built in the following year, and decorated with more ornament than had been originally bestowed upon it.2 The exhibitions at the Globe seem to have been calculated chiefly for the lower class of people;3 the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King Henry making a Masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff, wherwith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrick, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks." From a letter of Mr. John Chamberlaine's to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated July 8, 1613, in which this accident is likewise mentioned, we learn that this theatre had only two doors. "The burning of the Globe or playhouse on the Bankside on St. Peter's day cannot escape you; which fell out by a peal of chambers, (that I know not upon what occasion were to be used in the play,) the tampin or stopple of one of them lighting in the thatch that covered the house, burn'd it down to the ground in less than two hours, with a dwelling-house adjoyning; and 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." Winwood's Memorials, Vol. III. p. 469. Not a single life was lost. In 1613 was entered on the Stationers' books A doleful Ballad of the general Conflagration of the famous Theatre on the Bankside, called the Globe. I have never met with it. 3 See Taylor's Skuller, p. 31, Ep. xxii: "As gold is better that's in fier try'd, "So is the Bank-side Globe, that late was burn'd; See also Stowe's Chronicle, p. 1003. The Globe theatre being contiguous to the Bear Garden, when the sports of the latter were over, the same spectators probably resorted to the former. The audiences at the Bull and the Fortune were, it may be presumed, of a class still inferior to those at Blackfriars, for a more select and judicious audience. This appears from the following pro that of the Globe. The latter, being the theatre of his majesty's servants, must necessarily have had a superior degree of reputation. At all of them, however, it appears, that noise and shew were what chiefly attracted an audience. Our author speaks in Hamlet of berattling the common [i. e. the publick] theatres." See also A Prologue spoken by a company of players who had seceded from the Fortune, p. 81, n. 6; from which we learn that the performers at that theatre, "to split the ears of groundlings," used" to tear a passion to tatters." This circumstance is farther confirmed by a passage in Gayton's Notes on Don Quixote, 1654, p. 24: “I have heard, that the poets of the Fortune and Red Bull had alwayes a mouthmeasure for their actors (who were terrible teare-throats), and made their lines proportionable to their compasse, which were sesquipedales, a foot and a halfe." TODD.] In some verses addressed by Thomas Carew to Mr. [afterwards Sir William] D'Avenant, "Upon his excellent Play, The Just Italian," 1030, I find a similar character of the Bull theatre: 66 "Now noise prevails; and he is tax'd for drowth "Of serious sense; but like lips meet like meat: 66 Keep natural unstrain'd action in her throne, "Behold their benches bare, though they rehearse "The terser Beaumont's or great Jonson's verse." The true brood of actors were the performers at Blackfriars, where The Just Italian was acted. See also The Careless Shepherdess, represented at Salisbury Court; 4to. 1656: "And I will hasten to the money-box, "And take my shilling out again;— "I'll go to THE BULL, or FORTUNE, and there see "A play for two-pence, and a jig to boot." logue to Shirley's Doubtful Heir, which is inserted among his poems, printed in 1646, with this title: "Prologue at the GLOBE, to his Comedy called The Doubtful Heir, which should have been sented at the Blackfriars.* « Gentlemen, I am only sent to say, pre "No shews,--no dance,-and what you most delight in, "No clown, no squibs, no devil in't.-Oh now, "And will not deaf us with lewd noise and tongues, "Will pardon our vast stage, and not disgrace The superior discernment of the Blackfriars audience may be likewise collected from a passage in In the printed play these words are omitted; the want of which renders the prologue perfectly unintelligible. The comedy was performed for the first time at the Globe, June 1, 1640. The common people stood in the Globe theatre, in that part of the house which we now call the pit; which being lower than the stage, Shirley calls them understanders. In the private playhouses, it appears from the subsequent lines, there were seats in the pit. Ben Jonson has the same quibble: "the understanding gentlemen of the ground here." the preface prefixed by Hemings and Condell to the first folio edition of our author's works: "And though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriers, or the Cockpit, to arraigne plays dailie, know these plays have had their trial. already, and stood out all appeales." A writer already quoted informs us that one of these theatres was a winter, and the other a summer, house. As the Globe was partly exposed to the weather, and they acted there usually by day-light, it appeared to me probable (when this Essay was originally published) that this was the summer theatre; and I have lately found my conjecture confirmed by Sir Henry Herbert's Manuscript. The king's company usually began to play at the Globe in the month of May. The exhibitions here seem to have been more frequent than at Blackfriars, 6 Wright. 8 7 His account is confirmed by a passage in an old pamphlet, entitled Holland's Leaguer, 4to. 1032: "She was most taken with the report of three famous amphytheators, which stood so neere situated, that her eye might take view of them from her lowest turret. One was the Continent of the World, because halfe the yeere a world of beauties and brave spirits resorted unto it. The other was a building of excellent Hope; and though wild beasts and gladiators did most possesse it," &c. King Lear, in the title-page of the original edition, printed in 1668, is said to have been performed by his majesties servants, playing usually at the Globe on the Bankside.-See also the licence granted by King James in 1603: "-and the said comedies, tragedies, &c.-to shew-as well within their now usual house called the Globe,-." No mention is made of their theatre in Blackfriars; from which circumstance I suspect that antecedent to that time our poet's company played only at the Globe, and purchased the Blackfriars theatre afterwards. In the licence granted by King Charles the First to John Heminge and his associates in the year 1625, they are authorized to exhibit plays, &c. "as well within these two their most usual houses called the Globe in the county of Surrey, and their private houses situate within till the year 1604 or 1605, when the Bankside appears to have become less fashionable, and less frequented than it formerly had been." Many of our ancient dramatick pieces (as has been already observed) were performed in the yards of carriers' inns, in which, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the comedians, who then first united themselves in companies, erected an occasional stage.' The form of these temporary playhouses seems to be preserved in our modern theatre. The galleries, in both, are ranged over each other on three sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest of these galleries answer to our present boxes; and it is observable that these, even in theatres which were built in a sub. sequent period expressly for dramatick exhibitions, still retained their old name, and are frequently called rooms, by our ancient writers. 3 The yard the precinct of the Blackfryers,-as also," &c. Had they possessed the Blackfriars theatre in 1603, it would probably have been mentioned in the former licence. In the following year they certainly had possession of it, for Marston's Malcontent was acted there in 1604. ? See The Works of Taylor the Water Poet, p. 171, edit. 1630. Fleckno, in his Short Discourse of the English Stage, published in 1664, says, some remains of these ancient theatres were at that day to be seen in the inn-yards of the Cross-keys in Gracechurch Street, and the Bull in Bishopsgate Street. In the seventeen playhouses erected between the years 1570 and 1630, the continuator of Stowe's Chronicle reckons "five innes or common osteries turned into play-houses." See a prologue to If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, quoted in p. 76, n. 9. These rooms appear to have been sometimes employed, in the infancy of the stage, for the purpose of gallantry." These plays, (says Strype in his additions to Stowe's Survey,) being commonly acted on sundays and festivals, the churches were forsaken, and the play-houses thronged. Great inns were used for this purpose, which had secret cham |