boldly averred, not one indiscretion hath branded this paper in all the lines, this being the authentic wit that made Blackfriars an academy, where the three hours' spectacle, while Beaumont and Fletcher were presented, was usually of more advantage to the hopeful young heir, than a costly, dangerous, foreign travel, with the assistance of a governing monsieur or signor to boot ; and it cannot be denied but that the young spirits of the time, whose birth and quality made them impatient of the sourer ways of education, have from the attentive hearing these pieces, got ground in point of wit and carriage of the most severely employed students, while these recreations were digested into rules, and the very pleasure did edify. How many passable discoursing dining wits stand yet in good credit, upon the bare stock of two or three of these single scenes!" This is a low estimate of the power and capacity of the drama; and one which is a sufficient evidence of a declining taste amongst those who were perforce contented with reading plays during the silence of the stage. From "the greatest monument of the scene that time and humanity have produced," was to be learned what was of more advantage "than a costly, dangerous, foreign travel." Hence were to be acquired "wit and carriage," and "dining wits stand yet in good credit" by passing off the repartees of these dramatists as their own. Shirley knew the character of those whom he addressed in this pre

face. In the contentions of that tragical age few of the serious thinkers would open a play-book at all. To the gay cavaliers, Beaumont and Fletcher would perhaps be more welcome than Shakspere; and Shirley tells us the grounds upon which they were to be admired. But assuredly this is not oblivion of Shakspere.

CHAPTER III.

THE theatres were thrown open at the Restoration. Malone, in his "Historical Account of the English Stage," informs us, that "in the latter end of the year 1659, some months before the restoration of King Charles II., the theatres, which had been suppressed during the usurpation, began to revive, and several plays were performed at the Red Bull in St. John's Street, in that and the following years, before the return of the King." He then adds, that in June, 1660, three companies seem to have been formed, including that of the Red Bull; and he enters into a history of the contests between the Master of the Revels, and Killigrew and Davenant, who had received a patent from the king for the exclusive performance of dramatic entertainments. It is scarcely necessary for us to pursue the details of this contest, which, as is well known,

terminated in the permanent establishment of two theatres only in London. Malone has ransacked

the very irregular series of papers connected with the office of Sir Henry Herbert, who appears to have kept an eye upon theatrical performances with a view to demanding his fees if he should be supported by the higher powers. From these, and other sources, such as the List of Downes, the prompter of the principal plays acted by Killigrew's company, Malone infers, that "such was the lamentable taste of those times that the plays of Fletcher, Jonson, and Shirley were much oftener exhibited than those of Shakspere." The plays acted by this company, as he collects from these documents, were Henry IV., Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, and Julius Cæsar. At Davenant's theatre, which boasted of the great actor Betterton, we learn from Malone, that the plays performed were Pericles, Macbeth, The Tempest, Lear, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Henry VIII., Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew, Henry V. Malone does not do justice to the value of his own documents, for, when he gives us one list, he points out that there are only three plays of Shakspere--"a melancholy proof" of his decline; and at another list he shakes his head, reciting" the following plays of Shakspeare, and these only.” Now it appears to us that, if any proof were wanting of the wonderful hold which Shakspere had taken of the English mind, under circumstances the most adverse to his con

tinued popularity, it would be found in these imperfect lists, which do not extend over more than eight or nine years. Here are absolutely fourteen plays of Shakspere revived-for that is the phrase -in an age which was prolific of its own authors, adapting themselves to a new school of courtly taste. All the indirect testimony, however meagre, exhibits the enduring popularity of Shakspere. Killigrew's new theatre in Drury Lane is opened with Henry IV. Within a few months after the Restoration, when heading and hanging are going forward, Pepys relates that he went to see Othello.

In 1661, he is attracted by Romeo and Juliet; and, in 1662, we have an entry in his diary, with his famous criticism: "To the King's Theatre, where we saw Midsummer's Night's Dream, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life." Here, upon unquestionable authority, we have a fifteenth play added to the fourteen previously cited. But why need we search amongst such chance entries for evidence of the reputation of Shakspere immediately after the Restoration? Those who talk of Shakspere as emerging some century ago into celebrity after having fallen into neglect for a lengthened period; those who flippantly affirm, that "the preface of Pope was the first thing that procured general admiration for his works," are singularly ignorant of the commonest passages of literary history. To the

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vague and random assertions and assumptions, whether old or new, about the neglect into which Shakspere had fallen as a popular dramatist, may be opposed the most distinct testimony of one, especially, who was a most accurate and minute chronicler of the public taste. Colley Cibber, who himself became an actor, in 1690, in the one privileged company of London of which Betterton was the head-a company formed out of the united strength of the two companies which had been established at the Restoration describes the state of the stage at the period of the first revival of dramatic performances: "Besides their being thorough masters of their art, these actors set forward with two critical advantages, which perhaps may never happen again in many ages." One of the advantages he mentions, but a secondary one, was, "that before the Restoration no actresses had ever been seen upon the English stage." But the chief advantage was, "their immediate opening after the so long interdiction of plays during the civil war and the anarchy that followed it." He then goes on to say, 66 What eager appetites from so long a fast must the guests of those times have had to that high and fresh variety of entertainments!" Provided by whom? By the combined variety of Jonson, and Fletcher, and Massinger, and Ford, and Shirley, and a host of other writers, whose attractive fare was to be presented to the eager guests after so long a fast? No. The high entertain