'Fire!' was given, but by whom I know King-street, opposite to Royal Exchangenot, but concluded it did not come from lane, flourishing their arms, and saying, the officer aforesaid, as I was within a yard 'Damn them, where are they,' and crying of him, and must have heard him had he 'Fire;' the bells then rang as for fire; I was spoken it, but am satisfied said Preston did then called in again for half a minute, and not forbid them to fire; I instantly leaped returning again to the door, the inhabitwithin the soldier's bayonet as I heard him ants began to collect. Soon after a party cock his gun, which that moment went off of soldiers came down the south side of between Mr. Palmes and myself. I, thinking King-street, and crossed over to the Custom there was nothing but powder fired, stood House sentinel, and formed in a rank by still, till, upon the other side of Mr. Palmes, him, nor did I see any manner of abuse and close to him, I saw another gun fired, offered the sentinel, and in three minutes and the man since called Attucks fall. I at the farthest they began to fire on the then withdrew about two or three yards, inhabitants, by which several persons were and, turning, saw Mr. Palmes upon his killed, and several others were wounded. knee, and the soldiers pushing at him with Some time after this the party marched off their bayonets. During this the rest of very leisurely, and without molestation, the guns were fired, one after another, and presently after the main guard was when I saw two more fall. I ran to one, drawn out in ranks between the Guard and seeing the blood gush out of his head, House and Town House, and was joined by though just expiring, I felt for the wound, the picket in the same manner, with fixed and found a hole as big as my hand. This bayonets and muskets shouldered, except I have since learned was Mr. Gray. I then the front rank, who stood with charged went to Attucks, and found him gasping, bayonets, until the Lieutenant-Governor pulled his head out of the gutter, and left came up. And I do further declare, as him; I returned to the soldiers, and asked near as I can judge, there was not more them what they thought of themselves, and than one hundred persons in the street at whether they did not deserve to be cut to the time the guns were discharged." pieces, to lay men wallowing in their blood. in such a manner? They answered, ' Damn them! they should have stood out of our The soldiers were then loading their muskets, and told me upon my peril not to come any nearer to them. I further declare that I heard no other affront given them than the huzzaing and whistling of boys in the street." way.' A citizen named Marshall gives a view of the scene from a different point of perspective. He says: "On Monday night, the 5th of March, four or five minutes after nine o'clock, coming from Colonel Jackson's house in Dock-square, to my house in King-street, next door to the Custom House, I saw no person in the street but the sentinel at the Custom House, in perfect peace. After I had been in my house ten or twelve minutes, being in my shop in the front of the house, I heard the cry of murder at a distance, on which I opened the door, but saw no person in the street; but in half a minute I saw several persons rushing out from the main guard-house. They came down as far as the corner of Mr. Philip's house; I saw their swords and bayonets glitter in the moonlight; at which time I was called into the house by one of my family, but returned again in half a minute, and saw ten or twelve soldiers, in a tumultuous manner, in the middle of By this one fatal volley eleven unoffending citizens of Boston were either killed or wounded. The victims were Samuel Gray, a young rope-maker, who was killed by a ball through the head, and then bayoneted; Crispus Attucks, a mulatto, killed by two balls in the breast; James Caldwell, shot in the back. Samuel Maverick (seventeen) and Patrick Carr died soon after. Mr. Payne, a merchant, standing at his own door, was wounded, and five other persons were dangerously hurt. Presently through the snow, which was a foot deep that fatal March night, came the English commander-in-chief to inquire into the causes of this lamentable collision. The soldiers had still their bayonets fixed, His and were presenting their firelocks. honour went round on the right flank of the Twenty-ninth Regiment, now drawn up between the State House and Main-guard House, and facing down King-street towards the crowd, and said to Captain Preston, "Sir, are you the commanding officer?" On Preston replying he was, he said, Do you know, sir, you have no power to fire on any body of people collected together except you have a civil magistrate with you to give orders ?" 66 Captain Preston replied, "I was obliged to to save my sentry.' On which a man in the crowd called out, "Then you have murdered three or four men to save your sentry." A few hours after Captain Preston and seven of the firing party were committed to jail. The soldiers showed a cruel delight rather than any regret at this massacre. One was heard to say it was a fine thing, and the town should see more of it. The men at Green's Barracks, when the first gun was fired in King-street, shouted, "That is all we want," then ran in and armed. A doctor of the Fourteenth Regiment remarked to a citizen: "The townspeople have always used us ill, and I wish, instead of killing five or six, the men had killed five hundred. Curse me if I don't." A quarter-master of the Twentyninth Regiment was heard to say: "The troubles were nothing to what they will be in six months, for the affair will get home, and the people will be disarmed, as they have been in Ireland." Oh! These men little knew what stuff the colonists were made of. The very evening of the massacre many inoffensive Boston men were stopped and struck by soldiers, and the sticks they carried taken from them. One of the soldiers' witnesses swore that the people outside the Custom House, just before the fatal volley was fired, had cried, "Come out you rascals, and fight us if you dare." And that there had been a cry from a rioter, "I wish we could get into the Custom House, we would soon make the money circulate." But this was never proved, and the witness was generally confessed to be untrustworthy. The public funeral of the victims of the 'massacre" took place on the 8th of March. The shops were closed, and all the bells of Boston, as well as those of the neighbouring towns, solemnly tolled. The bodies of two of the victims (strangers) were borne from Faneuil Hall, the others from the residences of their families; the hearses meeting in King-street, near the scene of the tragedy, passed through the main street, followed by a vast throng, to the burial-ground, where their bodies were all deposited in one vault. The two regiments were at once removed to the barracks at Castle Island, and the town militia instituted a nightly military watch, to prevent the soldiers rescuing their comrades. The alarmed commissioners never held up their heads after this melancholy affair. Mr. Robinson left for England, the others stole away under various pretexts. The Boston people for long afterwards celebrated the anniversary of the massacre, in order, as they said, to annually develop "the fatal effects of the policy of standing armies, and the natural tendency of quartering troops in populous cities in times of peace. This anniversary was regularly observed till 1784, when the celebration was superseded by that of the 4th of July "ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS." 66 Ir is clear that playgoers of the Shakespearian period dearly loved to see a battle represented upon the stage. The great poet thoroughly understood his public, and how to gratify it. In some fifteen of his plays he has introduced the encounter or the marshalling of hostile forces. "Alarums and excursions" is with him a very frequent stage direction; and as much may be said of "they fight," or exeunt fighting." Combats and the clash of arms he obviously did not count as "inexplicable dumb show and noise." He was conscious, however, that the battles of the stage demanded a very large measure of faith on the part of the spectators. Of necessity they were required to "make believe" a good deal. In the prologue to Henry the Fifth, especial apology is advanced for the presumption of the dramatist in dealing with so comprehensive a subject; and indulgence is claimed for the unavoidable feebleness of the representation as compared with the force of the reality: But pardon, gentles all, Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts, ac These conditions, however, were cepted by the audiences of the time in the most liberal spirit. Critics were prone to deride the popular liking for "cutler's work" and " the horrid noise of target fight;" "the fools in the yard" were censured for their "gaping and gazing" at such exhibitions. But the battles of the stage were still fought on; "alarums and excursions" continued to engage the scene. Indeed, variety and stir have always been elements in the British drama as opposed to the uniformity and repose which were characteristics of the ancient classical theatre. Yet our early audiences must have been extremely willing to help out the illusions of the performance, and abet the tax thus levied upon their credulity. Shakespeare's battles could hardly have been very forcibly presented. In his time no "host of auxiliaries" assisted the company. "Two armies flye in," Sir Philip Sidney writes in his Apologie for Poetrie, 1595, "represented with four swords and bucklers, and what harde heart will not receive it for a pitched fielde ?” So limited an array would not be deemed very impressive in these days; but it was held sufficient by the lieges of Elizabeth. Just as the Irish peasant is even now content to describe a mere squad of soldiers as "the army," so Shakespeare's audiences were willing to regard a few "blue-coated stage-keepers" as a formidable body of troops. And certainly the poet sometimes exercised to the utmost the imaginations of his patrons. He required them to believe that his small stage was immeasurably spacious; that his handful of "supers" was in truth a vast multitude. During one scene in King John he does not hesitate to bring together apon the boards the three distinct armies of Philip of France, the Archduke of Austria, and the King of England; while, in addition, the citizens of Angiers are supposed to appear upon the walls of their town and discuss the terms of its capitulation. So in King Richard the Third, Bosworth Field is represented, and the armies of Richard and Richmond are made to encamp within a few feet of each other. The ghosts of Richard's victims rise from the stage and address speeches alternately to him and to his opponent. Playgoers who can look back a score of years may remember a textual revival of the tragedy, in which this scene was exhibited in exact accordance with the original stage directions. Colley Cibber's famous acting version was for once discarded, and Richard and Richmond on the eve of their great battle quietly retired to rest in the presence of each other, and of their audience. However to be commended on the score of its fidelity to the author's intentions, the scene had assuredly its ludicrous side. The rival tents wore the aspect of opposition shower-baths. It was exceedingly difficult to humour the idea that the figures occupying the stage could neither see nor hear one another. Why, if they but outstretched their arms they could have touched each other; and they were supposed to be mutually eager for combat to the death! It became manifest, indeed, that the spectators had lost greatly their ancestors' old power of "making believe.” They could no longer hold their reason in suspense for the sake of enhancing the effect of a theatrical performance, though prepared to be indulgent in that respect. What is called "realism" had invaded the stage since Shakespeare's time, and could not now be repelled or denied. Hints and suggestions did not suffice; the positive and the actual had become indispensable. There can be no doubt, however, that Shakespeare's battles had oftentimes the important aid of real gunpowder. The armies might be small; but the noise that accompanied their movements was surely very great. The stage direction "alarums and chambers go off" occurs more than once in King Henry the Fifth. The Chorus to the play expressly states: Behold the ordnance on their carriages 66 Gunpowder was even employed in plays wherein battles were not introduced. Thus at the close of Hamlet, Fortinbras says, "Go bid the soldiers shoot," and the stage direction runs, A dead march. Exeunt bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off." And just as in 1846, the Garrick Theatre, in Goodman's Fields, was destroyed by fire owing to some wadding lodging in the flies after a performance of the Battle of Waterloo, so in 1613 the Globe Theatre, in Southwark, was burnt to the ground from the firing of "chambers" during a representation of King Henry the Eighth. Howes, in his additions to Stow's Chronicle, thus describes the event: Also upon St. Peter's Day last (1613) the playhouse or theatre called the Globe, upon the Bankside, near London, by negligent discharging of a peal of ordnance, close to the south side thereof, the theatre took fire, and the wind suddenly dispersed the flame round about, and in a very short space the whole building was quite consumed and no man hurt; the house being filled with people to behold the play, namely, of Henry the Eighth; and the next spring it was new builded in a far fairer manner than before." The paucity of Shakespeare's stage armies has sometimes found its reflex in the limited means of country theatres of more modern date. The ambition of strolling managers is apt to be far in advance of their appliances, but they are rarely stayed by the difficulties of representation, or troubled with doubts as to the adequacy of their troop, in the words of a famous commander, to "go anywhere and do any thing." We have heard of a provincial Rolla who at the last moment discovered that the army, wherewith he proposed to repulse the forces of Pizarro, consisted of one supernumerary only. The Peruvian chieftain proved himself equal to the situation, however, and adapted his speech to the case. Addressing his one soldier, he declaimed in his most dignified manner: "My brave associate, partner of my toil, my feelings and my fame, can Rolla's words add vigour to the virtuous energies which inspire your heart?" and so on. Thus altered, the speech was found to be sufficiently effective. Two things were especially prized by the audiences of the past: a speech and a combat. "For God's sake, George, give me a speech and let me go home!" cried from the pit the wearied country squire of Queen Anne's time to his boon companion Powell, the actor, doomed to appear in a part deficient in opportunities for oratory. But, Mr. Bayes, might we not have a little fighting?" inquires Johnson, in the burlesque of the Rehearsal, "for I love those plays where they cut and slash one another on the stage for a whole hour together." 66 to impressing his audience deeply by his The single combats that occur in Shakespeare's plays are very numerous. There is little need to remind the reader, for The famous Mrs. Jordan was, it seems, instance, of the hand-to-hand encounters unknown to Mathews, present among the of Macbeth and Macduff, Posthumus and audience on this occasion, having been atIachimo, Hotspur and the Prince of Wales, tracted from her residence at Bushey by Richard and Richmond. Romeo has his the announcement of an amateur Richard. fierce brawl with Tybalt, Hamlet his famous "Years afterwards," records Mathews, fencing scene, and there is serious crossing" when we met in Drury Lane green-room, of swords both in Lear and Othello. English audiences, from an inherent pugnacity, or a natural inclination for physical feats, were wont to esteem highly the combats of the stage. The players were skilled in the use of their weapons, and could give excellent effect to their mimic conflicts. And this continued long after the wearing of swords had ceased to be a necessity or a fashion. The youthful actor acquired the art of fencing as an indispensable step in his theatrical education. A sword was one of the earliest "properties" of which he became possessor. He always looked forward tragedian. I was relating, amongst other theatrical anecdotes, the bumpkin's call from the gallery in commiseration of the trouble I had in killing Richard, when she shook me from my feet almost by starting up, clasping her hands, and in her fervent, soul-stirring, warm-hearted tones, exclaiming, Was that you? I was there!' and she screamed with laughter at the recollection of my acting in Richmond, and the length of our combat." "Where shall I hit you, Mr. Kean ?" inquired a provincial Laertes of the great | 'Where you can, sir," was the grim reply. For Kean had acquired fencing under Angelo, and was proud of his proficiency in the art. He delighted in prolonging his combats to the utmost, and invested them with extraordinary force and intensity. On some occasions he so identified himself with the character he represented as to decline to yield upon almost any terms. Hazlitt censures certain excesses of this kind which disfigured his performance of Richard. "He now actually fights with his doubled fists, after his sword is taken from him, like some helpless infant." "The fight," writes another critic, was maintained under various vicissitudes, by one of which he was thrown to the earth; on his knee he defended himself, recovered his footing, and pressed his antagonist with renewed fury; his sword was struck from his grasp he was mortally wounded; disdaining to fall," and so on. No wonder that many Richmonds and Macduffs, after combating with Mr. Kean, were left so exhausted and scant of breath as to be scarcely able to deliver audibly the closing speeches of their parts. The American stage has a highly coloured story of an English melodramatic actor with the pseudonym of Bill Shipton, who, enacting a British officer in the Early Life of Washington, got so stupidly intoxicated, that when Miss Cuff, who played the youthful hero, had to fight and kill him in a duel, Bill Shipton wouldn't die; he even said loudly on the stage that he wouldn't. Mary Cuff fought on until she was ready to faint, and after she had repeated his cue for dying, which was 'Cowardly, hired assassin!' for the fourteenth time, he absolutely jumped off the stage, not even pretending to be on the point of death. Our indignant citizens then chased him all over the house, and he only escaped by jumping into the coffin which they bring on in Hamlet, Romeo, and Richard." The story has its humour, but is not to be implicitly credited. Broad-sword combats were at one time very popular interludes at minor theatres. They were often quite distinct performances, prized for their own sake, and quite irrespective of their dramatic relevancy. It cannot be said that they suggested much resemblance to actual warfare. Still they demanded of the performers skill of a peculiar kind, great physical endurance and ceaseless activity. The combat-sword was an unlikely looking weapon, very short in the blade, with a protuberant hilt of curved bars to protect the knuckles of the combatant. The orchestra supplied a strongly accentuated tune, and the swords clashed together in strict time with the music. The fight raged hither and thither about the stage, each blow and parry, thrust and guard, being a matter of strict pre-arrangement. The music was hurried or slackened accordingly as the combat became more or less furious. " One, two, three, and under; one, two, three, and over;" "robber's cuts;' "sixes;" the encounter had an abundance of technical terms. And each performer was allowed a fair share of the feats accomplished: they took turns in executing the strangest exploits. Alternately they were beaten down on one knee, even lower still, till they crawled serpent-wise about the boards; they leaped into the air to avoid chopping blows at their lower members; they suddenly spun round on their heels, recovering themselves in time to guard a serious blow, aimed with too much deliberation, at some vital portion of their frames; occasionally they contrived an unexpected parry by swiftly passing the sword from the right hand to the left. Now and then they fought a kind of double combat, wielding a sword in either hand. Altogether, indeed, it was an extraordinary entertainment, which evoked thunders of applause from the audience. The eccentric agility of the combatants, the peculiarities of their method of engagement, the stirring staccato music of the band, the clashing of the swords and the shower of sparks thus occasioned, were found quite irresistible by numberless playgoers. Mr. Crummles, it will be remembered, had a very high opinion of this form of entertainment. Of late, however, the broad-sword com- · bat has declined as a theatrical attraction, if it has not altogether expired. The art involved in its presentment is less studied, or its professors are less able than was once the case. And perhaps burlesque has exposed too glaringly its ridiculous or seamy side. It was not one of those things that could long endure the assaults of travesty. The spell was potent enough in its way, but it dissolved when once interruptive laughter became generally audible. creature of theatrical tradition, curiously sophisticated and enveloped in absurdities, its long survival is perhaps more surprising than the fact of its decease. Some attempt at ridiculing it seems to have been made so far back as the seventeenth century in the Duke of Buckingham's Rehearsal. Two characters enter, each bearing a lute and a drawn sword, and alternately fight and sing, "so that," as Bayes explains, "you | A |