We must not wonder that the players were the last to admire this rising genius; who, according to his biographer, (and surely he must know,) are more liable to envy and jealousy than persons of most other professions." Quin and Cibber could not conceal their uneasiness and disgust at his great success. The patentees also of Drury Lane and Covent Garden Theatres were seriously alarmed at the great deficiency in the receipts of their houses, and at the crowds which constantly filled the Theatre of Goodman's Fields; for Gifford, the manager there, having found the advantage from Garrick's acting, had admitted him to a full moiety of the profits; and Garrick, in consequence of his being perpetually admired, acted almost every night; and, to a long and fatiguing character in the play, he would frequently add another in the farce. Those patentees, therefore, united their effort to destroy the newly-raised seat of Theatrical empire, and, for this purpose, had recourse to law. An Act of Parliament, the eleventh George II., co-operated with their endeavours; which were further aided by Sir John Barnard, who, for some reasons, was incensed against the comedians of Goodman's Fields; in consequence of which, Garrick entered into an agreement with Fleetwood, patentee of Drury Lane, for £500 a year; and, soon after, Gifford and his wife made the best terms they could with the same proprie tor. THE BLACK-FRIARS THEATRE. THE situation of this ancient Theatre was close upon the spot where Apothecaries' Hall now stands, and there is still a place in the neighbourhood, called Playhouse Yard. The date of its erection is uncertain, but it was contemporary with the Globe, and belonged to the same company, who were called "The King's Servants," and who played alternately at each of them; that is to say, at the Globe in the Summer, and by daylight; and at the Black-friars in Winter, and by candle-light. The Blackfriars is stated to have been a private Theatre; but it is not easy to ascertain what it was that constituted this distinction. When it was first erected, it appears to have been proposed, that none but persons of respectability, or, in the phraseology of the times, "select and judicious citizens," should be admitted. To this the following passage from "Pasquil and Katharine," refers. "I like the audience that frequenteth there, With much applause: a man shall not be choak'd To the balmy jacket of a beer-brewer." These limitations were, however, soon forgot ten by the proprietors; for, probably, there were not so many citizens, of the "select and judicious" sort, as would suffice to fill the house, although we are told, that it was but a small building. The doors were, consequently, thrown open to all, and a multitude of loose characters seem to have gathered around it, as round its more celebrated contemporary. At least, such is the complaint against it in the following dialogue between Bird and Flowerdew, "two of the sanctified fraternity of Blackfriars," taken from Randolph's "Muses' Looking-glass," which was first acted at this Theatre in 1630. Flow. I have heard our friar Call Play-houses the colleges of transgression, Bird. Why then the city will, in time, be made An university of iniquity. We dwell by Black-fryers college, where I wonder Dare roost themselves there in the midst of us, So many good and well-disposed person Alleyn appears, at one time, to have been proprietor of this Theatre, as well as "The Fortune," and to have been at a considerable expense in rebuilding it, as we learn from the following entry in his diary, which is still preserved, at Dulwich College, under the date of September, 1618. "Money disbursed for the building of the Blackfriers for this year, and in anno 1617, when it first began, with the 2001. disbursed by my father; buying in of leases, charges in law, and the building itself, is £1105 : 0 : 2." AUGUSTUS VON KOTZEBUE. M. KOTZEBUE was the son of a counsellor of legation of the Duchy of Weimar. Having become, at the age of twenty, private secretary to General Bour, one of the best informed military men in Prussia, he gained the good-will of the Empress Catharine, for whom he composed some pieces, which were acted at the Theatre of the Hermitage. Induced by a romantic attachment, he married a noble Russian lady. He was quickly raised to the situation of president of the civil government at Revel, in Esthonia, and to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and was decorated with the insignia of several orders. The inde On pendence of his principles caused him, in 1795, to send in his resignation. He accepted, in 1796, the office of manager of the Theatre, at Vienna, but was soon disgusted with a situation surrounded by embarrassment and unpleasantness. his return to Russia, in 1809, he was arrested on the frontier of the empire, and conducted to Kurgau, a pretty little town in Siberia, where he enjoyed full liberty, and caused his dramatic pieces to be acted by the inhabitants. His numerous friends soon removed all impressions against him from the mind of the Emperor Paul I., and this monarch recalled him to court, and heaped favours upon him. During the first years of Alexander's reign, he travelled through France, Italy, and Germany, and, afterwards, apparently fixed his residence at Berlin, where he undertook the management of a journal; but, after some years, having cause of displeasure against Buonaparte, he retired thence to a small estate which he possessed in Esthonia. Admiration and hatred did not fail to pursue him even in his rural retreat. While the thunders of the Moniteur were levelled against him, the Agricultural Society, of London, sent him some farm |