AMONGST those innumerable by-ways in London which are familiar to the hurried pedestrian, there is a well-known line of streets, or rather lanes, leading from the hill on which St. Paul's stands to the great thoroughfare of Blackfriars Bridge. The pavement is narrow, the carriage-way is often blocked up by contending carmen, the houses are mean; yet the whole district is full of interesting associations. We have scarcely turned out of Ludgate Street, under a narrow archway, when the antiquary may descry a large lump of the ancient city wall embedded in the lath and plaster of a modern dwelling. A little farther, and we pass the Hall of the Apothecaries, who have here, by dint of long and earnest struggle, raised their original shopkeeping vocation into a science. A little onward, and the name Printing-house Yard indicates another aspect of civilization. Here was the King's printing-house in the days of the Stuarts; and here, in our own days, is the office of the Times' Newspaper, the organ of a greater power than that of prerogative. Between Apothecaries' Hall and Printing-house Yard is a short lane, leading into an open space called Playhouse Yard. It is one of those shabby places of which so many in London lie close to the glittering thoroughfares; but which are known only to their own inhabitants, and have at all times an air of quiet which seems like desolation. The houses of this little square, or yard, are neither ancient nor modern. Some of them were probably built soon after the great fire of London; for a few present their gable fronts to the streets, and the wide casements of others have evidently been filled up and modern sashes inserted. But there is nothing here, nor indeed in the whole precinct, with the exception of the few yards of the ancient wall, that has any pretension to belong to what may be called the antiquities of London. Yet here, three centuries ago, stood the great religious house of the Dominicans, or Black Friars, who were the lords of the precinct; shutting out all civic authority, and enclosing within their four gates a busy community of shopkeepers and artificers. Here, in the hallowed dust of the ancient church, were the royal and the noble buried; and their gilded tombs proclaimed their virtues to the latest posterity. Where shall we look for a fragment of these records now? Here parliaments have sat and pulled down odious favourites; here kings have required exorbitant aids from their complaining subjects; here Wolsey pronounced the sentence of divorce on the persecuted Katharine. In a few years the house of the Black Friars ceased to exist; their halls were pulled down; their church fell into ruin. The precinct of the Blackfriars then became a place of fashionable residence. Elizabeth, at the age of sixty, here danced at a wedding which united the houses of Worcester and Bedford. In the heart of this precinct, close by the church of the suppressed monastery, surrounded by the new houses of the nobility, in the very spot which is now known as Playhouse Yard, was built, in 1575, the Blackfriars Theatre. The history of the early stage, as it is to be deduced from statutes, and pro. clamations, and orders of council, exhibits a constant succession of conflicts between the civic authorities and the performers of plays. The act of the 14th of Elizabeth, "for the punishment of vagabonds, and for relief of the poor and impotent, was essentially an act of protection for the established companies of players. We have here, for the first time, a definition of rogues and vagabonds; and it includes not only those who can "give no reckoning how he or she doth lawfully get his or her living," but "all fencers, bearwards, common players in interludes, and minstrels, not belonging to any baron of this realm or towards any other honourable personage of greater degree; all jugglers, pedlers tinkers, and petty chapmen; which said fencers, bearwards, common players in interludes, minstrels, jugglers, pedlers, tinkers, and petty chapmen, shall wander abroad, and have not licence of two justices of the peace at the least, whereof one to be of the quorum, where and in what shire they shall happen to wander." The circumstance of belonging to any baron, or person of greater degree, was in itself a pretty large exception; and if in those times of rising puritanism the licence of two justices of the peace was not always to be procured, the large number of companies enrolled as the servants of the nobility offers sufficient evidence that the profession of a player was not a persecuted one, but one expressly sanctioned by the ruling powers. The very same statute throws by implication as much odium upon scholars as upon players; for amongst its vagabonds are included "all scholars of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge that go about begging, not being authorised under the seal of the said Universities."* There was one company of players, the Earl of Leicester's, which within two years after the legislative protection of this act received a more important privilege from the Queen herself. In 1574 a writ of privy zeal was issued to the keeper of the great seal, commanding him to set forth letters patent addressed to all justices, &c., licensing and authorizing James Burbage, and four other persons, servants to the Earl of Leicester, "to use, exercise, and occupy the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, interludes, stageplays, and such other like as they have already used and studied, or hereafter shall use and study, as well for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall think good to see them." And they were to exhibit their performances as well within our city of London and liberties of the same," as "throughout our realm of England." Without knowing how far the servants of the Earl of Leicester might have been molested by the authorities of the city of London, in defiance of this patent, it is clear that the patent was of itself insufficient to insure their kind reception within the city; for it appears that, within three months after the date of the patent, a letter was written from the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor, directing him "to admit the comedy-players within the city of London, and to be otherwise favourably used." This mandate was probably obeyed; but in 1575 the Court of Common Council, without any exception for the objects of the patent of 1574, made certain orders, in the city language termed an act, which assumed that the whole authority for the regulation of plays was in the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen; that they only could license theatrical exhibitions within the city; and that the players whom they did license should contribute half their receipts to charitable purposes. The civic authorities appear to have stretched their power somewhat too far; for in that very year James Burbage, and the other servants of the Earl of Leicester, erected their theatre amidst the houses of the great in the Blackfriars, within a stone's throw of the city walls, but absolutely out of the control of the city officers. The immediate neighbours It is curious that the act against vagabonds of the 39th of Elizabeth somewhat softens this matter; for in its definition of vagabonds it includes "all persons culling themselves scholars, going about begging." It says nothing, with regard to players, about the licence of two justices; and requires that the nobleman's licence shall be under his hand and seal. of the players were the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Hunsdon, as we learn from a petition against the players from the inhabitants of the precinct.* The petition was unavailing. The rooms which it states "one Burbadge hath lately bought" were converted "into a common playhouse;" and within fourteen years from the period of its erection William Shakspere was one of its proprietors. The royal patent of 1574 authorised in the exercise of their art and faculty "James Burbadge, John Perkyn, John Lanham, William Johnson, and Robert Wylson," who are described as the servants of the Earl of Leicester. Although on the early stage the characters were frequently doubled, we can scarcely imagine that these five persons were of themselves sufficient to form a company of comedians. They had, no doubt, subordinate actors in their pay; they being the proprietors or shareholders in the general adventure. Of these five original patentees four remained as the "sharers in the Blackfriars Playhouse" in 1589, the name only of John Perkyn being absent from the subscribers to a certificate to the Privy Council that the company acting at the Blackfriars "have never given cause of displeasure in that they have brought into their plays matters of state and religion." This certificate-which bears the date of November, 1589exhibits to us the list of the professional companions of Shakspere in an early stage of his career, though certainly not in the very earliest. The subject-matter of this document will require to be noticed in another chapter. The certificate describes the persons subscribing it as "her Majesty's poor players," and sets forth that they are all of them sharers in the Blackfriars Playhouse." are presented in the following order : 1. James Burbadge. 2. Richard Burbadge. 3. John Laneham. 5. Robert Wilson. 6. John Taylor. 7. Anth. Wadeson. 8. Thomas Pope. 9. George Pecle. 10. Augustine Phillipps. 11. Nicholas Towiey. 12. William Shakespeare. 13. William Kempe. Their names The position of James Burbage at the head of the list is a natural one. was no doubt the founder of this theatrical company. The petition of 1576 He * Lord Hunsdon's name appears to this petition, but the Lord Chamberlain's does not appear. against the Blackfriars Theatre mentions "one Burbadge" as having lately. bought certain rooms in the precinct. This distinction was long preserved to his more celebrated son Richard, the second in the list. He died in 1619; and he probably continued at the head of the sharers until his decease gave occasion to the briefest epitaph ever written-"Exit Burbidge."* It would appear, from Jonson's masque of Christmas,' presented at Court in 1616, that Burbage. and Heminge were joint managers; for Venus, who appears as "a deaf tire-woman," says she could have let out Cupid by the week to the King's players: "Master Burbage has been about and about with me, and so has old Master Heminge too; they have need of him." The early companionship of Shakspere with Richard Burbage became unquestionably a friendship which lasted through life; for he was one of the three professional friends-"fellows" -mentioned in the poet's will. Richard Burbage, by universal consent, was the greatest actor of his time. Sir Richard Baker calls him "such an actor as no age must ever look to see the like." William Shakspere and Richard Burbage were, in all probability, nearly of the same age. At the date of the certificate before us Shakspere was twenty-five. The third and fifth shares in this list were of the original patentees in 1574. But the fourth amongst those patentees stands the fourteenth in the list. If the order in the list be evidence of the rank which each person held in the company-and such a deduction is reasonable from the fact of the Burbages being at the head of the list—it is clear that the order was determined upon another principle than that of seni. ority. Of John Laneham, whose name follows that of the Burbages, we know nothing. Thomas Greene, the fourth name attached to this certificate, is the person who has been conjectured to have been a native of Stratford-upon-Avon, and to have introduced Shakspere to the theatre. He was a comic actor, of great and original powers; and so celebrated was he as the representative of a particular part in one comedy, that the play was called after his name, 'Greene's Tu Quoque,' and bears his portrait in the title-page. This comedy, which long continued to be popular, was written by John Cook. Although the title-page of this play states that it "hath been divers times acted by the Queen's Majesty's servants," it is probable that Greene did not iong continue a member of the company to which Shakspere belonged. He is mentioned by name in the 'Tu Quoque' as the clown at the Red Bull. His name does not appear in a petition to the Privy Council from the Blackfriars company in 1596; and he is not included in the list of the "names of the principal actors" of all Shakspere's plays, which is prefixed to the folio of 1623. Greene, as well as others of higher eminence, was a poet as well as an actor. In the lines which have been ascribed to him upon somewhat doubtful anthority, he is made to say— But his ambition was not powerful enough to induce him to claim the honours Philipot's additions to Camden's 'Remains concerning Britain.' |