| maior, and before that was donne the seconde came; and the firste went into the Watergate Streete, and from thense unto Bridge Streete, and so one after an other 'till all the pagiantes weare played appoynted for the firste daye, and so likewise for the seconde and the thirde daye. These pagiantes or carige was a hyghe place made like a every companye broughte forthe theire pagiant, wch was the cariage or place wch the played in; and before these playes weare played, there was a man wch did ride, as I take it, upon St Georges daye throughe the Cittie, and there published the tyme and the matter of the playes in breeife: the weare played upon Mondaye, Tuesday, and Wensedaye in Whitson weeke. And thei first be-howse with 2 rowmes, beinge open on the ganne at the Abbaye gates; and when the firste pagiante was played at the Abbaye gates, then it was wheled from thense to the Pentice, at the hyghe Crosse, before the tope; the lower rowme theie apparrelled and dressed themselves, and the higher rowme theie played, and thei stoode upon vi wheeles." CHAPTER II. BIBLE HISTORIES AND MORALITIES. In We have very distinct evidence that stories | but none comes away reformed in manners. from the Sacred Scriptures, in character perhaps very little different, from the ancient Mysteries, were performed upon the London stage at a period when classical histories, romantic legends, and comedies of intrigue, attracted numerous audiences both in the capital and the provinces. At the period which immediately preceded the true drama there was a fierce controversy on the subject of theatrical exhibitions; and from the very rare tracts then published we are enabled to form a tolerably accurate estimate of the character of the early theatre. one of these tracts, which appeared in 1580, entitled 'A Second and Third Blast of Retrait from Plaies and Theaters,' we have the following passage:-" The reverend word of God, and histories of the Bible, set forth on the stage by these blasphemous players, are so corrupted by their gestures of scurrility, and so interlaced with unclean and whorish speeches, that it is not possible to draw any profit out of the doctrine of their spiritual moralities. For that they exhibit under laughing that which ought to be taught and received reverendly. So that their auditory may return made merry in mind, And of all abuses this is most undecent and intolerable, to suffer holy things to be handled by men so profane, and defiled by interposition of dissolute words." (Page 103.) Those who have read the ancient Mysteries, and even the productions of Bishop Bale which appeared not thirty years before this was written, will agree that the players ought not wholly to have the blame of the "interposition of dissolute words." But unquestionably it was a great abuse to have "histories of the Bible set forth on the stage;" for the use and advantage of such dramatic histories had altogether ceased. Indeed, although scriptural subjects might have continued to have been represented in 1580, we apprehend that they were principally taken from apocryphal stories, which were regarded with little reverence even by those who were most earnest in their hostility to the stage. Of such a character is the very curious play, printed in 1565, entitled 'A pretie new Enterlude, both pithie and pleasaunt, of the story of King Daryus, being taken out of the third and fourth chapter of the third book of Esdras.' "The Prolocutor" first comes forward to explain the object of "The worthy Entertainment of King Daryus:” "Good people, hark, and give ear awhile, For of this enterlude I will declare the style. A certain king to you we shall bring in Whose name was Darius, good and virtuous; This king commanded a feast to be made, And at that banquet many people had. And when the king in counsel was set Now silence I desire you therefore, The stage-direction then says, "The Pro- "How now, my masters; how goeth the world now? I come gladly to talk with you." And in a most extraordinary manner he does talk; swaggering and bullying as if the whole world was at his command, till * Ben Jonson's Works, Note on The Devil is an Ass.' Charity comes in, and reads him a very severe lecture upon the impropriety of his deportment. It is of little avail; for two friends of Iniquity-Importunity and Pardrive Charity off the stage. Then Equity tiality-come to his assistance, and fairly enters to take up the quarrel against Iniquity and his fellows; but Equity is no match for them, and they all make way for King Darius. This very long scene has nothing whatever to do with the main action of the piece, or rather what professes to be its action. Its tediousness is relieved by the Vice, who, however dull was his profligacy, contrived to make the audience laugh by the whisking of his tail and the brandishing of his sword, assisted no doubt by some wellknown chuckle like that of the Punch of our own days. King Darius, however, at length comes with all his Council; and most capital names do his chief councillors bear, not unworthy to be adopted even in courts of greater refinement-Perplexity and Curiosity. The whole business of this scene of King Darius is to present a feast to the admiring spectators. Up to the present day the English audience delights in a feast, and will endure that two men should sit upon the stage for a quarter of an hour, uttering the most unrepeatable stupidity, provided they seem to pick real chicken-bones and drink real port. The Darius of the interlude feasted whole nations-upon the representative system; and here Ethiopia, Persia, Judah, and Media eat their fill, and are very grateful. But feasts must have their end; and so the curtain closes upon the eaters, and Iniquity" cometh in singing: ". 66 'La, soule, soule, fa, my, re, re, I miss a note I dare well say: I should have been low when I was so high; Again come his bottle-holders, Importunity and Partiality; and in the course of their gabble Iniquity tells them that the Pope is his father. Unhappily his supporters go out; and then Equity attacks him alone. Loud is their debate; and faster and more furious is the talk when Constancy and Charity come in. The matter, however, ends seriously; and, they resolving that it is useless to argue longer with this impenitent sinner, "somebody casts fire to Iniquity," and he departs in a tempest of squibs and crackers. The business of the play now at length begins. Darius tells his attendants that the three men who kept his chamber while he slept woke him by their disputing and murmuring,"Every man to say a weightier matter than the other." The subject of their dispute was, what is the strongest thing; and their answers, as we are informed by the King's attendants, had been reduced to writing: "The sentence of the first man is this, other The third also I will declare- Of their respective texts the three young men are then called in to make exposition; and certainly, whatever defects of manners were exhibited by the audiences of that day, they must have possessed the virtue of patience in a remarkable degree to have enabled them to sit out these most prolix harangues. But they have an end; and the king declares Zorobabel to be deserving of signal honours, in his demonstration that, of all things, woman is the strongest. A metrical prayer for Queen Elizabeth, uttered by Constancy, dismisses the audience to their homes*. The most precise and interesting account which we possess of one of the earliest of the theatrical performances is from the recollection of a man who was born in the same year as William Shakspere. In 1639 R. W. (R. Willis), stating his age to be seventy-five, published a little volume, called 'Mount Tabor,' which contains a passage which is essential to be given in any history or sketch of the early stage : *There is a copy of this very curious production in the Garrick Collection of Plays in the British Museum; and a transcript of Garrick's copy is in the Bodleian Library. "UPON A STAGE PLAY, WHICH I SAW WHEN I WAS A CHILD. The "In the city of Gloucester the manner is (as I think it is in other like corporations) that, when players of interludes come to town, they first attend the mayor to inform him what nobleman's servants they are, and so to get license for their public playing; and if the mayor like the actors, or would show respect to their lord and master, he appoints them to play their first play before himself and the aldermen and common council of the city; and that is called the mayor's play, where every one that will comes in without money, the mayor giving the players a reward as he thinks fit, to show respect unto them. At such a play my father took me with him, and made me stand between his legs, as he sat upon one of the benches, where we saw and heard very well. play was called 'The Cradle of Security,' wherein was personated a king or some great prince, with his courtiers of several kinds, amongst which three ladies were in special grace with him, and they, keeping him in delight and pleasures, drew him from his graver counsellors, hearing of sermons, and listening to good counsel and admonitions, that in the end they got him to lie down in a cradle upon the stage, where these three ladies, joining in a sweet song, rocked him asleep, that he snorted again, and in the mean time closely conveyed under the clothes wherewithal he was covered a vizard like a swine's snout upon his face, with three wire chains fastened thereunto, the other end whereof being holden severally by those three ladies, who fall to singing again, and then discovered his face, that the spectator might see how they had transformed him going on with their singing. Whilst all this was acting, there came forth of another door at the farthest end of the stage two old men, the one in blue, with a sergeant-at-arms his mace on his shoulder, the other in red, with a drawn sword in his hand, and leaning with the other hand upon the other's shoulder, and so they two went along in a soft pace, round about by the skirt of the stage, till at last they came to the cradle, when all the court was in greatest jollity, and then the|sion in me, that when I came towards man's foremost old man with his mace stroke a estate it was as fresh in my memory as if fearful blow upon the cradle, whereat all I had seen it newly acted." the courtiers, with the three ladies and the vizard, all vanished; and the desolate prince, starting up barefaced, and finding himself thus sent for to judgment, made a lamentable complaint of his miserable case, and so was carried away by wicked spirits. This prince did personate in the moral the wicked of the world; the three ladies, pride, covetousness, and luxury; the two old men the end of the world and the last judgment. This sight took such impres It would appear from Willis's description that 'The Cradle of Security' was for the most part dumb show. It is probable that he was present at its performance at Gloucester when he was six or seven years of age. It evidently belongs to that class of moral plays which were of the simplest construction. And yet it was popular long after the English drama had reached its highest eminence. 66 CHAPTER III. IN a later period of the stage, when the men hath decayed, and they are thought "Your players be come, And do attend your honour's pleasure here." "Enter two of the players with packs at their backs, and a boy." To the question of the lord,— 66 "Now, sirs, what store of plays have you?"the Clown answers, Marry, my lord, you may have a tragical or a commodity, or what you will;" for which ignorance the other player rebukes the Clown, saying, "A comedy, thou shouldst say: zounds! thou 'lt shame us all.” Whether this picture belongs to an earlier period of the stage than the similar scene in Shakspere's Induction,' or whether Shakspere was familiar with a better order of players, it is clear that in his scene the players appear as persons of somewhat more importance, and are treated with more respect : "Lord. Sirrah, go see what trumpet 't is Belike, some noble gentleman, that means, Now, fellows, you are welcome. 2 Play. So please your lordship to accept Lord. With all my heart." The lord, however, even in this scene, gives his order, "Take them to the buttery," a proof that the itinerant companies were classed little above menials. Of the performances of an itinerant company at this period we will select an example of "Comedy." con 'A Pleasant Comedie called Common Conditions' is neither a Mystery nor a Moral Play. It dispenses with impersonations of Good and Evil; Iniquity holds no troversy with Charity, and the Devil is not brought in to buffet or to be buffeted. The play is written in rhymed verse, and The matter is very ambitiously written. "set out with sweetness of words, fitness of epithets, with metaphors, allegories, hy It perboles, amphibologies, similitude."* is a dramatized romance, of which the title expresses that it represents a possible aspect of human life; and the name of the chief character, Common Conditions, from which the play derives its title, would import that he does not belong to the supernatural or allegorical class of personages. Mr. Collier, in his History of Dramatic Poetry,' expresses an opinion that the character of Common Conditions is the Vice of the performance. It appears to us, on the contrary, that the ordinary craft of a cunning knave—a little, restless, tricky servant-works out all the action, in the same way that the Vice had formerly interfered with it in the moral plays; but that he is essentially and purposely distinguished from the Vice. Mr. Collier also calls this play merely an interlude: it appears to us in its outward form to be as much a comedy as the "Winter's Tale.' Three tinkers appear upon the stage, singing, Hey tisty toisty, tinkers good fellows they be; In stopping of one hole, they used to make three." These worthies are called Drift, Unthrift, and Shift; and, trade being bad with them, they agree to better it by a little robbing. Unthrift tells his companions, "But, masters, wot ye what? I have heard news about the court this day, That there is a gentleman with a lady gone away; And have with them a little parasite full of money and coin." These travellers the tinkers agree to rob; and we have here an example of the readiness of the stage to indulge in satire. The purveyors who, a few years later, were denounced in Parliament, are, we suppose, here pointed at. Shift says, "We will take away their purses, and say we do it by commission," to which Drift replies, "Who made a commissioner of you? If thou make no better answer at the bar, thou wilt hang, I tell thee true." |