VOL. I. This fingular curiofity was met with in the library of Dul- PROLEGOwich college, where it had remained unnoticed from the MENA. time of Alleyn who founded that society, and was himself the chief or only proprietor of the Fortune play-house. The Platt (for fo it is called) is fairly written out on pafteboard in a large hand, and undoubtedly contained directions appointed to be stuck up near the prompter's ftation. It has an oblong hole in its centre, fufficient to admit a wooden peg; and has been converted into a cover for an anonymous manufcript play entitled The Tell-tale. From this cover d I made the preceding tranfcript; and the best conjectures I am able to form about its fuppofed purpofe and operation, are as follows. It is certainly (according to its title) the ground-work of a motley exhibition, in which the heinoufnefs of the feven deadly fins was exemplified by aid of fcenes and circumstances adapted from different dramas, and connected by means of chorufes or occafional speakers. As the first part of this extraordinary entertainment is wanting, I cannot promife myfelf the most complete fuccefs in my attempts to explain the nature of it. The period is not exactly fixed at which moralities gave way to the introduction of regular tragedies and comedies. Perhaps indeed this change was not effected on a sudden, but the audiences were to be gradually weaned from their accustomed modes of amusement. The neceffity of half indulging and half repreffing a grofs and vicious tafte, might have given rife to fuch pieces of dramatick patch-work as this. Even the most rigid puritans might have been content to behold exhibitions in which Pagan hiftories were rendered subfervient to Chriftian purpofes. The dullness of the intervening homilift would have half abfolved the deadly fin of the poet. A fainted audience would have been tempted to think the reprefentation of Othello laudable, provided the piece NOTES. On the outfide of the cover is written, "The Book and Platt, &c." Our antient audiences were no strangers to the established catalogue of mortal offences. Claudio, in Measure for Meafure, declares to Ifabella that of the deadly feven his fin was the leaft. Spenfer, F. Q. canto IV. has perfonified them all; and the Jefuits, in the time of Shakspeare, pretended to caft them out in the hape of those animals that most resembled them. See note on K. Lear, laft edit. vol. ix. p. 467. were PROLEGO- VOL. I. were at once heightened and moralized by choruses spoken in the characters of Ireton and Cromwell.-Let it be remembered, however, that to perform several short and diftinct plays in the courfe of the fame evening, was a practice continued much below the imagined date of this theatrical directory. Shakspeare's Yorkshire Tragedy was one out of four pieces acted together; and Beaumont and Fletcher's works fupply a further proof of the existence of the fame cuftom. This Platt of the fecond part of the feven deadly fins" feems to be formed out of three plays only, viz. Lord Buckhurft's Gorboduc, and two others with which we are utterly unacquainted, Sardanapalus and Tereus. It is eafy to conceive how the different fins might be expofed in the conduct of the feveral heroes of thefe pieces. Thus Porrex through Envy deftroys his brother-Sardanapalus was a martyr to his foth: Et venere, et cænis, et pluma Sardanapali, Juv. Sat. x. Tereus gratified his lechery by committing a rape on his wife's fifter. I mention thefe three only, because it is apparent that the danger of the four preceding vices had been illuftrated in the former part of the fame entertainment. "These three put back the other four," as already done with, at the opening of the prefent exhibition. Likewife Envy croffes the ftage before the drama of Gorboduc, and Sloth and Lechery appear before thofe of Sardanapalus and Tereus.-It is probable alfo that these different perfonages might be meant to appear as NOTE. f Tercus.] Some tragedy on this fubject moft probably had existed in the time of Shakspeare, who feldom alludes to fables with which his audience were not as well acquainted as himself. In Cymbeline he obferves that Imogen had been reading the tale of Tereus, where Philomel &c. An allufion to the fame ftory occurs again in Titus Andronicus. A Latin tragedy entitled Progne was acted at Oxford when Queen Elizabeth was there in 1566. See Wood's Hift. Ant. Un Oxon. lib. I. p. 287. col. z. Heywood, in his Apology for Actors, 1610, has the following paffage, from which we may fuppofe that fome tragedy written. on the ftory of Sardanapalus was once in poffeffion of the stage. "Art thou inclined to luft? Behold the fall of the Tarquins in the Rape of Lucrece; the guerdon of luxury in the death of Sarda napalus; &c." See alfo note z ante p. 60. in a vifion to King Henry VI. while he flept; and that as of- VOL. I. ten as he awaked, he introduced fome particular comment on PROLEGO each preceding occurrence. His piety would well enough MENA. entitle him to fuch an office. In this talk he was occafionally feconded by Lidgate the monk of Bury, whofe age, learning, and experience, might be fuppofed to give equal weight to his admonitions. The latter cetrainly, at his final exit, made a formal addrefs to the spectators. As I have obferved that only particular fcenes from these dramas appear to have been employed, fo probably even these were altered as well as curtailed. We look in vain for the names of Lucius and Damafus in the lift of perfons prefixed. to the tragedy of Gorboduc. These new characters might have been added, to throw the materials that compofed the laft act into narrative, and thereby fhorten the reprefentation; or perhaps all was tragick pantomime, or dumb fhow %, except the alternate monologues of Henry and Lidgate; for from the Troie Boke of the latter I learn that the reciters of dramatick pieces were once diftinct from the acting performers or gefticulators. But at what period this practice (which was perhaps the parent of all the pageantry and dumb shows in theatrical pieces during the reign of Elizabeth) was begun or difcontinued, I believe (like many customs of greater importance) is not to be determined. "In the theatre there was a small aulter "Amyddes fette that was halfe circuler "Which into easte of custome was directe "Upon the which a pulpet was erecte "And therein ftode an auncient poete "For to reherse by rethorykes fwete "The noble dedes that were hystoryall "Of kynges and prynces for memoryall, "And of these olde worthy emperours "The great empryfe eke of conquerours, "And how they gat in Martes hye honour "The lawrer grene for fyne of their labour, NOTE. I am led to this fuppofition by obferving that Lord Buckhurft's Gorboduc could by no means furnish fuch dialogue as many of these fituations would require; nor does the fucceffion of fcenes, enumerated above, by any means correfpond with that of the fame tragedy. "The VOL. I. PROLEGOMENA. "The palme of knighthood diferved by old date, "And after that with chere and face pale, By compaffynge of fraud or falfe treason, "And how their honour downward gan decline, "Words of joye or of heavineffe, "Meaning and chere beneth of them playing "From poynt to poynt was alway answering; "Now trifte, now glad, now hevy, and now light, "And face ychaungid with a fodeyne flyght "So craftely they coulde them transfygure, "Now to fynge and fodaynely to wepe "So well they could their obfervaunces kepe. "And this was done, &c."- Troie Boke, B. ii. c. 12: I think Gravina has somewhere alluded to the fame con- Vop. I. trivance in the rude exhibitions of very early dramatick pieces. PROLEGOIt may be observed, that though Lidgate affures us both MENA. tragedies and comedies were thus reprefented in the city of Troy, yet Guido of Colonna (a civilian and poet of Meffina in Sicily) whom he has fometimes very closely followed, makes mention of no fuch exhibitions. The cuftom however might have been prevalent here, and it is probable that Lidgate, like Shakspeare, made no fcruple of attributing to a foreign country the pecularities of his own. To conclude, the mysterious fragment of ancient stagedirections, which gave rife to the prefent remarks, must have been defigned for the ufe of those who were familiarly acquainted with each other, as fometimes, inftead of the furame of a performer, we only meet with Ned or Nich . Let me add, that on the whole this paper describes a species of dramatick entertainment of which no memorial is preserved in any annals of the English stage. STEEVENS. P. 76. NOTES. From this paper we may infer, with fome degree of certainty, that the following characters were reprefented by the following actors: • The names marked with an asterisk occur on the lift of the ori ginal performers in the plays of Shakspeare. This perfomer, and Kit. i. e. Chriftopher Beefton, who appears in this exhibition as an attendant Lord, belonged to the fame company as Burbage, Condell, &c. See B. Jonfon's Every Man in his Humour. VOL. I. F Tereus. |