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conclude that the proprietors of this theatre, being the Queen's servants, not merely nominally, but the sworn officers of her household, were the most respectable of their vocation; conformed to the ordinances of the state with the utmost scrupulousness; endeavoured to attract a select audience rather than an uncritical multitude; and received higher prices for admission than were paid at the public theatres. The performances at the Blackfriars' were for the most part in the winter. Whether the performances were in the day or evening, artificial lights were used. The audience in what we now call the pit (then also so called) sat upon benches, and did not stand as in the yard open to the sky of the public playhouses. There were small rooms corresponding with the private boxes of existing theatres. A portion of the audience, including those who aspired to the distinction of critics, sat upon the stage. "Though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriars to arraign plays daily," says the preface to the first folio of Shakspere. The passage we have quoted from Lambarde gives us a notion of the prices of admission at the very early theatres. Those who paid a penny for the "entry of the scaffold" had of course privileges not obtained by those who merely paid "the penny at the gate;" and those who, when they had reached the scaffold, had to pay another penny "for quiet standing," had no doubt the advantage of some railed-off space, in some degree similar to the stalls of the modern pit. But the mass of the audience must have been the penny payers. The passages in old plays and tracts which allude to the prices of admission, for the most part belong to the high and palmy period of the stage. But we learn from one of Lyly's tracts, in 1590, that the admission at "The Theatre" was twopence, and at St. Paul's fourpence; though a penny still seems from other authorities to have been the common price. It is possible, and indeed there is some evidence, that the rate of admission even then varied according to the attraction of the performance; and we may be pretty sure that a company like that of Shakspere's generally charged at a higher rate than the larger theatres, which depended more upon the multitude. At a much later period, Ben Jonson and Fletcher mention a price as high as half-a-crown; and the lowest price which Jonson mentions is sixpence. At a later period still, Jonson speaks of the sixpenny mechanics of the Blackfriars. Those who sat upon the stage, it would appear, paid sixpence for a stool, in addition to their payment for admission. With these preliminary notices we may proceed to the picture of a new play at the Blackfriars', about a year or so before the period when it has been ascertained that Shakspere was one amongst the sixteen shareholders of that company, with four other shareholders, and those not unimportant persons, below him on the list.

On the posts of the principal thoroughfares of the City a little bill is affixed, announcing that a new History will be performed at the private theatre of the Blackfriars. The passengers are familiar with such bills; they were numerous enough in the year 1587 to make it of sufficient importance that one printer should be licensed by the Stationers' Company for their production. At an early hour in the afternoon the watermen are actively landing their passengers at the Blackfriars' Stairs; and there are hasty steps along the narrow thoroughfares to the south of Lud Gate. The pit of the Blackfriars is soon filled. The people for the most part wait for the performance in tolerable quiet, but now and then a disturbance takes place. If we may judge from sober documents and allusive satires, London was never so full of cheats and bullies as about this period. There is a curious passage in Henry Chettle's "Kind-Harte's Dream," printed in 1593, in which tract the author, "sitting alone not long since, not far from Finsbury, in a taphouse of antiquity, attending the coming of such companions as might wash care away with carousing," falls asleep, and has a vision of five personages, amongst whom is Tarleton, the famous clown. In the discourse which Tarleton makes is this passage:

-" And let Tarleton entreat the young people of the city, either to abstain altogether from plays, or at their coming thither to use themselves after a more quiet order. In a place so civil as this city is esteemed, it is more than barbarously rude to see the shameful disorder and routs that sometime in such public meetings are used. The beginners are neither gentlemen nor citizens, nor any of both their servants, but some lewd mates that long for innovation; and when they see advantage that either servingmen or apprentices are most in number they will be of either side.* Though indeed they are of no side, but men beside all honesty, willing to make booty of cloaks, hats, purses, or whatever they can lay hold on in a hurley-burley. These are the common causers of discord in public places. If otherwise it happen, as it seldom doth, that any quarrel be between man and man, it is far from manhood to make so public a place their field to fight in: no men will do it but cowards that would fain be parted, or have hope to have many partakers." Amongst the quiet audience the sellers of nuts and pippins are gliding. Ever and anon a cork bounces out of a bottle of ale. Tobacco was not as yet. While the audience are impatiently waiting for the three soundings of trumpet that precede the prologue, a noise of many voices is heard behind the curtain which separates them from the stage. The noise is not of the actors; but of the crowd of spectators who have entered by the tiring-room door, and are struggling for places, or in eager groups communicating their expectations of the performance, and their opinions of the author. Amongst this crowd would be the dramatic writers of the time, who in all probability then, as without doubt at a subsequent period, had a free admission to the theatres generally, the stage being their prescriptive place.

In his Induction to "Cynthia's Revels," Jonson has a humorous passage which very clearly describes the arrangements for the critics and gallants; and shows also the intercourse which the author was expected to have with his part of the audience. The play was originally performed by the children of the Queen's Chapel; and in this Induction they give us a picture of the ignorant critic and another gallant with remarkable spirit :

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"3 Child. Now, Sir, suppose I am one of your genteel auditors, that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with much ado, and here I take my place and sit down I have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin By this light, I wonder that any man is so mad to come to see these rascally tits play here!-They do act like so many wrens, or pismires-not the fifth part of a good face amongst them all. And then their music is abominable -able to stretch a man's ears worse than ten pillories; and their ditties -most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that make them-poets. But this vapour, an 'twere not for tobacco-I think-the very stench of 'em would poison me. I should not dare to come in at their gates.—A man were better visit fifteen jails-or a dozen or two of hospitals-than once adventure to come near them.' How is 't? Well?

1 Child. Excellent. Give me my cloak.

3 Child. Stay; you shall see me do another now, but a more sober, or bettergather'd gallant; that is, as it may be thought, some friend or well-wisher to the house and here I enter.

1 Child. What, upon the stage too?

2 Child. Yes; and I step forth like one of the children, and ask you, Would you have a stool, Sir?

3 Child. A stool, boy?

2 Child. Ay, Sir, if you 'll give me sixpence, I'll fetch you one.

3 Child. For what, I pray thee? What shall I do with it?

*This indicates a state of quarrel between the servingmen and apprentices.

2 Child. O Lord, Sir! Will you betray your ignorance so much? Why throw yourself in state on the stage, as other gentlemen use, Sir.

3 Child. Away, wag! What, wouldst thou make an implement of me? . . . . I would speak with your author; where is he?

2. Child. Not this way, I assure you, Sir; we are not so officiously befriended by him as to have his presence in the tiring-house, to prompt us aloud, stamp at the bookholder, swear for our properties, curse the poor tireman, rail the music out of tune, and sweat for every venial trespass we commit, as some author would, if he had such fine engles as we."

It may be presumed from this passage, that it was not uncommon for the author to mix with that part of the audience which sate upon the stage. We may imagine the young "maker" composedly moving amidst this throng of wits and critics. He moves amongst them modestly, but without any false humility. In worldly station, if such a consideration could influence his demeanour, he is fully the equal of his brother poets. They are for the most part, as he himself is, actors, as well as makers of plays. Phillips says Marlowe was an actor. Greene is reasonably conjectured to have been an actor. Peele and Wilson were actors of Shakspere's own company; and so was Anthony Wadeson. The curtain is drawn back, slowly, and with little of mechanical contrivance. The rush-strewn stage is presented to the spectators. The play to be performed is "Henry VI." The funeral procession of Henry V. enters to a dead march; a few mourners in sable robes following the bier. The audience is silent as the imaginary corse; but their imaginations are not stimulated with gorgeous scenery. There is no magical perspective of the lofty roof and long-drawn aisles of Westminster Abbey; no organ peals, no trains of choristers with tapers and censers sing the Requiem. The rushes on the floor are matched with the plain arras on the walls. Bedford speaks:

"Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night."

Lofty is his tone, corresponding with the solemn and unvarying rhythm. It is the "drumming decasyllabon" which Nashe ridicules. The great master of a freer versification is not yet confident of his power. The attention of the auditory is fixed by the stirring introduction. There are old remembrances of national honour in every line. The action moves rapidly. The mourners disperse; and by an effort of imagination the scene must be changed from England to France. Charles the king marches with drum and soldiers. The English are encountered, the French are beaten. The Maid of Orleans appears. The people will see the old French wars which live in their memories fought over again; and their spirits rise with every alarum. But the poet will show too the ruinous course of faction at home. The servingmen of Gloucester and Winchester battle at the Tower gates. The Mayor of London and his officers suppress the riot. Again to Orleans, where Salisbury is slain by a "fatal hand." All is bustle and contention in France; but the course of intrigue in England is unfolded. The first page of the fatal history of York and Lancaster is here read. We see the growth of civil war at home; we trace the beginnings of disaster abroad. The action presents a succession of events, rather than developing some great event brought about by a skilful adjustment of many parts. But in a "chronicle history" this was scarcely to be avoided; and it is easy to see how, until the great principle of art which should produce a "Lear" and a "Macbeth" was evolved, the independent succession of events in a chronicle history would not only be the easiest to portray by a young writer, but would be the most acceptable to an uncritical audience, that had not yet been taught the dependences of a catastrophe upon slight preceding incidents, upon niceties of character, upon passion evolved out of seeming tranquility, the danger of which has been skilfully

shadowed forth to the careful observer. It was in detached passages, therefore, that the young poet would put out his strength in such a play. The death of Talbot and his son was a fit occasion for such an effort; and the early stage had certainly seen nothing comparable in power and beauty to the couplets which exhibit the fall of the hero and his boy. Other poets would have described the scene. Shakspere dramatized it; and his success is well noticed by Thomas Nashe, who for once loses his satirical vein in fervent admiration : "How would it have joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French) to think that, after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times), who, in the tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding!"* The prejudices of the age are gratified by the condemnation of the Pucelle; but the poet takes care to make it felt that her judges are "bloody homicides." At the very close of the play a new series of events is opened, ending here with the mission of Suffolk to bring a bride for the imbecile king; but showing that the issue is to be presented in some coming story.

*Pierce Pennilesse."

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A BELIEF has been long entertained in England, that Greene and Peele either wrote in conjunction the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI., originally published as the two Parts of the "Contention," or that Greene wrote one Part, and Peele the other Part; or that, at any rate, Greene had some share in these dramas. This was a theory propagated by Malone in his "Dissertation;" and it rests, not upon the slightest examination of the works of these writers, but solely on a far-famed passage in Greene's posthumous pamphlet, the "Groat's Worth of Wit," in which he points out Shakspere as "a crow beautified with our feathers."

The entire pamphlet of Greene's is, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary fragments of autobiography that the vanity or the repentance of a sinful man ever produced. The recital which he makes of his abandoned course of life involves not only a confession of crimes and follies which were common to a very licentious age, but of particular and especial depravities, which even to mention argues as much shamelessness as repentance. The portion, however, which relates to the subject

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