CHAPTER XXVI. Playhouse Notices, chiefly allusive to the Elizabethan Era.* "Support the stage, Which so declines that shortly we may see, Dryden. In the time of Shakspeare, who commenced as a dramatic writer in 1592, there were no less than ten theatres open; but most, if not all, of his plays were performed either at the Globe, in Bankside, or at the theatre in Blackfriars. Both belonged to the same company of comedians, viz. His Majesty's Servants; which title they assumed after a license had been granted to them by King James, in 1603, having before that period been called the Servants of the Lord Chamberlain. Many of our ancient dramatic pieces were performed, as already stated, in the yards of carriers' inns, in which, at 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 theatres, the galleries in both being 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 subsequently built expressly for dramatic purposes, still retained their old name, and are frequently called rooms by our ancient writers. The yard bears a sufficient resemblance to the pits as at present in use. We may suppose the stage to have been raised on the fourth side of this area, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for admission was taken. Hence, in the middle of the Globe, and I suppose of the other public theatres of this period, there was an open yard or area, where the common people stood to see * From Mr. Malone's supplement to his edition of Shakspeare. the exhibition, from which circumstance they are called by Shakspeare groundlings, and by Ben Jonson 'the under standing gentlemen of the ground.' "The galleries or scaffolds, as they are sometimes termed, and that part of the house which in private theatres was named the pit, seem to have been at the same price; and probably in the houses of reputation, such as the Globe, and that in Blackfriars, the price of admission into those parts of the theatre was 6d., while in some meaner playhouses it was only 1d., in others only 2d. The price of admission into the best rooms or boxes was, I believe, in Shakspeare's time, 1s.; though afterward it appears to have risen to 2s. and 2s. 6d. "From several passages in our old plays, we learn that spectators were admitted on the stage, and that the critics and wits of the time usually sat there. Some were placed on the ground, others sat on stools, of which the price was either 6d. or 1s., according, I suppose, to the commodiousness of the situation; and they were attended by pages, who furnished them with pipes and tobacco, which was smoked here as well as in other parts of the house. Yet it should seem that persons were suffered to sit on the stage only in the private playhouses, such as Blackfriars, &c., where the audience was more select and of a higher class; and that in the Globe and other public theatres no such license was permitted. "The stage was strewed with rushes, which, as we learn from Hentzner and Caius de Ephemera, was in the time of Shakspeare the usual covering of floors in England. The curtain, which hangs in the front of the present stage, drawn up by lines and pulleys, though not a modern invention, for it was used by Inigo Jones, in the masks at court, was yet an apparatus to which the simple mechanism of our ancient theatres had not arrived, for in them the curtains opened in the middle, and were drawn backwards and forwards on an iron rod. In some playhouses they were woollen, in others made of silk. Towards the rear of the stage there appears to have been a balcony, the platform of which was probably eight or ten feet from the ground. From hence in many of our old plays, parts of the dialogue were spoken; and in the front of this balcony curtains likewise were hung. Cc A doubt has been entertained whether in our ancient theatres there were side and other scenes. It is certain that in the year 1605 Inigo Jones exhibited an entertainment at Oxford, in which moveable scenes were used; but he appears to have introduced several pieces of machinery in the masks at court, with which undoubtedly the public theatres were unacquainted. A passage which has been produced from one of the old comedies proves, it must be owned, that even these were furnished with some pieces of machinery, which were used when it was requisite to exhibit the descent of some god or saint; but from all the contemporary accounts, I am inclined to believe, that the mechanism of our ancient stage seldom went beyond a painted chair or a trap door, and that few, if any of them, had any moveable scenes. They were furnished with curtains, and a single scene composed of tapestry, which were sometimes, perhaps, ornamented with pictures; and some passages in our old dramas incline me to think that when tragedies were performed, the stage was hung with black. In the early parts at least of Shakspeare's acquaintance with the theatre, the want of scenery seems to have been supplied by the simple expedient of writing the names of the different places where the scene was laid in the progress of the play, which were disposed in such a manner as to be visible to the audience.* "The stage was formerly lighted by small circular wooden frames, furnished with candles, eight of which were hung up, four at either side; and these continued to be used till they were removed by Mr. Garrick, who, on his return from France, first introduced the present commodious method of illuminating the stage by lights not visible to the audience. Many of the companies of players were formerly so thin, that one person played two or three parts; and a battle, on which the fate of an empire was supposed to depend, was decided by half a dozen com *The following humorous raillery of Sir Philip Sidney would lead us to infer that there were no scenes. "Now you shall see three ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By-and-by we heare news of a shipwracke in the same place, then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rocke. Upon the back of that comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke; then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while in the mean time two armies fly in, represented with four swordes and two bucklers, and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field "" batants. It appears to have been a common practice in their mock engagements, to discharge small pieces of ordnance on the stage. Before the exhibition began three flourishes or pieces of music were played; or, in ancient language, there were three soundings. Music was likewise played between the acts; the instruments chiefly used being trumpets, cornets, and hautboys. The band, which did not consist of more than five or six performers, sat in an upper balcony, over what is now termed the stage-box. "The person who spoke the prologue was ushered in by trumpets, and usually wore a long black velvet cloak, which I suppose was best suited to a supplicatory address. Of this custom, whatever might have been its origin, some traces remained till very lately; a black coat having been, if I mistake not, the constant stage habiliment of our modern prologue speakers. The dress of the ancient prologue speaker is still retained in the play exhibited in Hamlet, before the king and court of Denmark. The performers of male characters generally wore periwigs, which in the age of Shakspeare were not in common use. It appears from a passage in Puttenham's Art of English Poesy, 1589, that vizards were on some occasions used by the actors of those days; and it may be inferred from a scene in one of Shakspeare's comedies that they were sometimes worn by those who performed female characters; but this, I imagine, was very rare. Some of the female part of the audience likewise appeared in masks. "The practice of exhibiting two dramas successively on the same evening does not appear to have been established before the time of the Restoration. But though the audiences were not gratified by the representation of more than one drama in the same day, the entertainment was diversified, and the populace diverted, by tumbling, sleight of hand, and morris-dancing, a mixture not much more heterogenous than that with which we are now frequently presented-a tragedy and a farce. The amusements of our ancestors before the commencement of the play were of various kinds: such as reading, playing at cards, drinking ale, or smoking tobacco. It was a common practice to carry table-books to the theatre; and either from curiosity or enmity to the author, or some other motive, to write down passages of the play; and there is reason to believe that the imperfect and mutilated copies of some of Shakspeare's dramas, which are yet extant, were taken down in short-hand during the exhibition. At the end of the piece the actors in noblemen's houses and in taverns, where plays were frequently performed, prayed for the health and prosperity of their patrons; and in the public theatre for the king and queen. Hence probably, as Mr. Steevens has observed, the addition of Vivant rex et regina to the modern playbills.. "Plays began at one o'clock in the afternoon, and the exhibition was usually finished in two hours. Even in 1667 they commenced at three. When Gossen wrote his School of Abuse, in 1579, it seems the dramatic entertainments were usually exhibited on Sundays. Afterward they were performed on that and other days indiscriminately. The exhibition of plays on Sundays had not been abolished in the third year of king Charles I. "The modes of conveyance to the theatre, anciently as at present, seem to have been various, some going in coaches, others on horseback, and many by water. To the Globe playhouse the company probably were conveyed by water; to that in Blackfriars the gentry went either in coaches or on horseback, and the common people on foot. In an epigram of Sir John Davis, the practice of riding to the theatre is ridiculed as a piece of affectation or vanity, and therefore we may presume that it was not general. "Mr. Oldys, in one of his manuscripts, intimates that dramatic poets had anciently their benefits on the first day that a new play was represented; a regulation which would have been very favourable to some of the ephemeral productions of modern times. From Davenant we learn that in the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the poet had his benefit on the second day. It is certain that the giving authors the profit of the third exhibition of their play, which seems to have been the usual mode during almost the whole of the last century, was an established custom in the year 1612; for Decker, in the prologue to one of his comedies printed in that year, speaks of the poet's third day. The unfortunate Otway had no more than one benefit on the production of a new play, and this too he was sometimes obliged to mortgage before the piece was acted. Southern was the first dramatic writer who obtained the |