thumous daughter of Richard Burbadge, who, having been baptized on the 5th August, 1619, (a fact noticed by previous historians) was buried on the 29th of April, 1625. We have no account of the death or burial of William Burbadge, but we shall have occasion to mention him again in the course of the following memoir.

There is every reason to believe that the Burbadges, who were so importantly connected with our early stage, originally came from Warwickshire. A family of the name was settled at Stratford-upon-Avon in the middle of the sixteenth century, and must have been of some consideration and respectability, because John Burbadge was bailiff of the borough in June, 1555, at which date we meet with the earliest trace of the Shakespeares there. It also appears by various documents that Burbadges, like Shakespeares, were resident at a remote period in different parts of Warwickshire and the bordering counties. There was however a numerous family of the same name in Hertfordshire; and when arms were granted to Cuthbert Burbadge (the brother of Richard) in 1634, they were the same as those of the Burbadges of Hertfordshire, whence an inference may possibly be drawn that the families of Burbadge of Warwickshire and of Hertfordshire were in some way related.

The oldest member of the family connected with our early stage, as far as we have any information, was James Burbadge, the father of Cuthbert, Richard, and other children, whose

1 Malone's Shakspeare by Boswell, ii., 78; and Collier's Shakespeare, i., 61.

2 Chalmers' Suppl. Apol., 154, note k. Malone and Chalmers differed irreconcilably as to the etymology of the name of Burbadge: the first would have it a corruption of Boroughbridge, and the last, with more plausibility, would derive it from Boar-badge. We do not consider it a point of the slightest consequence, because to settle it either way explains no part of their history: we may mention that in different documents of the time we find the name spelt Burbage, Burbege, Burbadge, Burbidge, Burbedge, and Burbadg.

names will occur hereafter; but we are without the slightest clue to his reason for becoming an actor. It was a profession in bad repute before Elizabeth came to the throne, and long afterwards; and poverty, peculiar circumstances of position, or a strong passion for theatrical performances, could alone have induced an individual to attach himself to it. We first hear of him as one of the players of the Earl of Leicester, when, in May, 1574, that nobleman obtained a patent for James Burbadge, (we give the names in the order in which they occur in the instrument,) John Perkyn, John Lanham, William Johnson, and Robert Wilson, authorizing them to act in any part of the kingdom, including, in express terms, the city of London-"as well within our city of London, and liberties of the same, as also within the liberties and freedoms of any our cities, towns, boroughs, &c., whatsoever, as without the same, throughout our realm of England."1

We may presume, from the place his name occupies, that James Burbadge was then at the head of the company; but we cannot tell how long he had been so, nor, indeed, how long he had been a member of the association. We know that Sir Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, had a body of theatrical servants, travelling about the country under the sanction and shelter of his patronage, as early as 1559; for in June of that year he addressed a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, requesting that they might receive from him the same license for acting in Yorkshire that they had obtained from several other Lords Lieutenant of counties. The individual players are not there enumerated; but, as James Burbadge had advanced to the first place in the company in 1574, it may not be too

1

History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage, i., 211, where the instrument, dated 7th May, 1574, is set out at large from the original Privy Seal preserved in the Chapter House, Westminster.

2 Lodge's "Illustrations of British History," i., 307. The letter of Sir Robert Dudley is, however, printed more accurately from the original, now in the library of the Heralds' College, in the "Introduction"

much to suppose that he had been a member of it for some years, if he were not so in 1559. That he was an actor, and not merely a manager, we may be quite certain, because at that date actors only were members of theatrical associations; but no existing evidence shows the nature of the parts he represented. He may, or may not, have been a good performer; and the mere fact that his son obtained the highest eminence in the profession can prove little or nothing, since we are aware of many instances in which the sons of actors of a very inferior grade have been extraordinarily and deservedly successful ; while, on the other hand, the sons of first-rate tragedians and comedians have turned out only qualified to sustain the most subordinate characters. Something may no doubt be inferred from the place the name of James Burbadge occupies with his four fellows, two of whom arrived at great distinction; but, at all events, early in his career, as far as a judgment can be formed from the pieces that have come down to us, the drama was not in a condition to afford much scope for the display of ability, whether serious or comic.

The players of the Earl of Leicester, fortified by the patent their patron had procured for them in 1574, seem very soon to have taken measures to establish themselves permanently in London. They had performed a piece at court, called "Mamillia," on 28th Decomber, 1573,1 and "Philemon and Philecia" on Shrove Monday, 1574;2 and we can have no difficulty in deciding, that they must have been called upon to lend their aid for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth, when she visited Lord Leicester at Kenilworth in the summer of 1575.

to the Shakespeare Society's reprint of John Northbrooke's "Treatise against Dicing, Plays," &c., p. vii. In January, 1560-61, "the L. Robert Dudley's Players" performed before the Queen. See Mr. P. Cunningham's "Revels Accounts," printed for the Shakespeare Society.

"Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court," edited by Mr. P. Cunningham, p. 51.

2 Ibid., p. 68.

One of the persons who has left behind him an account of the preparations and festivities on that occasion was named Lanham, or Langham, and may have been, if indeed we cannot say he probably was, nearly related to the John Lanham, who stands third in the players' patent of 1574. After the company had concluded at Kenilworth, they seem to have entered upon the project of preparing a building, to be exclusively devoted to the representation of plays, in the precinct and liberty of the dissolved monastery of the Blackfriars, London. It is to be borne in mind, that ever since the dissolution of that religious house it had been used as the depository of the machinery, dresses, &c., for court disguisings, masques, and entertainments: 2 for this reason the attention of James Burbadge and his associates may have been especially directed to that neighbourhood; but it is possible that they would not have gone there at all, but for the hostility of the Lord Mayor, and other city authorities; who, notwithstanding the terms of the patent of 1574, and the support given to players by the

1 The title of this singular and interesting tract runs precisely thus:we give it literally, because we have never seen it so quoted, and the author was conceited in his orthography :-" A Letter: Whearin part of the entertainment vntoo the Queenz Maiesty at Killingworth Castl, in Warwik Sheer, in this Soomerz Progress, 1575, iz signified: from a freend, officer attendant in the Coourt, vnto hiz freend a Citizen, and Merchaunt of London." It is without the name of either printer or publisher, but the author at the end calls himself "Mercer, Merchantaventurer, and Clark of the Council chamber door, and also keeper of the same." His "Letter" is addressed "vntoo my good freend Master Humfrey Martin, Mercer."

2 In the earlier Revels' Accounts, those, for instance, at the end of the reign of Henry VIII., charges are sometimes made for conveying machinery, &c., from the Blackfriars (where the royal wardrobe was also situated) to Greenwich, Richmond, &c. The apparel, &c., for court masques, was afterwards kept at St. John's Gate, near Smithfield, part of another dissolved monastery.

court and nobility, succeeded in excluding the actors of the Earl of Leicester, and several companies, from the immediate jurisdiction of the corporation. The precinct and liberty of the Blackfriars was out of the limits of that jurisdiction, but still in the very heart of the metropolis.

The theatre there opened was rather the conversion to dramatic purposes of a previously existing edifice, than an entirely new structure. In a remonstrance by certain inhabitants, presented against the undertaking, it is alleged that "one Burbadge (meaning, of course, the father of Richard) hath lately bought certain rooms in the same precinct, near adjoining unto the dwelling-houses of the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Hunsdon; which rooms the said Burbadge is now altering, and meaneth very shortly to convert and turn the same into a common playhouse." The subscribers to this remonstrance objected to the scheme, on the ground that it would create a nuisance in the neighbourhood; but there is no doubt that their representation was unavailing, because the theatre was completed, and ere long opened-not indeed as "a common playhouse," which the inhabitants apprehended, but as a private theatre." 2 It was, however, so far "a common playhouse," that all persons were admitted on the payment of money at the doors: it was called "a private theatre," mainly by reason of its smaller dimensions, and from the circumstance that it was covered in from the weather. What were termed public theatres were only partially roofed, over the stage and rooms, or boxes; and their form, and the nature of the accommodation in them for spectators, were adopted from inn-yards with surrounding galleries, which, after churches ceased to be used, were among the earliest places employed for dramatic representations.

1 History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage, i., 227.

66

2 The known distinctions between a common, or public, and a private theatre may be seen detailed in the "History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage," iii., 335.