XXXV. THEATRES AND MUSIC.

ALTHOUGH the earliest public Theatres seem to have been established during the continuance of a pertinacious struggle between the players and play-lovers on the one side, and the civic power on the other (who held the stage and everything connected with it in especial dislike), they had become very numerous by the time the great dramatic writers, with Shakspere at their head, were prepared to raise them into their true importance and value. For their success in this struggle the players were evidently indebted to the court favour they enjoyed, which, in 1583, was signalised by Elizabeth's choosing, from among the different companies accustomed to perform before her, twelve of the best actors, and forming them into a company, under her own especial patronage. The chief London theatres at that period were these:-The Theatre, especially so called, in Shoreditch, and the Curtain close by; Paris Garden, Bankside, chiefly used as a Bear Garden, but also for the performance of plays, as Dekker, in his satire upon Jonson, makes the latter say he had played Zulziman there; the Blackfriars, Whitefriars, Salisbury Court, Rose, Hope, Swan, Newington, Red Bull, and Cockpit or Phoenix in Drury Lane. Various places of minor importance were also dignified by the name of Theatre, as the Inn Yard of the 'Bel Savage.' We learn what was the number of actors at the same time in the metropolis, from a letter to Secretary Walsingham, in 1586, which, after referring to the different companies, as the Queen's, Lord Leicester's, Lord Oxford's, Lord Nottingham's, and other noblemen's then performing, states the number of players as not less than two hundred. Of these theatres, the Blackfriars is the one that most deeply interests us: it was there, in all probability, Shakspere made his first appearance both as actor and writer; it was there, certainly, that he established his reputation. The Blackfriars (and, it is supposed, others also of those we have mentioned, as the Curtain) were erected immediately after-and in consequence of the entire expulsion of players from the limits of the City by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in 1575; who, however, gained little more by the movement than the exhibition of a kind of successful contempt of their authority, in the erection of such houses as the Theatre in the Blackfriars, under their very noses, but, owing to the old monastic privileges, beyond their jurisdiction. Two companies, it appears, had the right of playing at this house, the one that Shakspere belonged to (the Lord Chamberlain's) and that of the Children of the Chapel, afterwards (on James's accession) known as the Children of Her Majesty's Revels, who played regular pieces the same as their older rivals; as, for instance, Ben Jonson's 'Case is Altered,' in 1599, and his 'Cynthia's Revels,' in 1600. The proprietor of the Blackfriars, in fee, was Richard Burbage; and he probably let the theatre to the Children of the Revels, in the summer season, whilst he and his brother shareholders acted at the Globe. The noticeable passage in 'Hamlet' refers to them, and to the neglect experienced by the players at some particular period, through the overweening admiration of the public for these tiny representatives of the drama; who, it should seem, also, had been accustomed to injure the regular theatres by more direct modes of attack. "There is, sir," says Rosencrantz, "an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for 't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages (so they call them) that many wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither,

And in the kindly and thoughtful spirit of Hamlet's reply there is evidence that the complaint may have been made in no selfish spirit :-" Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing?" he asks. “Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players (as it is like most, if their means are no better), their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession?" The Blackfriars was one of those theatres distinguished by the title of private, and which were entirely roofed over, instead of, as in those which were public, merely the stage portion; which had a pit instead of a mere enclosed yard; in which performances took place by candle-light; and where the visitors, being altogether of a higher class, enjoyed especial accommodations; among which, the right to sit on the stage during the progress of the play was the feature most peculiar to the time. In the public theatres this last-mentioned custom also prevailed; influential persons no doubt being permitted to do so without comment, and impudent ones taking permission in order to show their impudence, or to display their new dresses to the audience in all their bravery. The stools used by such persons were hired at sixpence each. The Blackfriars was probably pulled down soon after the permanent close of the Theatres, during the Commonwealth, by the Puritans; the locality is still marked by the name Playhouse Yard, near Apothecaries' Hall.

The other Theatre which Shakspere has bound so closely up with his own history, and to which, therefore, a similar kind of interest is attached, was the Globe, erected about 1593; and it is highly probable, in consequence of the growing prosperity of the Lord Chamberlain's servants, who desired a roomier house, a more public field for exertion. This was the largest and best of the theatres yet raised; as is clear from the care of Alleyn and Henslowe, in the erection of the Fortune, soon after, on a still larger scale, to imitate all its arrangements, excepting the shape. Yet what the Globe was, Shakspere himself has told us in the preliminary chorus to 'Henry the Fifth:'

"Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts,"

is the bidding of the poet; and he spoke to an audience who could do even better than that, who could forget them altogether, in their apprehension of the spiritual grandeur and magnificence that was then with them in the cockpit. It was burnt down in 1613, and rebuilt the next year, when Taylor, the water-poet, noticing it,

Like the Blackfriars, it was most probably pulled down during the Commonwealth. The Fortune Theatre, built about 1599, proved truly a fortune to its chief owner, Alleyn, the actor, and founder of Dulwich College. Here the Lord Admiral's servants performed. From the indenture between Alleyn and Henslowe, his co-partner, on the one side, and the builder, Street, on the other, we learn that the house had three tiers, consisting of boxes, rooms, and galleries; that there were "two-penny rooms," and "gentlemen's;" that the width of the stage was forty-three feet, and the depth

thirty-nine and a half, including, however, we should presume, the 'tiring house at the back.

The price of admission seems to have varied not only at the different theatres, but at different times in the same theatre. Ben Jonson has told us in an amusing passage what they were in 1614, when his 'Bartholomew Fair' was acted at the Hope. In the Induction he says, "It shall be lawful for any man to judge his six-pennyworth, his twelve-pennyworth, so to his eighteenpence, two shillings, halfa-crown, to the value of his place, provided always his place get not above his wit." But Dekker speaks of your groundling and gallery commoner buying his sport for a penny; and other writers also of the "penny bench theatres," referring most likely to theatres of a lower grade than any we have enumerated. Of moveable painted scenes, the theatres of the Shaksperian era were not entirely deficient; but in the earliest period we had "Thebes written in great letters on an old door," when the audience were desired to understand the scene lay in that place, and which Sir Philip Sydney ridicules. Hence the briefest, but most significant of stage directions in Selimus, Emperor of the Turks,' published in 1594, where, when the hero is conveying his father's dead body in solemn state to the Temple of Mahomet, all parties are quietly told to " suppose the Temple of Mahomet." A great many difficulties might be got rid of by this principle, which, however, was not stretched too far. Our forefathers were not required to suppose the descent of the cauldron in Macbeth,' as there were trap-doors; nay, upon occasion, still more difficult feats of ingenuity were accomplished. In the directions to Greene's 'Alphonsus' we read, "after you have sounded thrice, let Venus be let down from the top of the stage, and when she is down, say;" again, in another part, "Exit Venus. Or, if you can conveniently, let a chair come down from the top of the stage, and draw her up." In dresses and properties the stage of the Shaksperian era seems to have been rich enough to compare with the stage of the present day; nay, it is probable that, in comparison with the size of its theatres, and the number of its actors, it surpassed ours in the splendour and value of the wardrobe. In Henslowe's Inventory,' we find, among other and still more expensive items of dress, one of a "Robe for to go invisible," which, with a gown, cost 31. 108. of the money of the sixteenth century.

In 1642 appeared an ordinance of the Long Parliament, commanding the cessation of plays, on the ground that "public sports do not well agree with public calamities, nor public stage-plays with the seasons of humiliation, this being an exercise of sad and pious solemnity, and the other being spectacles of pleasure, too commonly expressing lascivious mirth and levity." For a time the ordinance was obeyed, though of course a cruel one to the actors, whose means of existence were annihilated; but gradually theatres opened again, first in one quarter and then in another, and by 1647 the ordinance seems to have been almost forgotten. A second then appeared, dealing in a more summary mode with all offenders, directing the governing powers and magistracy of London and adjoining counties to enter houses where performances were taking place, arrest the players, and commit them for trial at the next sessions, there to be "punished as rogues, according to law." Even this being found insufficient, the Lords and Commons met and debated the matter warmly, and at last an Act was passed on the 11th of February, 1648, which, after denouncing stageplays, interludes, and common plays as "the occasion of many and sundry great vices and disorders, tending to the high provocation of God's wrath and displeasure, which lies heavy upon this kingdom," ordained the demolition of all stage galleries, seats and boxes used for performances, and the punishment of convicted players

with open and public whipping for the first offence, and with still severer penalties for a second. No wonder we hear of so many of the players joining the ranks of the Cavaliers during the Civil War, where, it may be added, they are understood to have honourably distinguished themselves. Some few actors, however, appear to have kept together, and acted occasionally in private at the residences of noblemen and others in the vicinity of London without interruption: Holland House was one of these places. Under Cromwell there was still greater toleration, as Sir William D'Avenant gave "entertainments of declamation and music, after the manner of the ancients, at Rutland House, Charter House Square," in 1656, and in 1658 re-opened the Cockpit in Drury Lane, where he performed without molestation until the Restoration. A new era then opened for the drama.

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of the restored English theatre was its extraordinary facility for extracting the evil out of everything it touched. The Elizabethan drama was not forgotten-far from it; there is scarcely a grossness in those old writers which the new ones did not now imitate and greatly improve upon; they only forgot the truth and vividness of character and life that accompanied them their high sentiment, their noble passions, their wonderful ever-gushing fount of poetry. So again with the French drama, which they so much admired: they borrowed from it an air of conventional stiffness and formality which did not sit altogether ungracefully on a truly great poet like Corneille, whose spirit was cast in the antique mould; but that air they mistook for him. Lastly, when they began to turn their eyes homewards, and inquire what materials for an English play English society might afford, nothing can be more perfect than the tact with which, in their comedies for instance, they avoided whatever was solid, or permanent, or productive of true genial humour and universal wit. Universal popularity among playgoers was theirs-unbounded the royal admiration and approval of their works. Theatres filled-in opposition to the puritan spirit it became a proof of loyalty to attend them-managers smiled, there was no stirring in society but they met the echoes of their own wit. D'Avenant was the first to profit by so cheering a state of things, both as manager and author, and was certainly well fitted for his position. His residence in France had brought his tastes into a state of proper harmony with those of his sovereign; and the personal favour he enjoyed with Charles II. offered peculiar opportunities for the diffusion of those tastes. He obtained a licence (the origin of the existing Covent Garden patent right, as the licence granted at the same period to Killigrew is of that of Drury Lane) and built a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1662, where, instead of the old half-lighted houses, wax-candles shed a brilliant blaze around, moveable painted scenes were introduced-music, operas, and an orchestra. But these novelties were as nothing compared to that of the appearance of actresses on the stage, as a part of the regular company; a feature so amazingly relished by Charles and his courtiers (and, indeed, it had its peculiar advantages for them, as we learn from the list of their female favourites) that certain pieces-we need not describe then-were occasionally played by females alone. It is pleasant to turn for a moment from these reminiscences to some of a purer character. Shakspere's plays, or at least so much of them as met the approval of D'Avenant, were played in a style of high excellence. Many of the actors were men of the old school, the remnants of the former companies; and one of them, Betterton, has, from all we can learn, never been surpassed in the performance of some of the grandest of the Shaksperean creations. Comedy gradually lost its impurity, improving at the same time in excellences of a more positive character. The English opera, too, must not be forgotten in reckoning the demands of the era

in question upon our attention. In 1673 appeared Shadwell's 'Psyche,' with music by Matthew Lock; and some years later Dryden's, or rather Purcell's, 'King Arthur,' for the only valuable portion of the work is the composer's. Other works by the same composer followed; then came Arne, and Jackson, and Linley, and Dibdin, and Shield, and Storace, and gave us that school of genuine national music which we for a time almost forgot, but which is now, we trust, reviving.

The Italian Opera, as something exotic in its origin, and still needing the shelter of the aristocratic conservatory in which it was first planted, for its due support, demands separate notice. The first building in the Haymarket was erected by Vanbrugh at the beginning of the last century, the funds having been provided by a numerous body of subscribers, among whom were the chief members of the Kit-Cat Club. A rival house to Drury Lane, then enjoying a career of remarkable prosperity, was the object of the builder, whose scheme for its attainment was altogether a bold one; namely, that of joining himself and Congreve as writers and managers to such a company as Betterton and his companions, then playing at the Tennis Court, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as actors. All parties were sanguine as to success; the players, it appears, fancying the reputation of their literary allies, and the grandeur of the new house, would cause the whole town to be attracted. "In this golden dream they however found themselves miserably deceived and disappointed, as on the opening of the grand and superb structure it was immediately discovered that almost every quality and convenience of a good theatre had been sacrificed and neglected, to show the spectator a vast triumphal piece of architecture; and that the best play was less capable of delighting the auditor here than it would be in the plain and unadorned house they had just come from; for what with their vast columns, their gilded cornices and immoderately high roof, scarce one word in ten could be distinctly heard.” * The very defects of the house, however, helped to promote certain schemes of Vanbrugh's in a new quarter. In July, 1703, interludes and musical entertainments of singing and dancing had been given in Italian at York Buildings. Two years after, a regular dramatic Italian piece, with the narrative and dialogue in recitative, but translated, and performed by English actors and singers, was brought out at Drury Lane. Such were the cautious steps by which the Italian Opera stole into this country. Vanbrugh, in the same year, 1705, opened the new theatre, when, in addition to the English play by Betterton's company, there was presented "Signor Giacomo Greber's 'Loves of Ergosto,' set to Italian music." But the house failed the very first season, not even the attraction, towards its close, so characteristic of the two managers, of the performance of 'Love for Love,' by women, serving to draw sufficient audiences for above three nights. Betterton and his company returned to Lincoln's Inn. The Italian Opera was more and more assiduously cultivated in succeeding seasons to prevent the utter ruin of the house from the continuous failure of the English performances; in 1708, Operas were played in which Italian and native singers were mingled; and, in 1710, the Italian Opera was introduced entire at last, Almahide ' having been performed that year in the foreign language, by foreign performers. This house was burnt down in 1789; the present one was begun in the following year, from the designs of Michael Novosielski; altered and enlarged, and the Pall Mall and Haymarket front built, by Nash and Repton, in 1819.

About ten years ago there were only three theatres licensed to play the regular drama. On the individual histories of these three theatres we cannot attempt to enter,

* Wilkinson's 'Londina Illustrata.'