Vol. V. p. 182. After Farmer's note.] It is probable, I think, that the play which Sir Gilly Merick procured to be represented, bore the title of HENRY IV. and not of RICHARD II. Camden calls it "exoletam tragediam de tragicâ abdicatione regis Richardi fecundi ;" and lord Bacon (in his account of The Effect of that which passed at the arraignment of Merick and others) fays, "That, the afternoon before the rebellion, Merick had procured to be played before them, the play of depofing King Richard the Second." But in a more particular account of the proceeding against Merick, which is printed in the State Trials, vol. VII. p. 60. the matter is ftated thus: that "the ftory of HENRY IV being fet forth in a play, and in that play there being fet forth the killing of the king upon a ftage; the Friday before, Sir Gilly Merrick and fome others of the earl's train having an humour to. fee a play, they must needs have the play of HENRY IV. The players told them, that was ftale; they fhould get nothing by playing that; but no play elfe would ferve and Sir Gilly Merrick gives forty fhillings to Philips the player to play this, befides whatsoever he could get." Auguftine Philippes was one of the patentees of the Globe play-house with Shakspeare in 1603; but the play here defcribed was certainly not Shakspeare's HENRY IV, as that commences above a year after the death of Richard. Ibid. p. 454. TYRWHITT. At the end of note 7.] I have lately obferved that Dumbleton is the name of a town in Gloucestershire. The reading of the folio is therefore probably the true one. Vol. VII. p. 73: STEEVENS. My heart is in the coffin there with Cæfar, And I must paufe till it come back to me.] Perhaps our author recollected the following paffage in Daniel's Cleopatra, 1593: "As for my love, fay, Antony hath all; "Say that my heart is gone into the grave "With him, in whom it refts, and ever fhall." Ibid. p. 324. 1. 28. MALONE. For revifal of the play-read-revival of the play. JOHNSON. APPEND. APPEND. Ibid. p. 491. He fits in his ftate as a thing made for Alexander.] His flate means his chair of flate. MALONE. Vol. X. p. 348. Come, my coach-good night, ladies; good night.] In Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1591, Zabina in her frenzy ufes the fame expreffion: "Hell make ready my coach, my chair, my jewels. I come, I come." MALONE. Ibid. p. 438. At this odd-even and dull watch of night.] Perhaps midnight is ftyled the odd-even time of night, because it is ufually the hour of fleep, which, like death, levels all diftinctions, and reduces all mankind, however difcriminated, to equality. So, in Measure for Measure: -yet death we fear, "That makes these odds all even." MALONE. They are clofe delations, working from the heart, That paffion cannot rule.] This reading is fo much more elegant than the former, that one cannot help wifhing it to be right. But delations founds to me too claffical to have been used by Shakspeare. The old reading-clofe dilations (in the fenfe of fecret expofitions of the mind) is authorized by a book of that age, which our author is known to have read :-" After all this foul weather follows a calm dilatement of others' too forward harmfulness."-Rofalynde or Euphues galden Legacie, by Thomas Lodge, 1592. MALONE. Ibid. p. 546. Yield up, O Love, thy crown and hearted throne-] A pasfage in Twelfth Night fully fupports the reading of the text, and Dr. Johnfon's explanation of it: "It gives a very echo to the feat "Where Love is thron'd." MALONE. Add at the beginning of note *. p. 17. of the prefent volume.] That scenes had not been used in the publick_theatres in Shakspeare's time, may be fairly inferred from Heywood's preface to his Love's Miftrefs, a comedy, printed in 1636. For the rare decorements (fays he) which new apparell'd it [Love's Mistress] when it came the fecond time to the royal APPEND. view, (her gracious majefty then entertaining his highness at Denmark Houfe upon his birth-day,) I cannot pretermit to give a due character to that admirable artist Mr. Inigo Jones, mafter furveyor of the king's worke &c. who to every act, nay almost to every fcene by his excellent inventions gave fuch an extraordinary luftre; upon every occafion changing the ftage to the admiration of all the spectators." If in our author's time the publick flage had been changed, or, in other words, had the Globe and Blackfryars playhoufes been furnished with fcenes, would they have created fo much admiration at a royal entertainment in 1636, twenty years after his death? MALONE. Adi to note, p. 29. of this volume.] It is however one of Prynne's arguments against the stage, in the invective which he published about eight years after the date of this piece, that "the ordinary theatrical interludes were ufually acted in over-coftly effeminate, fantaftick and gawdy apparel. Hifiriomast. p. 216. But little credit is to be given to that voluminous zealot, on a queftion of this kind. As the frequenters of the theatre were little better than incarnate devils, and the mufick in churches the bleating of brute beafts, fo a piece of coarse stuff trimmed with tinfel was probably in his opinion a most splendid and ungodly drefs. MALONE. Add at the beginning of note, p. 30. of this volume ] Though there is reafon to believe that in our author's time no fecond piece was exhibited after the principal performance, fimilar to the modern farce, it appears that a jig (a kind of ludicrous metrical compofition) was a customary entertainment, after tragedies at least.-" Now as after the cleare ftreame hath glided away in his owne current, the bottom is muddy and troubled; and as I have often feen after the finishing of Some worthy tragedy or catastrophe in the open theatres, that the fceane, after the epilogue, hath been more black, out a nefty bawdy jigge, then the most horrid scene in the play was the finkards fpeaking all things, yet no man understanding any thing; a mutiny being amongst them, yet none in danger; no tumult, and yet no quietnefs; no mifchiefe begotten, and yet mifchiefe borne; the fwiftness of fuch a torrent, the more it over-whelms, breeding the more pleafure; fo after thefe worthies and conquerors had left the field, another race was ready to begin, at which though the perfons in it were nothing equal to the former, yet the fhoutes PPEND. fhoutes and noyfe at these was as great, if not greater." A -frange Horfe-race, by Thomas Decker, 1613. [In the text therefore, inftead of-Had any fhorter pieces been exhibited after the principal performance, I should have faid-Had any fhorter pieces, of the fame kind as our modern farces, been exhibited &c.] MALONE. Add to note, p. 31. of this volume.] At a fubfequent period we hear only of dancing between the acts. See Beaumont's Verses to Fletcher on his Faithful Shepherdess: "Nor want there those who, as the boy does dance MALONE. Add to note, p. 34. of this volume.] See alfo A Sermon preached at Paule's Croffe on St. Bartholomew day, being the 24. of Auguft, 1578. By John Stockwood:-" Will not a fylthie playe with the blaft of a trumpette fooner call thyther [to the country] a thousande, than an houre's tolling of a bell bring to the fermon a hundred? Nay even heere in the citie, without it be at this place, and fome other certaine ordinarie audience, where fhall you find a reasonable company? Whereas if you reforte to the Theatre, the Curtaine, and other places of playes in the citie, you shall on the Lord's day have thefe places, with many other that I can reckon, fo full as poffible they can throng." From the fame difcourfe it appears that there were then eight theatres open. For reckoning (fays the preacher) with the leafte the gaine that is reaped of eight ordinarie places in the citie (which I knowe), by playing but once a weeke, (whereas many times they play twice, and sometimes thrice,) it amounteth to two thoufand pounds by the yeare; the fuffering of which waste must one day be answered before God." According to this account each of the eight theatres, by playing once a week, gained at the end of the year two hundred and fifty pounds; that is, near five pounds by every performance. But the account was probably exaggerated. MALONE. Add to note, p. 34. of this volume.] However, in the Refutation of the Apologie for Actors, by J. G. quarto, 1615, it is afked, "if plays do fo much good, why are they not fuffered on the Sabbath, a day felect whereon to do good." From hence it appears that plays were not permitted to be publickly publickly acted on Sundays in the time of James I.-Perhaps APPEND. Withers only alluded to private reprefentations. MALONE. Add to note", P, 35. of this volume.] So, in the Gul's Hornbook, 1609: By this time the parings of fruit and cheese are in the voyder; cards and dice lie ftinking in the fire; the guests are all up; the guilt rapiers ready to be hang'd; the French lacquey and Irish foote-boy fhrugging at the doores with their masters' hobby-horfes to ride to the new play; — that's the randevous-thither they are gallopt in poft let us take a pair of oars and row luftily after them." MALONE. : P. 58. of this vol. After l. 17.] To this laft of actors is likewife to be added the infamous Hugh Peters, who, after he had been expelled the Univerfity of Cambridge, went to London, and enrolled himself as a player in Shakspeare's company, in which he usually performed the part of a Clown t. MALONE. P. 76. of this vol. After the quotation from Shirley's prologus "Fletcher and Beaumont; who fo wrot, 66 Shakspeare no glory was allow'd, "His fun quite fhrunk beneath a cloud." MALONE. I*. The Licence for acting granted by king Charles I. to John Ann. D. 1625. Pat 1. Car. I. p. 1. n. 5. De Conceffione Charles by the grace of God, &c. To all juftices, Arbitrary Government difplayed to the Life, in the illegal Tranfactions of the late Times under the tyrannick Ufurpation of Oliver Cromwell, p. 98. edit. 1690. MALONE. *The following papers are added as tending to throw fome light on the Account of the ancient English Theatres and Actors, ante p. 1. &c. The greater part of them are now first printed. MALONE. maiors, |