Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3)

Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3)
John Doran

John Doran

«Their Majesties' Servants.» Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3)

PREFACE

It is unnecessary to apologise for a new edition of Dr. Doran's Annals of the Stage. The two editions already published have been for many years out of print, and the first is so rare that copies of it bring a high price whenever they occur for sale. And this demand is not a mere bibliographical accident, for the book has held for many years a recognised position as the standard popular history of the English stage. The admirable work of Genest, indispensable as it is to every writer on theatrical history, and to every serious student of the stage, is in no sense a popular work, and is, indeed, rather a collection of facts towards a history than a history itself.

In preparing this new edition every effort has been made to add to its interest by the introduction of portraits and other illustrations, and to its authority as a book of reference, by correcting those errors which are scarcely to be avoided by a writer working among the confused, inaccurate, and contradictory documents of theatrical history. No one who has not ventured into this maze can conceive the difficulty of keeping the true path, and I can imagine nothing better calculated to sap one's self-confidence than the task of noting the false turnings made by such a writer as Dr. Doran. I can hardly hope that my own work, light as it is in comparison with his, will be found free from sins of omission, and even of commission.

My principle has been to pass no error, however trifling; but, at the same time, I have not thought myself entitled to discuss matters of opinion, or to criticise, either directly or indirectly, Dr. Doran's treatment of his subject. Thus it would be easy to supplement the information regarding the ancient theatres and the theatre of Shakspeare's time contained in the first and second chapters; but, as Dr. Doran obviously intended that his real work should begin with the Restoration Theatres, I have not interfered with his scheme. I trust that, in this, as in other respects, my work has been done in a spirit free from captiousness.

The illustrations to this edition have been chosen, not from the book "illustrator's" point of view, but with a serious desire to increase its value as a history. In the case of the portraits, those which Dr. Doran specially mentions, have, wherever it was possible, been selected, and in every instance I believe the portrait given is an accurate and trustworthy likeness. The headpieces, intended to form a supplement to the full-page illustrations, include portraits of persons whose importance scarcely justified their place among the larger pictures, drawings of theatres, and of actors in character. The tailpieces are reproductions of Sayer's beautiful little drawings of Garrick and his contemporaries in their best characters; and in their case no chronological arrangement is possible.

For many valuable notes I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Alban Doran, who intrusted to me his father's annotated copy of this work. These notes have in every case been acknowledged and marked "Doran MS."

    ROBERT W. LOWE.

London, September 1887.

CHAPTER I

PROLOGUE

The period of the origin of the drama is an unsettled question, but it has been fixed at an early date, if we may accept the theory of a recent writer, who suggests that Moses described the Creation from a visionary pictorial representation, which occupied seven days from the commencement to the close of the spectacle!

Among the most remote of the Chinese traditions, the theatre holds a conspicuous place. In Cochin-China there is at this day a most primitive character about actors, authors, and audience. The governor of the district enjoys the least rude seat in the sylvan theatre; he directs the applause by tapping with his fingers on a little drum, and as at this signal his secretaries fling strings full of cash on to the stage, the performance suffers from continual interruption. For the largesse distributed by the patron of the drama, and such of the spectators as choose to follow his example, the actors and actresses furiously scramble, while the poor poet stands by, sees his best situations sacrificed, and is none the richer – by way of compensation.

In Greece the profession of actor was accounted honourable. In Rome it was sometimes a well-requited, but also a despised vocation. During the decade of years when that aristocratic democrat Pisistratus held power, the drama first appeared (it is said) at Athens. It formed a portion of the religion of the State. The theatre was a temple in which, rudely enough at first, the audience were taught how the will, not only of men but of gods, must necessarily submit to the irresistible force of Destiny. This last power, represented by a combination of the lyric and epic elements, formed the drama which had its origin in Greece alone. In such a sense the Semitic races had no drama at all, while in Greece it was almost exclusively of Attic growth, its religious character being especially supported on behalf of the audience by the ever-sagacious, morally, and fervently-pious chorus. Lyric tragedy existed before the age of Thespis and Pisistratus; but a spoken tragedy dates from that period alone, above five centuries earlier than the Christian era; and the new theatre found at once its Prynne and its Collier in that hearty hater of actors and acting, the legislative Solon.

At the great festivals, when the theatres were opened, the expenses of the representations were borne partly by the State and partly by certain wealthy officials. The admission was free, until over-crowding produced fatal accidents. To diminish the latter an entrance-fee of two oboli, 3¼d., was established, but the receipts were made over to the poor.[1 - Professor Ward says: "The entrance-money was from the time of Pericles provided out of the public treasury."] From morning till dewy eve these roofless buildings, capable of containing on an average twenty thousand persons, were filled from the ground to the topmost seat, in the sweet spring-tide, sole theatrical season of the Greeks.

Disgrace and disfranchisement were the penalties laid upon the professional Roman actor. He was accounted infamous, and was excluded from the tribes. Nevertheless, the calling in Italy had something of a religious quality. Livy tells us of a company of Etruscan actors, ballet-pantomimists, however, rather than comedians, who were employed to avert the anger of the gods, which was manifested by a raging pestilence. These Etruscans were in their way the originators of the drama in Italy. That drama was at first a dance, then a dance and song; with them was subsequently interwoven a story. From the period of Livius Andronicus (b. c. 240) is dated the origin of an actual Latin theatre, a theatre the glory of which was at its highest in the days of Attius and Terence, but for which a dramatic literature became extinct when the mimes took the place of the old comedy and tragedy.

Even in Rome the skill of the artist sometimes freed him from the degradation attached to the exercise of his art. Roscius, the popular comedian, contemporary with Cicero, was elevated by Sulla to the equestrian dignity, and with Æsopus, the great tragedian, enjoyed the friendship of Tully and of Tully's friends, the wisest and the noblest in Rome. Roscius and Æsopus were what would now be called scholars and gentlemen, as well as unequalled artists, whom no amount of application could appal when they had to achieve a triumph in their art. An Austrian emperor once "encored" an entire opera (the Matrimonio Segreto); but, according to Cicero, his friend Æsopus so delighted his enthusiastic audience, that in one piece they encored him "millies," a thousand, or perhaps an indefinite number of times. The Roman tragedian lived well, and bequeathed a vast fortune to his son. Roscius earned £32 daily, and he too amassed great wealth.

The mimes were satirical burlesques, parts of which were often improvised, and had some affinity to the pasquinades and harlequinades of modern Italy. The writers were the intimate friends of emperors; the actors were infamous. Cæsar induced Decius Laberius, an author of knightly rank, to appear on the stage in one of these pieces; and Laberius obeyed, not for the sake of the honorarium, £4000, but from dread of disobeying an order from so powerful a master. The unwilling actor profited by his degradation to satirise the policy of Cæsar, who did not resent the liberty, but restored Laberius to the rank and equestrian privileges which he had forfeited by appearing on the stage. Laberius, however, never recovered the respect of his countrymen, not even of those who had applauded him the most loudly.

The licentious pantomimists were so gross in their performances that they even disgusted Tiberius, who forbade them from holding any intercourse, as the professional histriones or actors of the drama had done, with Romans of equestrian or senatorial dignity. It was against the stage, exclusively given up to their scandalous exhibitions, that the Christian fathers levelled their denunciations. They would have approved a "well-trod stage," as Milton did, and the object attributed to it by Aristotle, – but they had only anathemas for that horrible theatre where danced and postured Bathyllus and Hylas, and Pylades, Latinus and Nero, and even that graceful Paris, whom Domitian slew in his jealousy, and of whom Martial wrote that he was the great glory and grief of the Roman theatre, and that all Venuses and Cupids were buried for ever in the sepulchre of Paris, the darling of old Rome.

In this our England, minds and hearts had ever been open to dramatic impressions. The Druidical rites contained the elements of dramatic spectacle. The Pagan Saxon era had its dialogue-actors, or buffoons; and when the period of Christianity succeeded, its professors and teachers took of the evil epoch what best suited their purposes. In narrative dialogue, or song, they dramatised the incidents of the lives of the saints, and of One greater than saints; and they thus rendered intelligible to listeners what would have been incomprehensible if it had been presented to them as readers.

In Castle-Hall, before farm-house fires, on the bridges, and in the market-places, the men who best performed the united offices of missionary and actor, were, at once, the most popular preachers and players of the day. The greatest of them all, St. Adhelm, when he found his audience growing weary of too much serious exposition, would take his small harp from under his robes, and would strike up a narrative song, that would render his hearers hilarious.

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

It is a singular fact, that one of our earliest theatres had Geoffrey, a monk, for its manager, and Dunstable – immortalised by Silvester Daggerwood – for a locality. This early manager, who flourished about 1119,[2 - Geoffrey was made Abbot of St. Albans in 1119. The play, of course, was many years earlier.] rented a house in the town just named, when a drama was represented, which had St. Katherine for a heroine, and her whole life for a subject. This proto-theatre was, of course, burnt down; and the managing monk withdrew from the profession, more happy than most ruined managers, in this, that he had his cell at St. Albans, to which he could retire, and therein find a home for the remainder of his days.

Through a course of Mysteries, Miracle-plays – illustrating Scripture, history, legend, and the sufferings of the martyrs, – Moralities, in which the vices were in antagonism against the virtues, and Chronicle-plays, which were history in dialogue, we finally arrive at legitimate Tragedy and Comedy. Till this last and welcome consummation, the Church as regularly employed the stage for religious ends, as the old heathen magistrates did when they made village festivals the means of maintaining a religious feeling among the villagers. Professor Browne, in his History of Greek Classical Literature, remarks: – "The believers in a pure faith can scarcely understand a religious element in dramatic exhibitions. They who knew that God is a spirit, and that they who worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth, feel that His attributes are too awful to permit any ideas connected with Deity to be brought into contact with the exhibition of human passions. Religious poetry of any kind, except that which has been inspired, has seldom been the work of minds sufficiently heavenly and spiritual, to be perfectly successful in attaining the end of poetry, namely the elevation of the thoughts to a level with the subject. It brings God down to man, instead of raising man to Him. It causes that which is most offensive to religious feeling, and even good taste, irreverent familiarity with subjects which cannot be contemplated without awe. But a religious drama would be, to those who realise to their own minds the spirituality of God, nothing less than anthropomorphism and idolatry. Christians of a less advanced age, and believers in a more sensuous creed, were able to view with pleasure the mystery-plays in which the gravest truths of the Gospel were dramatically represented; nay, more, just as the ancient Athenians could look even upon their gross and licentious comedy as forming part of a religious ceremony, so could Christians imagine a religious element in profane dramas which represented in a ludicrous light subjects of the most holy character."

Mysteries kept the stage from the Norman to the Tudor era. The Moralities began to displace them during the reign of Henry VI., who was a less beneficial patron of the stage than that Richard III. who has himself retained a so unpleasant possession of the scene. Actors and dramatists have been ungrateful to this individual, who was their first practically useful patron. Never, previous to Richard's time, had an English prince been known to have a company of players of his own. When Duke of Gloucester, a troop of such servants was attached to his household. Richard was unselfish towards these new retainers; whenever he was too "busy," or "not i' the vein" to receive instruction or amusement at their hands, he gave them licence to travel abroad, and forth went the mirthful company, from county to county, mansion to mansion, from one corporation-hall and from one inn-yard to another, playing securely under the sanction of his name, winning favour for themselves, and a great measure of public regard, probably, for their then generous and princely master.

The fashion thus set by a prince was followed by the nobility, and it led to a legal recognition of the actor and his craft, in the royal licence of 1572, whereby the players connected with noble houses were empowered to play wherever it seemed good to them, if their master sanctioned their absence, without any let or hindrance from the law.

The patronage of actors by the Duke of Gloucester led to a love of acting by gentlemen amateurs. Richard had ennobled the profession, the gentlemen of the Inns of Court took it up, and they soon had kings and queens leading the applause of approving audiences. To the same example may be traced the custom of having dramatic performances in public schools, the pupils being the performers. These boys, or, in their place, the children of the Chapel Royal, were frequently summoned to play in presence of the King and Court. Boatsful of them went down the river to Greenwich, or up to Hampton Court, to enliven the dulness or stimulate the religious enthusiasm of their royal auditors there. At the former place, and when there was not yet any suspicion of the orthodoxy of Henry VIII., the boys of St. Paul's acted a Latin play before the sovereign and the representatives of other sovereigns. The object of the play was to exalt the Pope, and consequently Luther and his wife were the foolish villains of the piece, exposed to the contempt and derision of the delighted and right-thinking hearers.

In most cases the playwrights, even when members of the clergy, were actors as well as authors. This is the more singular, as the players were generally of a roystering character, and were but ill-regarded by the Church. Nevertheless, by their united efforts, though they were not always colleagues, they helped the rude production of the first regularly constructed English comedy, "Ralph Roister Doister," about 1540. The author was a "clerk," named Nicholas Udall, whom Eton boys, whose master he was, hated because of his harshness. The rough and reverend gentleman brought forth the above piece, just one year previous to his losing the mastership, on suspicion of being concerned in a robbery of the college plate.

Subsequently to this, the Cambridge youths had the courage to play a tragedy called "Pammachus," which must have been offensive to the government of Henry VIII. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor of the University, immediately wrote a characteristic letter to the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Matthew Parker. It is dated 27th March 1545. "I have been informed," he says, "that the youth in Christ's College, contrary to the mind of the Master and President, hath of late played a tragedy called 'Pammachus,' a part of which tragedy is so pestiferous as were intolerable. If it be so, I intend to travail, as my duty is, for the reformation of it. I know mine office there, and mind to do in it as much as I may." Parker answers on the 3d of April, that the play had been performed with the concurrence of the College authorities, after means had been taken to strike out "slanderous cavillations and suspicious sentences," and "all such matter whereby offence might greatly have risen. Hitherto," adds Parker, "have I not seen any man that was present at it to show himself grieved; albeit it was thought their time and labour might be spent in a better-handled matter." Gardiner is not satisfied with this, and he will have the subject investigated. Accordingly, some of the audience are ordered to be examined to discover if what they applauded was what the King's government had reproved. "I have heard specialities," he writes, "that they" (the actors) "reproved Lent fastings, all ceremonies, and albeit the words of sacrament and mass were not named, yet the rest of the matter written in that tragedy, in the reproof of them was expressed." Gardiner intimates that if the authorities concurred, after exercising a certain censorship, in licensing the representation, they were responsible for all that was uttered, as it must have had the approval of their judgments.

A strict examination followed. Nearly the entire audience passed under it, but not a man could or would remember that he had heard anything to which he could make objection. Therewith Parker transmitted to Gardiner the stage-copy of the tragedy, which the irate prelate thus reviews: – "Perusing the book of the tragedy which ye sent me, I find much matter not stricken out, all which, by the parties' own confession, was uttered very naught, and on the other part something not well omitted." Flagrant lies are said to be mixed up with incontrovertible truths; and it is suggested, that if any of the audience had declared that they had heard nothing at which they could take offence, it must have been because they had forgotten much of what they had heard. Ultimately, Parker was left to deal with the parties as he thought best; and he wisely seems to have thought it best to do nothing. Plays were the favourite recreation of the university men; albeit, as Parker writes, "Two or three in Trinity College think it very unseeming that Christians should play or be present at any profane comedies or tragedies."

Actors and clergy came into direct collision, when, at the accession of Edward VI. (1547), the Bishop of Winchester announced "a solemn dirge and mass," in honour of the lately deceased king, Henry VIII. The indiscreet Southwark actors thereupon gave notice that at the time announced for the religious service they would act a "solempne play" to try, as the bishop remarks in a letter to Paget, "who shall have most resort, they in game or I in earnest." The prelate urgently requests the interference of the Lord Protector, but with what effect, the records in the State Paper Office afford no information.

Some of these Southwark actors were the "servants" of Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, whose mansion was on the opposite side of the river. In 1551 he was promoted to the dukedom of Suffolk, but his poor players were then prohibited from playing anywhere, save in their master's presence.[3 - It would appear that noblemen's players were prohibited from acting, even before their masters, without leave from the Privy Council.]

Severity led to fraud. In the autumn of the following year Richard Ogle forwarded to the Council a forged licence, taken from the players – a matter which was pronounced to be "worthy of correction." The young king's patronage of his own "servants" was not marked by a princely liberality; the salary of one of his players of interludes, John Brown, was five marks yearly as wages, and one pound three shillings and fourpence for his livery.

Of the party dramatists of this reign, that reverend prelate, "Bilious Bale," was the most active and the least pleasant-tempered. Bale had been a Romanist priest, he was now a Protestant bishop (of Ossory), with a wife to control the episcopal hospitality. Bale had "seen the world." He had gone through marvellous adventures, of which his adversaries did not believe a word; and he had converted the most abstruse doctrinal subjects into edifying semi-lively comedies. The bishop did not value his enemies at the worth of a rush in an old king's chamber. He was altogether a Boanerges; and when his "John, King of England," was produced, the audience, comprising two factions in the Church and State, found the policy of Rome towards this country illustrated with such effect, that while one party hotly denounced, the other applauded the coarse and vigorous audacity of the author.

So powerful were the influences of the stage, when thus applied, that the government of Queen Mary made similar application of them in support of their own views. A play, styled "Respublica," exhibited to the people the alleged iniquity of the Reformation, pointed out the dread excellence of the sovereign herself (personified as Queen Nemesis), and exemplified her inestimable qualities, by making all the Virtues follow in her train as Maids of honour.

Such, now, were the orthodox actors; but the heretical players were to be provided against by stringent measures. A decree of the sovereign and council, in 1556, prohibited all players and pipers from strolling through the kingdom; such strollers – the pipers singularly included – being, as it was said, disseminators of seditions and heresies.

The eye of the observant government also watched the resident actors in town. King Edward had ordered the removal of the king's revels and masques from Warwick Inn, Holborn, "to the late dissolved house of Blackfriars, London," where considerable outlay was made for scenery and machinery – adjuncts to stage effect – which are erroneously supposed to have been first introduced a century later by Davenant. There still remained acting a company at the Boar's Head, without Aldgate, on whom the police of Mary were ordered to make levy. The actors had been playing in that inn-yard a comedy, entitled a "Sack full of News." The order of the privy council to the mayor informs his worship, that it is "a lewd play;" bids him send his officers to the theatre without delay, and not only to apprehend the comedians, but to "take their play-book from them and send it before the privy council."

The actors were under arrest for four-and-twenty hours, and were then set free, but under certain stipulations to be observed by them "and all other players throughout the city," – namely: they were to exercise their vocation of acting "between All Saints and Shrovetide" only; and they were bound to act no other plays but such as were approved of by the Ordinary. This was the most stringent censorship to which the stage has ever been subjected.

Although Edward had commanded the transfer of the company of actors from Warwick Inn to Blackfriars, that dissolved monastery was not legally converted into a theatre till the year 1576, when Elizabeth was on the throne. In that year[4 - The patent was dated 1574, and does not specify any particular building or locality.] the Earl of Leicester's servants were licensed to open their series of seasons in a house, the site of which is occupied by Apothecaries' Hall and some adjacent buildings. At the head of the company was James, father of Richard Burbage, the original representative of Richard III. and of Hamlet, the author of which tragedies, so named, was, at the time of the opening of the Blackfriars' theatre, a lad of twelve years of age, surmounting the elementary difficulties of Latin and Greek in the Free School of Stratford-on-Avon.

In Elizabeth the drama possessed a generous patroness and a vindictive censor. Her afternoons at Windsor Castle and Richmond were made pleasant to her by the exertions of her players. The cost to her of occasional performances at the above residences during two years amounted to a fraction over £444. There were incidental expenses also, proving that the actors were well cared for. In the year 1575, among the estimates for plays at Hampton Court, the liberal sum of £8, 14s. is set down "for the boyling of the brawns against Xtmas."

As at Court, so also did the drama flourish at the Universities, especially at Cambridge. There, in 1566, the coarse dialect comedy, "Gammer Gurton's Needle" – a marvellous production, when considered as the work of a bishop, Still, of Bath and Wells – was represented amid a world of laughter.

There, too, was exercised a sharp censorship over both actors and audience. In a letter from Vice-Chancellor Hatcher to Burleigh, the conduct of Punter, a student of St. John's, at stage-plays at Caius and Trinity, is complained of as unsteady. In 1581 the heads of houses again make application to Burleigh, objecting to the players of the Great Chamberlain, the Earl of Oxford, poet and courtier, exhibiting certain plays already "practised" by them before the King. The authorities, when scholastic audiences were noisy, or when players brought no novelty with them to Cambridge, applied to the great statesman in town, and vexed him with dramatic troubles, as if he had been general stage-manager of all the companies strolling over the kingdom.

On one occasion the stage was employed as a vantage ground whereon to raise a battery against the power of the stage's great patroness, the Queen. In 1599, the indiscreet followers of Essex "filled the pit of the theatre, where Rutland and Southampton are daily seen, and where Shakspeare's company, in the great play of 'Richard II.,' have, for more than a year, been feeding the public eye with pictures of the deposition of kings." In June of the following year, "those scenes of Shakspeare's play disturb Elizabeth's dreams. The play had had a long and splendid run, not less from its glorious agony of dramatic passion than from the open countenance lent to it by the Earl, who, before his voyage, was a constant auditor at the Globe, and by his constant companions, Rutland and Southampton. The great parliamentary scene, the deposition of Richard, not in the printed book, was possibly not in the early play; yet the representation of a royal murder and a successful usurpation on the public stage is an event to be applied by the groundlings, in a pernicious and disloyal sense. Tongues whisper to the Queen that this play is part of a great plot to teach her subjects how to murder kings. They tell her she is Richard; Essex, Bolingbroke. These warnings sink into her mind. When Lambard, Keeper of the Records, waits upon her at the palace, she exclaims to him, 'I am Richard! Know you not that?'"

The performance of this play was, nevertheless, not prohibited. When the final attempt of Essex was about to be made, in February 1601 – "To fan the courage of their crew," says Mr. Hepworth Dixon, from whose Personal History of Lord Bacon I borrow these details, "and prepare the citizens for news of a royal deposition, the chiefs of the insurrection think good to revive, for a night, their favourite play. They send for Augustine Phillips, manager of the Blackfriars Theatre, to Essex House; Monteagle, Percy, and two or three more – among them Cuffe and Meyrick – gentlemen whose names and faces he does not recognise, receive him; and Lord Monteagle, speaking for the rest, tells him that they want to have played the next day Shakspeare's deposition of Richard II. Phillips objects that the play is stale, that a new one is running, and that the company will lose money by a change. Monteagle meets his objections. The theatre shall not lose; a host of gentlemen from Essex House will fill the galleries; if there is fear of loss, here are 40s. to make it up. Phillips takes the money, and King Richard is duly deposed for them, and put to death."

Meanwhile, the profession of player had been assailed by fierce opponents. In 1587,[5 - 1579 (2d edition).] when twenty-three summers lightly sat on Shakspeare's brow, Gosson, the "parson" of St. Botolph's, discharged the first shot against stage plays which had yet been fired by any one not in absolute authority. Gosson's book was entitled, A School of Abuse, and it professed to contain "a pleasant invective against poets, players, jesters, and such like caterpillars of a Commonwealth." Gosson's pleasantry consists in his illogical employment of invective. Domitian favoured plays, argal, Domitian's domestic felicity was troubled by a player – Paris. Of Caligula, Gosson remarks, that he made so much of players and dancers, that "he suffered them openly to kiss his lips, when the senators might scarcely have a lick at his feet;" and the good man of St. Botolph's adds, that the murder of Domitian, by Charea, was "a fit catastrophe," for it was done as the Emperor was returning from a play!

As a painter of manners, Gosson thus gaily limns the audiences of his time. "In our Assemblies at plays in London, you shall see such heaving and shouting, such pitching and shouldering to sit by women, such care for their garments that they be not trodden on, such eyes to their laps that no chips light on them, such pillows to their backs that they take no hurt, such masking in their ears, I know not what; such giving them pippins to pass the time; such playing at foot-saunt without cards; such ticking, such toying, such smiling, such winking, and such manning them home when the sports are ended, that it is a right comedy to mark their behaviour." In this picture Gosson paints a good-humoured and a gallant people. When he turns from failings to vices, the old rector of St. Botolph's dwells upon them as Tartuffe does upon the undraped shoulders of Dorinne. He likes the subject, and makes attractive what he denounces as pernicious. The playwrights he assails with the virulence of an author, who, having been unsuccessful himself, has no gladness in the success, nor any generosity for the shortcomings of others. Yet he cannot deny that some plays are moral, such as "Cataline's Conspiracy," – "because," as he elegantly observes, "it is said to be a pig of mine own sow." This, and one or two other plays written by him, he complaisantly designates as "good plays, and sweet plays, and of all plays the best plays, and most to be liked."

Let us now return to the year of Shakspeare's birth. The great poet came into the world when the English portion of it was deafened with the thunder of Archbishop Grindal, who flung his bolts against the profession which the child in his cradle at Stratford was about to ennoble for ever. England had been devastated by the plague of 1563. Grindal illogically traced the rise of the pestilence to the theatres; and to check the evil he counselled Cecil to suppress the vocation of the idle, infamous, youth-infecting players, as the prelate called them, for one whole year, and – "if it were for ever," adds the primate, "it were not amiss."

Elizabeth's face shone upon the actors, and rehearsals went actively on before the Master of the Revels. The numbers of the players, however, so increased and spread over the kingdom, that the government, when Shakspeare was eight years of age, enacted that startling statute which is supposed to have branded dramatic art and artists with infamy. But the celebrated statute of 1572 does not declare players to be "rogues and vagabonds." It simply threatens to treat as such all acting companies who presume to set up their stage without the license of "two justices of the peace at least." This was rather to protect the art than to insult the artist; and a few years subsequent to the publication of this statute, Elizabeth granted the first royal patent conceded in England to actors – that of 1576.[6 - Should be 1574. It is dated 7th May 1574.] By this authority Lord Leicester's servants were empowered to produce such plays as seemed good to them, "as well," says the Queen, "for the recreation of our loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall think good to see them." Sovereign could scarcely pay a more graceful compliment to poet or to actor.