and with feeble efforts at humour in its comic, parts.
12. WOOD, NATHANIEL, a clergyman of the city of Norwich, and only-known as the producer of "An Excellent New Comedie, entitled, The Conflict of Conscience, contayninge a most lamentable example of the doleful desparation of a miserable worldlinge, termed by the name of Philologus, who forsooke the trueth of God's Gospel for feare of the losse of lyfe and worldly goods." 4to. 1581. This is another of the numerous spawn which issued from the ancient Mysteries and Moralities; the Dramatis Personæ, consisting of a strange medley of personified vices and real characters, are divided into six parts, "most convenient," says the author, "for such as be disposed either to shew this Comedie in private houses or otherwise." It is in the Garrick Collection, and very rare.
13. PEELE, GEORGE, the first of a train of play-wrights, who made a conspicuous figure just previous to the commencement, and during the earlier years, of Shakspeare's dramatic career. Educated at the University of Oxford, where he took his degree of Master of Arts in 1579, Peele shortly afterwards removed to London, and became the city poet, and a conductor of the pageants. His dramatic talents, like those which he exhibited in miscellaneous poetry, have been rated too high; the latter, notwithstanding Nash terms him "the chief supporter of pleasance, the atlas of poetrie, and primus verborum artifex," with the exception of two or three pastoral pieces, seldom attain mediocrity; and the former, though Wood has told us that "his plays were not only often acted with great applause in his life-time, but did also endure reading, with due commendation, many years after his death[239:A]," are now, and perhaps not undeservedly, held in little estimation. The piece which entitles him to notice in this chapter was printed in 1584, under the appellation of The Arraignment of Paris; it is a pastoral drama, which was performed before the Queen, by the children of her chapel, and has had the honour of being attributed, though without any foundation, to the muse of Shakspeare.[239:B] Peele, who is supposed to have died about 1597, produced four additional plays, namely, Edward the First, 4to. 1593; The Old Wive's Tale, 4to. 1595; King David and Fair Bethsabe, published after his death in 1599, and The Turkish Mahomet and Hyron the Fair Greek, which was never printed, and is now lost. From this unpublished play Shakspeare has taken a passage which he puts into the mouth of Pistol, who, in reference to Doll Tearsheet, calls out, Have we not Hiren here[239:C]? a quotation which is to be detected in several other plays, Hiren as we find, from one of our author's tracts, named The Merie Conceited Jests of George Peele, being synonymous with the word courtezan.[240:A] These allusions, however, mark the popularity of the piece, and his contemporary Robert Greene classes him with Marlowe and Lodge, "no less deserving," he remarks, "in some things rarer, in nothing inferior."[240:B] From the specimens, however, which we possess of his dramatic genius, the opinion of Greene will not readily meet with a modern assent; the pastoral and descriptive parts of his plays are the best, which are often clothed in sweet and flowing verse; but, as dramas, they are nerveless, passionless, and therefore ineffective in point of character.[240:C]
14. LILLY, JOHN. This once courtly author, whom we have had occasion to censure for his affected innovation, and stilted elegance in prose composition, was, says Phillips, "a writer of several old-fashioned Comedies and Tragedies, which have been printed together in a volume, and might perhaps when time was, be in very good request."[241:A]
The dramas here alluded to, but of which Phillips has given a defective and incorrect enumeration, are—
1. Alexander and Campaspe, 1584, 4to. Tragi-comedy. 2. Sappho and Phaon, 1584, 4to. Comedy. 3. Endimion, 1591, 4to. Comedy. 4. Galatea, 1592, 4to. Comedy. 5. Mydas, 1592, 4to. Comedy. 6. Mother Bombie, 1594, 4to. Comedy. 7. The Woman in the Moon, 1597, 4to. Comedy. 8. The Maid her Metamorphosis, 1600. 9. Love his Metamorphosis, 1601. 4to. Pastoral.
The volume mentioned by Phillips was published by Edward Blount in 1632, containing six of these pieces, to which he has affixed the title of "Sixe Court Comedies."
Notwithstanding the encomia of Mr. Blount, the genius of this "insufferable Elizabethan coxcomb," as he has been not unaptly called, was by no means calculated for dramatic effect. Epigrammatic wit, forced conceits, and pedantic allusion, are such bad substitutes for character and humour, that we cannot wonder if fatigue or insipidity should be the result of their employment. Campaspe has little interest, and no unity in its fable, and though termed a tragi-comedy, is written in prose; Sappho and Phaon has some beautiful passages, but is generally quaint and unnatural; Endimion has scarcely any thing to recommend it, and disgusts by its gross and fulsome flattery of Elizabeth; Galatea displays some luxuriant imagery, and Phillida and Galatea are not bad copies from the Iphis and Ianthe of Ovid; Mydas is partly a political production, and though void of interest, has more simplicity and purity both of thought and diction than is usual with this writer; Mother Bombie is altogether worthless in a dramatic light; The Woman in the Moon is little better; The Maid her Metamorphosis, the greater part of which is in verse, is one of the author's experiments for the refinement of our language,—an attempt which, if any where more peculiarly absurd, must be pronounced to be so on the stage; Love his Metamorphosis, of which the very title-page pronounces its condemnation, being designated as "A Wittie and Courtly Pastoral."[242:A]
Though only two or three of Lilly's earlier dramas fall within the period allotted to this chapter, yet, in order to prevent a tiresome repetition of the subject, we have here enumerated the whole of his comedies; a plan that we shall pursue with regard to the remaining poets of this era.
It may be necessary to remark, that we must not estimate the poetical talents of Lilly from his failure as a dramatist; for in the Lyric department he has shown very superior abilities, whether we consider the freedom and melody of his versification, or the fancy and sentiment which he displays. His plays abound with songs alike admirable for their beauty, sweetness, and polish.[242:B]
Lilly, who had received an excellent classical education, and was a member of both the Universities, died about the year 1600.
15. HUGHES, THOMAS, the author of a singular old play, entitled "The Misfortunes of Arthur (Uther Pendragon's sonne) reduced into tragical notes by Thomas Hughes, one of the Societie of Graye's Inne." 12mo. 1587.
In conformity with some prior examples, this production has an argument, a dumb show, and a chorus to each act; "it is beautifully printed in the black letter," observes the editor of the Biographia Dramatica, "and has many cancels consisting of single words, half lines, and entire speeches; these were reprinted and pasted over the cancelled passages; a practice, I believe, very rarely seen."[243:A] Arthur was performed before the Queen at Greenwich, on the 28th of February, and in the thirtieth year of her reign, and exhibits in its title-page a remarkable proof of the licence which actors at that time took in curtailing or enlarging the composition of the original author, informing us that the play "was set downe as it passed from under his (the poet's) hands, and as it was presented, excepting certain words and lines, where some of the actors either helped their memories by brief omission, or fitted their acting by alteration." The writer appears to have been familiar with the Roman classics, but the rarity of his piece is much greater than its merit.[243:B]
16. KYD, THOMAS, to whom has been ascribed four plays, viz.: Jeronimo; The Spanish Tragedy; Solyman and Perseda, and Cornelia. Of these the first, which appeared on the stage about the year 1588, seems to have been given to Kyd, in consequence of his resuming the name and story in his Spanish tragedy; it is a short piece not divided into acts and scenes, of little value, and was printed in 1605, under the title of "The First Part of Jeronimo. With the Warres of Portugal, and the Life and Death of Don Andrea." 4to.[243:C]
"The Spanish Tragedy, or, Hieronimo is mad again, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio and Belimperia. With the pitifull Death of Hieronimo," is supposed to have been first acted in 1588, or 1589, immediately following up the elder Jeronimo which had been well received.
Though this drama was an incessant object of ridicule to the contemporaries and immediate successors of its author, it nevertheless acquired great popularity, and long maintained possession of the stage. The consequence of this partiality was shown in a perversion of the public taste, for nothing can exceed the bombast and puerilities of this play and of those to which it gave almost instant birth. Kyd, in fact, whilst aspiring to the delineation of the most tremendous incidents, and the most uncontrolled passions, seems totally unconscious of his own imbecillity; and the result, therefore, has usually been, either unqualified horror, unmitigated disgust, or the most ludicrous emotion. There is neither symmetry, consistency, nor humanity, in the characters; they are beings not of this world, and the finest parts of the play, which occur in the fourth act, possess a tone of sorrow altogether wild and preternatural. The catastrophe is absurdly horrible.
Such were the attractions, however, of this sanguinary tragedy, that Ben Jonson, who, according to Decker, originally performed the character of Jeronimo, was employed by Mr. Henslow, in 1602, to give it a fresh claim on curiosity by his additions.[244:A]
"The Tragedie of Solyman and Perseda, wherein is laide open Love's Constancy, Fortune's Inconstancy, and Death's Triumphs," is conjectured by Mr. Hawkins to have been the production of [244:B]Kyd. Like Jeronimo, it is not divided into acts, and was entered on the stationers books in the same year with the Spanish Tragedy, a circumstance which leads us to suppose, that its date of performance was nearly contemporary with that production. Its style and manner, too, are such as assimilate it to the peculiar genius which breathes through the undisputed writings of the tragedian to whom it has been ascribed.
Cornelia, thus named when first published in 4to. 1594, but reprinted in 1595, under the enlarged title of "Pompey the Great his Fair Cornelia's Tragedy, effected by her Father and Husband's Downcast, Death, and Fortune," 4to. This play being merely a translation from the French of Garnier, and consequently an imitation of the ancients through a third or fourth medium, requires little notice. The dialogue is in blank verse, and the choruses in various lyric metres.[245:A]
Kyd died, oppressed by poverty, about the year 1595.
17. MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER, as an author, an object of great admiration and encomium in his own times, and, of all the dramatic poets who preceded Shakspeare, certainly the one who possessed the most genius. He was egregiously misled, however, by bad models, and his want of taste has condemned him, as a writer for the stage, to an obscurity from which he is not likely to emerge.
This "famous gracer of tragedians," as he is termed by Greene, in his Groatsworth of Wit, produced eight plays:—
1. Tamburlaine the Great, or the Scythian Shepherd. Part the First. 4to.
2. Tamburlaine the Great. Part the Second. 4to.
Of this tragedy, in two parts, which was brought on the stage about the year 1588, though not printed until 1590, it is impossible to speak without a mixture of wonder and contempt; for, whilst a few passages indicate talents of no common order, the residue is a tissue of unmingled rant, absurdity, and fustian: yet strange as it may appear, the most extravagant flights of this eccentric composition were the most popular, and numerous allusions to its moon-struck reveries, are to be found in the productions of its times. That it should be an object of ridicule to Shakspeare, and of quotation to Pistol, are alike in character.[245:B]
3. Lust's Dominion, or the Lascivious Queen a Tragedy. 12mo.
This, like the two former plays, is tragedy run mad, and its spirit may be justly described in the words of one of its characters; Eleazor the Moor, who exclaims,—
"—— Tragedy, thou minion of the night, ——————— to thee I'll sing Upon an harp made of dead Spanish bones, The proudest instrument the world affords; "Whilst" thou in crimson jollity shall bathe Thy limbs, as black as mine, in springs of blood Still gushing."
Its horrors, however, for this is the only epithet its incidents can claim, are often clothed in poetical imagery, and even luscious versification; it has also more fine passages to boast of than Tamburlaine, and it has, likewise, more developement of character; but all these are powerless in mitigating the disgust which its fable and conduct inspire.
4. The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England. 4to.
Edward the Second is a proof, that, when Marlowe chose to drop the barbarities of his age, and the bombast of "King Cambyses' Vein," he could exert an influence over the heart which has not often been excelled. There is a truth, simplicity, and moral feeling in this play which irresistibly attracts, and would fain induce us to hope, that its author could not have exhibited the impious and abandoned traits of character which have usually been attributed to him. The death-scene of Edward is a master-piece of pity and terror.
5. "The Massacre of Paris, with the Death of the Duke of Guise. 8vo." A subject congenial with the general cast of Marlowe's gloomy and ferocious style of colouring, nor is it deficient in his wonted accumulation of horrors. It possesses, however, a few good scenes, and may be classed midway between the author's worst and best productions.
6. The Rich Jew of Malta, 4to. The prejudice against the Jews, during the reign of Elizabeth, was excessive; none were suffered to reside in the kingdom, and every art encouraged that could stimulate the hatred of the people against this persecuted race. No engine was better calculated for this purpose than the stage, and no characters were ever more relished, or more malignantly enjoyed, than the Barabas of Marlowe, and the Shylock of Shakspeare. The distance, however, between them, as well with regard to truth of delineation, as to poetical vigour of conception, is infinite; for whilst the Jew of Marlowe can be considered in no other light than as the mere incarnation of a fiend, that of Shakspeare possesses, with all his ferocity and cruelty, such a touch of humanity as classes him distinctly with his species, and renders him, if not a very probable, yet a very possible being.
7. "The Tragical Historie of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus." 4to. This, in point of preternatural wildness, and metaphysical horror, is the chef d'œuvre of Marlowe. It unfolds not only genius of a sublimated and exotic cast, but seems to have been the product of a mind inflamed by unhallowed curiosity, and an eager irreligious desire of invading the secrets of another world, and so far gives credence to the imputations which have stained the memory of its author; for this play breathes not a poetic preternaturalism, if we may use the expression, but looks like the creature of an atmosphere emerging from the gulph of lawless spirits, and vainly employed in pursuing the corruscations which traverse its illimitable gloom.
The catastrophe of this play makes the heart shudder, and the hair involuntarily start erect; and the agonies of Faustus on the fast-approaching expiration of his compact with the Devil, are depicted with a strength truly appalling.
Yet amidst all this diabolism, there occasionally occur passages of great moral sublimity, passages on which Milton seems to have fixed his eye. Thus, the reply of the Demon Mephostophilis to the enquiry of Faustus, concerning the locality of Hell, bears a striking analogy to the descriptions of Satan's internal and ever-present torments at the commencement of the fourth book of Paradise Lost. "Tell me," exclaims the daring necromancer, "where is the place that men call Hell?"
"Mephostophilis. Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place; but _where we are is hell, And where hell is, there we must ever be_, And, to be short, when all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that are not heaven."
8. The Tragedie of Dido, Queene of Carthage.—This drama was written in conjunction with Thomas Nash, and printed in 1594.[248:A]
Marlowe has been lavishly panegyrised by Jonson, Heywood, Drayton, Peele, Meres, Nash, &c.; but by none so emphatically as by Phillips, who, at the very opening of his article on this poet, calls him "a kind of a second Shakspeare." This seems, however, to have been done rather with a reference to the similarities arising from his having, like Shakspeare, been actor, player, and author of a poem on a congenial subject with Venus and Adonis, namely, his Hero and Leander, than from any approximation in the value of their dramatic works.[249:A]
The death of Marlowe, which took place before the year 1593, was violent and premature, the melancholy termination of a life rendered still more melancholy by vice and infidelity.[249:B]
18. LODGE, THOMAS. Two dramatic pieces have issued from the pen of this elegant miscellaneous poet. Of these the first was written in conjunction with Robert Greene, and entitled A Looking-Glass for London and England, a tragi-comedy, acted in 1591[249:C], though not published until 1598. The second is called "The Wounds of Civil War. Lively set forth in the true tragedies of Marius and Scilla," and probably performed in the year following the representation of the former play. It was printed in 1594. These dramas, though not the best of Dr. Lodge's productions, were not unpopular, nor deemed unworthy of his talents; the Looking-Glass appears to have been acted four times at the Rose theatre, in about the space of fifteen months.
19. GREENE, ROBERT. This pleasing, but unfortunate poet, was the author of six plays, independent of that which he wrote as the coadjutor of Lodge. 1. "The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay." 4to. As Greene died in September, 1592, there can be no doubt that all his dramas were written, if not all performed, before Shakspeare's commencement as a writer for the stage; we find, from Henslowe's List, that Frier Bacon was performed at the Rose theatre, in February, 1591, and repeated thrice in the course of the season[250:A]; it was printed in 1594, and being founded on a popular story, had considerable success. 2. "The Historie of Orlando Furioso, one of the twelve Peers of France." This piece was likewise performed at the same theatre, in February, 1591, and also printed in 1594; the fable is taken, with little or no alteration, from the Orlando of Ariosto. 3. "The Scottish Historie of James the Fourth, slaine at Flodden. Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie presented by Oboram King of the Fayeries." Greene, says Oldys, in plotting plays, was his craft's master, and it would be curious and interesting to ascertain how he has conducted a subject which has obtained so much celebrity in our own days, and more especially in what manner he has combined it with the romantic superstition attendant on Oberon and his fairies.[250:B] 4. "The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Arragon." 5. "The History of Jobe." This play, which was never printed, and it is supposed never performed, although it was entered on the Stationers' books, in 1594, was unfortunately, with many others, destroyed by the carelessness of Dr. Warburton's servant. 6. "Fair Emm, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester, with the Love of William the Conqueror," a comedy which has been ascribed to Greene, by Phillips and Winstanley; the former, after enumerating some pieces which upon no good grounds had been attributed to the joint pens of our author and Dr. Lodge, adds, "besides which, he wrote alone the comedies of Friar Bacon and Fair Emme."[251:A] It is the more probable that this drama was the composition of Greene, as it was represented at the same theatre and by the same company which brought forward his avowed productions.
We must, with Ritson, express our regret, that the dramatic works of Greene have not hitherto been collected and published together.[251:B]
20. LEGGE, THOMAS, twice vice-chancellor of Cambridge, and the author of two plays which, though never printed, were acted with great applause, not only in the University which gave them birth, but on the public theatres. The first of these is named The Destruction of Jerusalem, and appears from Henslowe's List to have been performed at the Rose theatre, on the 22d of March, 1591; the second is entitled, The Life of King Richard the Third, a subject which induces us to regret, that it should not have been submitted to the press, especially when the character of Legge for dramatic talent is considered; for Meres informs us in 1598, that "Doctor Leg of Cambridge" was esteemed among the "best for tragedie," adding, that "as M. Anneus Lucanus writ two excellent tragedies, one called Medea, the other de Incendio Troiæ cum Priami calamitate: so Doctor Leg hath penned two famous tragedies, y{e} one of Richard the 3, the other of the destruction of Jerusalem."[251:C] The death of Dr. Legge took place in July, 1607.
To this catalogue of dramatic writers who preceded Shakspeare, it will be necessary to annex the names, at least, of those anonymous plays which, as far as any record of their performance has reached us, were the property of the stage anterior to the year 1594, under the almost certain presumption, that they must have been written before Shakspeare had acquired any celebrity as a theatrical poet.
These, with the exception of the plays ascribed to Shakspeare, a few Interludes and Moralities, the tragi-comedy of Appius and Virginia, printed in 1576, and the tragedy of Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, must, and perhaps without danger of any very important omission, be limited to the following enumeration of dramas performed at the Rose theatre during the years 1591, 1592, and 1593; from which, however, we have withdrawn all those pieces that may be found previously noticed under the names of their respective authors:—
1. Muly Mulocco, or the Battle of Alcazar[252:A], 1591. 2. Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio, —— 3. Sir John Mandeville, —— 4. Henry of Cornwall, —— 5. Chloris and Orgasto[252:B], —— 6. Pope Joan, —— 7. Machiavel, —— 8. Ricardo[252:C], —— 9. Four Plays in One, —— 10. Zenobia, —— 11. Constantine, —— 12. Brandymer, —— 13. Titus Vespasian —— 14. The Tanner of Denmark, 1592. 15. Julian of Brentford, —— 16. The Comedy of Cosmo, —— 17. God Speed the Plough, 1593. 18. Huon of Bourdeaux, —— 19. George a Green[253:A], —— 20. Buckingham, —— 21. Richard the Confessor, —— 22. William the Conqueror, —— 23. Friar Francis, —— 24. The Pinner of Wakefield[253:B], —— 25. Abraham and Lot, —— 26. The Fair Maid of Italy, —— 27. King Lud, —— 28. The Ranger's Comedy[253:C], ——
In order accurately to ascertain how far Shakspeare might be indebted to his predecessors, it would be highly desirable to possess a printed collection of all the dramas which are yet within the reach of the press, from the days of Sackville, to the year 1591. Such a work, so far from diminishing the claim to originality with which this great poet is now invested, would, we are convinced, place it in a still more indisputable point of view; and merely prove, that, without any servility of imitation, or even the smallest dereliction of his native talent and creative genius, he had absorbed within his own refulgent sphere the few feeble lights which, previous to his appearance, had shed a kind of twilight over the dramatic world.
The models, indeed, if such they may be called, which were presented to his view, are, as far as we are acquainted with them, so grossly defective in structure, style, and sentiment, that, if we set aside two or three examples, little or nothing could be learned from them. In the course of near thirty years which elapsed between Sackville and Shakspeare, the best and purest period was perhaps that which immediately succeeded the exhibition of Gorboduc, but which was speedily terminated by the appearance of Preston's Cambyses in or probably rather before the year 1570. From this era we behold a succession of playwrights who, for better than twenty years, deluged the stage as tragic poets with a torrent of bombastic and sanguinary fiction, alike disgraceful to the feelings of humanity and common sense; or as comic writers, overwhelmed us with a mass of quaintness, buffoonery, and affectation. The worthy disciples of the author of Cambyses, Whetstone, Peele, Lilly, Kydd, and Marlowe, seem to have racked their brains to produce what was unnatural and atrocious, and having, like their leader, received a classical education, misemployed it to clothe their conceptions in a scholastic, uniform, and monotonous garb, as far, at least, as a versification modulated with the most undeviating regularity, and destitute of all variety of cadence or of pause could minister to such an effect.
That so dark a picture should occasionally be relieved by gleams of light, which appear the more brilliant from the surrounding contrast, was naturally to be expected; and we have accordingly seen that the very poets who may justly be censured for their general mode of execution, for the wildness and extravagancy of their plots, now and then present us with lines, passages, and even scenes, remarkable for their beauty, strength, or poetical diction; but these, so unconnected are they, and apart from the customary tone and keeping of the pieces in which they are scattered, appear rather as the fortuitous irradiation of a meteor, whose momentary splendour serves but to render the returning gloom more heavy and oppressive, than the effect of that sober, steady, and improving light which might cheer us with the prospect of approaching day.
Of the twenty poets who have just passed in review before us, Marlowe certainly exhibits the greatest portion of genius, though debased with a large admixture of the gross and glaring faults of his contemporaries. Two of his productions may yet be read with interest; his Edward the Second, and his Faustus; though the latter must be allowed to deviate from the true tract of tragedy, in presenting us rather with what is horrible than terrible in its incidents and catastrophe.
We must not be surprised, therefore, that the dramatic fabrics of these rude artists should have met with the warmest admiration, when we recollect, that, in the infancy of an art, novelty is of itself abundantly productive of attraction, and that taste, neither formed by good models, nor rendered fastidious by choice, can have little power to check the march of misguided enthusiasm.
It is necessary, however, to record an event in dramatic history, which, coming into operation just previous to the entrance of our poet into the theatric arena as an author, no doubt contributed powerfully not only to chasten his muse, but, through him, universally the national taste. In 1589 commissioners were appointed by the Queen for the purpose of reviewing and revising the productions of all writers for the stage, with full powers to reject and strike out all which they might deem unmannerly, licentious, and irreverent; a censureship which, it is evident, if properly and temperately executed, could not fail of conferring almost incalculable benefit on a department of literature at that time not much advanced in its career, and but too apt to transgress the limits of a just decorum.
This regulation ushers in, indeed, by many degrees the most important period in the annals of our theatre, when Shakspeare, starting into dramatic life, came boldly forward on the eye, leaving at an immeasurable distance behind him, and in groupes more or less darkly shaded, his immediate predecessors, and his earliest contemporaries in the art.
FOOTNOTES:
[227:A] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 355.
[227:B] Vide Historia Histrionica.
[227:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 6. 11. See, also, Percy and Warton.
[227:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 29; and Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 199.
[228:A] See Ancient British Drama, vol. i. both for this play and Gammer Gurton's Needle, as edited by Walter Scott.
[229:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 404.
[230:A] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 210.
[231:A] Defence of Poesie, pp. 561, 562.—Vide Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, folio, 7th. edit. 1629.
[232:A] Arte of English Poesie, reprint, p. 51.
[232:B] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. Turberville's Poems, p. 620.
[233:A] History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 474.
[234:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 144. note by Farmer.
[234:B] MS. Digb. 133.
[234:C] Hist. of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 376. note.
[235:A] Sign. C 4.
[235:B] Vide Censura Literaria, vol. vii. p. 305. et seq.; and Dodsley's Old Plays, by Reed, vol. ii. p. 154.
[236:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 461. Act iv. sc. 2.
[236:B] Ibid. vol. xi. p. 301.
[237:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xi. p. 302. note.
[237:B] Vide Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. i. p. 323.; and Biographia Dramatica apud Reed, vol. i. p. 362.
[238:A] Among "Six Old Plays, on which Shakspeare founded his Measure for Measure, Comedy of Errors," &c. &c.; reprinted from the original editions, 2 vols. 8vo. 1779.
[238:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 184.
[239:A] Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. p. 351.
[239:B] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 21.
[239:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 90.
[240:A] Vide Reprint, 1809, p. 22.
[240:B] Vide Greene's Groatsworth of Witte bought with a Million of Repentance, reprint.
[240:C] Of the sweetness of versification and luxuriancy of imagery which Peele occasionally exhibits, we shall quote an instance from "The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe. With the Tragedie of Absalon;" a play which Mr. Hawkins has re-printed in his Origin of the Drama, 3 vols.; observing, that the genius of Peele seems to have been kindled by reading the Prophets, and the Song of Solomon:—
"Bethsabe. Come gentle Zephyr trick'd with those perfumes That erst in Eden sweetened Adam's love, And stroke my bosom with thy silken fan: This shade (sun-proof) is yet no proof for thee, Thy body smoother than this waveless spring, And purer than the substance of the same, Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce. Thou and thy sister soft and sacred Air, Goddess of life, and governess of health, Keeps every fountain fresh and arbor sweet: No brazen gate her passage can repulse, Nor bushy thicket bar thy subtle breath. Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes, And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes, To play the wantons with us through the leaves."
[241:A] Theatrum Poetarum, apud Brydges, pp. 199, 200.
[242:A] For these plays, Blount's republication being scarce, the reader may consult Dodsley's Old Plays, 1780; Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama; Ancient British Drama apud Walter Scott; and Old Plays, vols. 1 and 2. 8vo. 1814.
[242:B] Numerous specimens of these Songs, in case the dramas are not at hand, will be found in Ellis's Specimens of the Early English Poets, vol. ii.; and in Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. ii.
[243:A] Biographia Dramatica, vol. ii. p. 237.
[243:B] See a further account of this play, and a specimen of the chorus, in Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 386.
[243:C] Vide Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 459.
[244:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 394.
[244:B] Vol. ii. p. 197.
[245:A] "There is particularly remembered," remarks Phillips, "his tragedy Cornelia." Theatrum Poetarum, apud Brydges, p. 206.
[245:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 92. Henry the Fourth, Part II., act ii. sc. 4.—The passage which Pistol has partially quoted will afford some idea of the wild and turgid extravagances of this poet. Tamburlaine is represented in a chariot drawn by captive monarchs with bits in their mouths; and, holding the reins in his left hand, he is in the act of scourging them with a whip:—
"Tamb. Holla ye pamper'd jades of Asia: What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day, And have so proud a chariot at your heels, And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine? But from Asphaltis, where I conquered you, To Byron here, where thus I honour you? The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven, And blow the morning from their nostrils, Making their fiery gate above the clouds, Are not so honour'd in their governor, As you ye slaves in mighty Tamburlaine. The head strong jades of Thrace Alcides tamed, That King Egeas fed with human flesh, And made so wanton that they knew their strengths, Were not subdued with valour more divine, Than you by this unconquer'd arm of mine. To make you fierce and fit my appetite, You shall be fed with flesh as raw as blood, And drink in pails the strongest muscadell: If you can live with it, then live and draw My chariot swifter than the racking clouds: If not, then die like beasts, and fit for nought But perches for the black and fatal ravens."
[248:A] This rare play was purchased, at the Roxburgh sale, for seventeen guineas!
[249:A] Theatrum Poetarum, apud Brydges, p. 113.
[249:B] Two accounts, varying materially, have been given by Wood and Vaughan, of this poet's untimely fate. That by Vaughan as being little known, and apparently founded on the writer's own knowledge of the fact, I shall venture to transcribe. The Golden Grove, from which it is extracted, was first published in 1600. Relating God's judgments on Atheists, he adds:—
"Not inferiour to these was one Christopher Marlow, by profession a play-maker, who, as it is reported, about fourteen yeres a-goe, wrote a booke against the Trinitie: but see the effects of God's justice; it so hapned, that at Detford, a litle village, about three miles distant from London, as he meant to stab with his poynard one named Ingram, that had invited him thither to a feaste, and was then playing at tables; hee perceyuing it, so avoyded the thrust, that withall drawing out his dagger for his defence, he stab'd this Marlow into the eye, in such sort, that his braynes comming out at the dagger's point, hee shortly after dyed."
[249:C] Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 355.
[250:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 354.
[250:B] Berkenhout's Biographia Literaria, p. 319. note.—The only account which I have seen of this play, printed in 1598, is in a note by Mr. Malone, who tells us that Shakspeare does not appear to have been indebted to this piece. "The plan of it," he adds, "is shortly this: Bohan, a Scot, in consequence of being disgusted with the world, having retired to a tomb where he has fixed his dwelling, is met by Aster Oberon, king of the fairies, who entertains him with an antick or dance by his subjects. These two personages, after some conversation, determine to listen to a tragedy, which is acted before them, and to which they make a kind of chorus, by moralizing at the end of each act." Vol. ii. p. 250.
[251:A] Theatrum Poetarum apud Brydges, p. 193.
[251:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xxi. p. 37.
[251:C] Vide Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 98.
[252:A] This play was printed in 1594, and has fallen under the ridicule of Shakspeare, in a parody on the words, Feed and be fat, &c.
[252:B] The miserable orthography of this catalogue has frequently disguised the real titles so much as to render them almost unintelligible, and I suspect Orgasto in this place to be very remote from the genuine word.
[252:C] Called in one part of the list, "bendo and Ricardo," and in another, "Byndo and Ricardo."
[253:A] This, being the prior part of the title of the Pinner of Wakefield, mentioned below, is probably one and the same with that production.
[253:B] The Pinner of Wakefield, which is in Dodsley's Collection, and in Scott's Ancient British Drama, was printed in 1599.
[253:C] Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. pp. 354-358.—Mr. Malone observes of the play in this catalogue, called "Richard the Confessor," that it "should seem to have been written by the Tinker, in Taming of the Shrew, who talks of Richard Conqueror."