they afted there ufually by daylight, it was probably the fummer theatre. The exhibitions here feem to have been more frequent than at Black-friars, at least till the year 1604 or 1605, when the Bank-fide appears to have become lefs fafhionable, and lefs frequented than it formerly had been. Many of our ancient dramatic pieces were performed in the yards of carriers' inns, in which, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the comedians, who then first united themselves in companies, erected an occafional stage *. The form of these temporary playhoufes feems to be preferved in our modern theatre. The galleries are, in both, ranged over each other on three fides of the building. The fmall rooms under the lowest of thefe galleries, answer to our prefent boxes; and it is obfervable that thefe, even in theatres which were built in a fubfequent period exprefsly for dramatic exhibitions, ftill retained their old name, and are frequently called rooms by our ancient writers. The yard bears a fufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in ufe. We may fup pofe the ftage to have been raised in this area, on the fourth fide, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for admiffion was taken. Thus, in fine weather, a play-house not incommodious might have been formed. Hence, in the middle of the Globe, and I fuppofe of the other public theatres, in the time of Shakspeare, there was an open yard or area, where the common people stood to fee the exhibition; from which circumftance they are called by our author groundlings, and by Ben Jonfon," the understanding gentlemen of the ground." In the ancient play-houses there appears to have been a private box; of which it is not eafy to ascertain the fituation. It seems to have been placed at the fide of the ftage, towards the rear, and to have been at a lower price; in this fome people fat, either from œconomy or fingularity. The galleries or Scaffolds, as they are fometimes called, and that part of the houfe, which in private theatres was named the pit †, feem to have been at the fame price; and pro bably Fleckno, in his Short Difcourfe of the English Stage, published in 1664, fays, fome remains of thefe ancient theatres were at that day to be seen in the inn-yards of the Cross-keys in Grace-church Street, and the Bull in Bishopsgate Street. In the feventeen play-houfes erected between the years 1570 and 1629, the continuator of Stowe's Chronicle reckons " five innes or common offeryes turned into play-houfes." + The pit, Dr. Percy fuppofes to have received its name from one of the play-houfes having been formerly a cock-pit. This account of the term, however, feems to be fomewhat questionable. The place where the feats are ranged in St. Mary's at Cambridge, is ftill called the pit; and no one can fufpect that venerable fabric of having ever been a cock-pit, or that the phrafe was borrowed from a play-houfe to be applied to a church. A pit is a place low in its relative fituation, and such is the middle part of a theatre. Shak * bably in houfes of reputation, fuch tres, From feveral paffages in our old plays we learn, that fpectators were admitted on the ftage, and that the critics and wits of the time ufually fat there. Some were placed on the ground; others fat on ftools, of which the price was either fixpence or a fhilling, ac cording, I fuppofe, to the commodioufnefs of the fituation. And they were attended by pages, who furnished them with pipes and tobacco, which was fmoked here as well as in other parts of the houfe. Yet it should feem that perfons were fuffered to fit on the stage only in the private play-houfes (fuch as Black-friars, &c.), where the audience was more fele&t, and of a higher clafs; and that in the Globe, and the other public thea . no fuch licence was per The ftage was ftrewed with rushes, which, we learn from Hentzner and Caius de Ephemera, was, in the time of Shakspeare, the ufual covering of floors in England. The curtain which hangs in the front of the prefent ftage, drawn up by lines and pullies, though not a modern invention (for it was used by Inigo Jones in the mafques at court), was yet an apparatus to which the fimple mechanism of our ancient theatres had not arrived; for in them the curtains opened in the middle, and were drawn backwards and for wards on an iron rod. In some playhouses they were woollen, in others made of filk. Towards the rear of the ftage there appears to have been a balcony, the platform of which was probably eight or ten feet from the ground. I fuppofe it to have been fupported by pillars. From hence, in many of our old plays, part of the dialogue was fpoken; and in the front of this balcony curtains likewife were hung. A doubt has been entertained, whether in our ancient theatres Shakspeare himself ufes cock-pit to express a small confined fituation, without any particular reference: "Can this cock-pit hold "The vasty fields of France-or may we cram, "That did affright the air at Agincourt?" Being on your feet, fneake not away like a coward, but falute all your gentle acquaintance that are spread either of the rushes, or on ftooles about you; and draw what troops you can from the itage after you" Decker's Gul's Horn-book, 1609. This accounts for Hamlet's fitting on the ground at Ophelia's feet, during the reprefentation of the play before the king and court of Denmark. Our author has only placed the young prince in the fame fituation in which he perhaps often faw Effex or Southampton at the feet of fome cele brated beauty. What fome chofe from economy, gallantry might have recommended to others. L 3 there there were fide and other fcenes. The question is involved in fo much obfcurity, that it is very difficult to form any decided opinion upon it. It is certain, that in the year 1605, Inigo Jones exhibited an entertainment at Oxford, in which moveable fcenes were used; but he appears to have introduced feveral pieces of machinery in the mafques at court, with which undoubtedly the public theatres were unacquainted. A paffage which has been produced from one of the old comedies, proves, it must be owned, that even these were furnished with fome pieces of machinery, which were ufed when it was requifite to exhibit the defcent of fome god or faint; but from all the cotemporary accounts, I am inclined to believe that the mechanifm of our ancient ftage feldom went beyond a painted chair, or a trap-door, and that few, if any of them, had any moveable fcenes. When king Henry VIII. is to be difcovered by the dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, reading in his study, the fcenical direction in the first folio, 1623, (which was printed apparently apparently from play houfe copies) is, "The king draws the curtaine, [i. e. draws it open] and fits reading penfively; for, befides the prin cipal curtains that hung in the front of the ftage, they ufed others as fubftitutes for fcenes. If a bed-chamber is to be exhibited, no change of fcene is mentioned; but the property man is fimply ordered to thraft forth a bed. When the fable requires the Roman capitol to be exhibited, we find two officers enter, "to lay cushions, as it were in the capitol." So, in King Richard II. act iv. fc. i." Bolingbroke, &c. enter as to the parliament." A, gain, in Sir John Olacafile, 1600, "Enter Cambridge, Scroop, and Gray, as in a chamber." In Romeo and Juliet, I doubt much whether any exhibition of Juliet's mo nument was given on the stage. I imagine Romeo only opened with his mattock one of the ftage trapdoors, (which might have reprefented a tomb ftone) by which he defcended to a vault beneath the ftage, where Juliet was deposited; and this idea is countenanced by a paffage in the play, and by the poem on which the drama was founded. How little the imaginations of the audience were affifted by scenical deception, and how much neceffity our author had to call on them to "piece out imperfections with their thoughts," may be also collected from Sir Philip Sidney, * See Peck's Memoirs of Milton, p. 282: "The above-mentioned art of varying the face of the whole ftage was a new thing, and never seen in England till August 1605, at what time, king James I. being to be entertained at Oxford, the heads of that University hired the aforefaid Inigo Jones (a great traveller), who undertook to farther them much, and to furnifh them with rare devices for the king's entertainment. Accordingly he erected a ttage close to the upper end of the hall (as it feemed at the first fight), at Christ-church; but it was indeed but a falle wall, fair painted and adorned with ftately pillars, which pillars would turn about. By reafon whereof, with other painted clothes, on Wednesday, Aug. 28, he varied their stage three times in the acting of one tragedy." who, who, defcribing the, ftate of the drama and the ftage in his time, fays, "Now you fhall fee three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the ftage to be a garden. By and. by we heare news of a fhipwracke in the fame place; then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that, comes out a hideous monster with fire and fmoke; then the miferable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while in the mean time two armies fly in, reprefented with four fwords and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field." All thefe circumstances induce me to believe that our ancient theatres, in general, were only furnished with curtains, and a fingle fcene compofed of tapestry, which appears to have been fometimes ornamented with pictures: and fome paffages in our old dramas incline one to think, that when tragedies were performed, the stage was hung with black. In the early part, at leaft, of our author's acquaintance with the theatre, the want of fcenery feems to have been fupplied by the fim. ple expedient of writing the names of the different places where the fcene was laid in the progrefs of the play, which were difpofed in fuch a manner as to be visible to the audience. Though the apparatus for theatric exhibitions was thus fcanty, and the machinery of the fimpleft kind, the invention of trap-doors appears not to be modern; for in an old morality, entitled, All for Money, we find a marginal direction, which implies that they were early in ufe. It It appears from Heywood's Apology for Actors, that the covering, or internal roof of the ftage, was anciently termed the heavens. was probably painted of a sky-blue colour; or perhaps pieces of drapery tinged with blue were fuspended across the ftage, to reprefent the heavens. From a plate prefixed to Kirkman's Drolls, printed in 1672, in which there is a view of a thea trical booth, it should seem that the ftage was formerly lighted by two large branches, of a form fimilar to thofe now hung in churches. They being, I fuppofe, found incommodious, as they obftructed the fight of the fpectators, gave place in a fubfequent period to fmall circular wooden frames, furnished with candles, eight of which were hung on the ftage, four at either fide: and these within a few years were wholly removed by Mr. Garrick, who, on his return from France, first introduced the present commodious method of illuminating the stage by lights not visible to the audience. If all the players, whofe names are enumerated in the first folio edition of Our author's works, belonged to the fame theatre, they compofed a numerous company; but it is doubtful whether they all performed at the fame period, or in the fame house. Many of the companies certainly were fo thin, that one perfon played two or three parts; and a battle, on which the fate of an empire was fuppofed to depend, was decided by half a dozen combatants. It appears to have been a common practice, in their mock engagements, to dif charge fmall pieces of ordnance on the ftage. L 4 Before Before the exhibition began, The epilogue was not always three flourishes or pieces of mufic fpoken by one of the performers were played, or, in the ancient in the piece, for that fubjoined to language, there were three found- The Second Part of King Henry IV. ings. Mufic was likewife played appears to have been delivered by a between the acts. The inftruments dancer. chiefly used were trumpets, cornets, and hauboys. The band, which did not confift of more than five or fix performers, fat (as I have been told by a very ancient ftage veteran, who had his information from Bowman, the contemporary of Betterton) in an upper balcony, over what is now called the ftage-box. The perfon who spoke the prologue was ushered in by trumpets, and usually wore a long black velvet cloak, which, I fuppofe, was confidered as beft fuited to a fupplicatory addrefs. Of this cuftom, whatever might have been its origin, fome traces remained till very lately; a black coat having been, if I mistake not, within these few years, the conftant ftage-habiliment of our modern prologuefpeakers. The dress of the ancient prologue fpeaker is ftill retained in the play that is exhibited in Hamlet, before the king and court of Denmark. An epilogue does not appear to have been a regular appendage to a play in Shakspeare's time; for many of his dramas had none; at leaft, they have not been preferved. In All's Well that Ends Well, the Midjammer Night's Dream, As you like it, Troilus and Creffida, and The Tempft, the epilogue is fpoken by one of the perfons of the drama, and adapted to the character of the fpeaker; a circumftance that I have not obferved in the epilogues of any other author of that age, The performers of male charafters generally wore periwigs, which in the age of Shak pere were not in common ufe. It appears, from a paffage in Puttenham's Art of English Porfy, 1589. that viz rds were on fome occa fions ufed by the actors of those days; and it may be inferred from a fcene in one of our author's comedies, that they were fometimes worn in his time, by thofe who performed female characters. But this, I imagine, was very rare. Some of the female part of the audience likewife appeared masks. The stage-dreffes, it is reasonable to fuppofe, were much more coftly at fome theatres than others. Yet the wardrobe of even the king's fervants at the Globe and Black-friars, was, we find, but fcantily furnished; and our author's dramas derived very little aid from the fplendor of exhibition, It is well known, that in the time of Shakspeare, and for many years afterwards, female characters were reprefented by boys or young men. Sir William D'Avenant, in imitation of the foreign theatres, first introduced females in the fcene, and Mrs. Betterton is faid to have been the first woman that appeared on the English stage. Andrew Peanycuicke played the part of Matilda, in a tragedy of Davenport's, in 1655; and Mr. Kynalton afted feveral female parts after the Reftoration. Downes, a cotempo |