[625] The Blackfriars auditorium was sixty-six feet in length and forty-six feet in breadth.
[626] Cunningham, The Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv, 104. In his Handbook for London Cunningham says that the Salisbury Court Playhouse "was originally the 'barn.'"
[627] Annals (1631), p. 1004. In 1633 Prynne (Histriomastix) refers to it as a "new theatre erected."
[628] Collier, The History of English Dramatic Literature (1879), iii, 106, thought that Salisbury Court was a round playhouse, basing his opinion on a line in Sharpe's Noble Stranger acted at "the private house in Salisbury Court": "Thy Stranger to the Globe-like theatre."
[629] I have not been able to examine this. In the only copy of the second edition accessible to me the Epistle is missing.
[630] Malone, Variorum, iii, 178.
[631] Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Ancient Documents, p. 27.
[632] See Mrs. Stopes's extracts from the Lord Chamberlain's books, in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch (1910), xlvi, 97. This entry probably led Cunningham to say (The Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv, 92) that Blagrove was "Master of the Children of the Revels in the reign of Charles I."
[633] For Dorset's interest in the matter see Cunningham, The Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv, 96.
[634] In December, 1631; see Malone, Variorum, iii, 178.
[635] Malone, Variorum, iii, 178.
[636] The Cockpit, for which Shirley had been writing.
[637] Cf. "new poets" of Marmion's Prologue.
[638] An allusion to the smallness of the Salisbury Court Playhouse?
[639] Malone, Variorum, iii, 232. But Malone was a careless transcriber, and Herbert himself sometimes made errors. Possibly the correct date is January 10, 1631.
[640] Ibid., iii, 178.
[641] English Dramatic Companies, i, 221.
[642] Richard Heton, "Instructions for my Pattent," The Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv, 96.
[643] We find a payment to Richard Heton, "for himself and the rest of the company of the players at Salisbury Court," for performing a play before his Majesty at Court, October, 1635. (Chalmers's Apology, p. 509.) Exactly when he took charge of Salisbury Court I am unable to learn.
[644] Cunningham, The Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv, 96.
[645] Malone, Variorum, iii, 240.
[646] For certain troubles at Salisbury Court in 1644 and 1648, see Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry (1879), ii, 37, 40, 47.
[647] William Beeston was the son of the famous actor Christopher Beeston, who was once a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later manager of the Fortune, and finally proprietor of the Cockpit. In 1639 William had been appointed manager of the Cockpit Company. (See pages 358 ff.)
[648] That is, stripped of its benches, stage-hangings, and other appliances for dramatic performances.
[649] The manuscript entry in Stow's Annals. See The Academy, October 28, 1882, p. 314. On the same date the soldiers "pulled down on the inside" also the Phœnix and the Fortune.
[650] Cunningham, The Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv, 103.
[651] Printed in Malone, Variorum, iii, 243, and Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Ancient Documents, p. 85. The language clearly indicates that Beeston was to reconvert the building into a theatre.
[652] Cunningham, The Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv, 103.
[653] Malone, Variorum, iii, 257; Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Ancient Documents, p. 27.
[654] By Philip Massinger.
[655] The subsequent history of Salisbury Court is traced in the legal documents printed by Cunningham. Beeston lost the property, and Fisher and Silver erected nearer the river a handsome new playhouse, known as "The Duke's Theatre," at an estimated cost of £1000.
[656] Edition of 1808, iv, 434. See also Stow's Chronicle, under the year 1581.
[657] This had once already, on Shrove Tuesday, 1604, been used for a play. The situation and ground-plan of the "Great Hall" are clearly shown in Fisher's Survey of the palace, made about 1670, and engraved by Vertue, 1747.
[658] Stow's Annals, continued by Edmund Howes (1631), p. 891.
[659] John Nichols, The Progresses of James, ii, 162.
[660] Shakespeare writes (Henry VIII, iv, i, 94-97):
Sir you
Must no more call it York-place, that is past;
For since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost:
'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.
[661] Book vi, page 6.
[662] Winwood State Papers (1725), ii, 41.
[663] See Cunningham, Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels, pp. xiii-xiv.
[664] John Nichols, The Progresses of James, ii, 466.
[665] See The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood (1874), vi, 339.
[666] Whether he merely made over the old Cockpit which Henry VIII had constructed "out of certain old tenements," or erected an entirely new building, I have not been able to ascertain. Heywood's Speech indicates a "new" and "lasting" structure.
[667] Vertue conservatively dates the survey "about 1680"; but the names of the occupants of the various parts of the palace show that it was drawn before 1670, and nearer 1660 than 1680.
[668] Reprinted here by the kind permission of Mr. Bell and the editors of The Architectural Record.
[669] Lord Chamberlain's Office-Book, C.C. Stopes, "Shakespeare's Fellows and Followers," Shakespeare Jahrbuch, xlvi, 96.
[670] Herbert MS., Malone, Variorum, iii, 237.
[671] Herbert MS., Malone, Variorum, iii, 237.
[672] Lord Chamberlain's Office-Book, Chalmers's Apology, p. 508.
[673] Ibid., p. 509.
[674] The Herbert MS., Malone, Variorum, iii, 238.
[675] Fleay in his elaborate studies of performances at Court ignores it entirely, as do subsequent scholars.
[676] Chalmers, Apology, p. 510.
[677] Herbert MS., Malone, Variorum, iii, 241.
[678] Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fifth Report, p. 200. Pepys, under the date November 20, 1660, gives an anecdote about the King's behavior on this occasion.
[679] He first "got in" on April 20, 1661, "by the favour of one Mr. Bowman." John Evelyn also visited the Cockpit; see his Diary, January 16 and February 11, 1662.
[680] By James Shirley, licensed 1641.
[681] By Corneille.
[682] Mrs. Betterton.
[683] Chalmers, Apology, p. 530. Cunningham says, in his Handbook of London: "I find in the records of the Audit Office a payment of £30 per annum 'to the Keeper of our Playhouse called the Cockpit in St. James Park'"; but he does not state the year in which the payment was made.
[684] I quote from W.J. Lawrence, The Elizabethan Playhouse (First Series), p. 144.
[685] The reasons why the Cockpit at Whitehall has remained so long in obscurity (its history is here attempted for the first time) are obvious. Some scholars have confused it with the public playhouse of the same name, a confusion which persons in the days of Charles avoided by invariably saying "The Cockpit in Drury Lane." Other scholars have confused it with the residential section of Whitehall which bore the same name. During the reign of James several large buildings which had been erected either on the site of the old cockpit of Henry VIII, or around it, were converted into lodgings for members of the royal family or favorites of the King, and were commonly referred to as "the Cockpit." Other scholars have assumed that all plays during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles were given either in the Banqueting House or in the Great Hall. Finally, still other scholars (e.g., Sir Sidney Lee, in Shakespeare's England, 1916) have confused the Cockpit at Whitehall with the Royal Cockpit in St. James's Park. Exactly when the latter was built I have not been able to discover, but it was probably erected near the close of the seventeenth century. It stood at the end of Dartmouth Street, adjacent to Birdcage Walk, but not in the Park itself. John Strype, in his edition of Stow's Survey (1720), bk. vi, p. 64, says of Dartmouth Street: "And here is a very fine Cockpit, called the King's Cockpit, well resorted unto." A picture of the building is given by Strype on page 62, and a still better picture may be found in J.T. Smith's The Antiquities of Westminster. The Royal Cockpit in Dartmouth Street survived until 1816, when it was torn down. Hogarth, in his famous representation of a cock-fight, shows its interior as circular, and as embellished with the royal coat of arms. Another interesting picture of the interior will be found in Ackermann's The Microcosm of London (1808). It is needless to add that this building had nothing whatever to do with the theatre royal of the days of King Charles.
[686] For the life of John Wolf see the following: Edward Arber, A Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, especially ii, 779-93; The Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1598-1601, pp. 405, 449, 450; A. Gerber, All of the Five Fictitious Italian Editions, etc. (in Modern Language Notes, xxii (1907), 2, 129, 201); H.R. Plomer, An Examination of Some Existing Copies of Hayward's "Life and Raigne of King Henrie IV" (in The Library, N.S., iii (1902), 13); R.B. McKerrow, A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers ... 1557-1640; S. Bongi, Annali di Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari.
[687] Of these men nothing is known; something, however, may be inferred from the following entries in Sir Henry Herbert's Office-Book: "On the 20th August, 1623, a license gratis, to John Williams and four others, to make show of an Elephant, for a year; on the 5th of September to make show of a live Beaver; on the 9th of June, 1638, to make show of an outlandish creature, called a Possum." (George Chalmers, Supplemental Apology, p. 208.)
[688] The place is not indicated, but it was probably outside the city.
[689] See State Papers, Domestic, 1619-1623, p. 181. I have quoted the letter from Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry (1879), i, 408.
[690] Collier, op. cit., i, 443.
[691] The Dramatic Works of Shackerley Marmion, in Dramatists of the Restoration, p. 37. Fleay (A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, ii, 66) suggests that the impostors Agurtes and Autolichus are meant to satirize Williams and Dixon respectively.
[692] I quote the letter from Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry (1879), i, 444.
[693] Bliss's edition, iii, 741.
[694] "Pretty little theatre" is the reading of MS. Aubr. 7, folio 20; MS. Aubr. 8 omits the adjective "pretty." For Aubrey's full account of Ogilby see Andrew Clark's Brief Lives (1898), 2 vols.
[695] Aubrey mentions this as having been "written in Dublin, and never printed."
[696] Published in 1640 as "the first part," and both the Prologue and the Epilogue speak of a second part; but no second part was printed, and in all probability it never was written.
[697] Never licensed for England; reprinted in 1657 with St. Patrick for Ireland.
[698] MS. Aubr. 7, folio 20 v. Ogilby's second theatre in Dublin, built after the Restoration, does not fall within the scope of the present work.
[699] See Frederick Hawkins, Annals of the French Stage (1884), i, 148 ff., for the career of this player on the French stage. "Every gift required by the actor," says Hawkins, "was possessed by Floridor."
[700] La Melise, ou Les Princes Reconnus, by Du Rocher, first acted in Paris in 1633; see The Athenæum, July 11, 1891, p. 73; and cf. ibid., p. 139.
[701] "Housekeepers" were owners, who always demanded of the players as rental for the building a certain part of each day's takings. The passage quoted means that the housekeepers allowed the French players to receive all money taken on the two sermon days of the first week, and after that exacted their usual share as rental for the building.
[702] That is, Passion Week, during which time the English companies were never allowed to give performances.
[703] This must be an error, for Easter Monday fell on March 30.
[704] Le Trompeur Puni, ou Histoire Septentrionale, by Scuderi.
[705] Wednesday was the 15th.
[706] Alcimedon, by Duryer.
[707] Malone, Variorum, iii, 121, note.
[708] This clause I insert from Mrs. Stopes's notes on the Lord Chamberlain's records, in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch, xlvi, 97.
[709] I have chosen to reproduce the record from Chalmers's Apology, p. 506, note s, rather than from Mrs. Stopes's apparently less accurate notes in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch, xlvi, 97.
[710] Should we place a comma after "Josias"? That "Josias Floridor" was the leader of the troupe we know from two separate entries; cf. Chalmers, Apology, pp. 508, 509.
[711] Malone, Variorum, iii, 122, note.
[712] Act ii, Scene i. This passage is pointed out by Lawrence, The Elizabethan Playhouse, p. 137.
[713] Stopes, op. cit., p. 98, Chalmers, Apology, p. 509.
[714] The Fortune was only eighty feet square, but the stage projected to the middle of the yard. Davenant probably wished to provide for an alcove stage of sufficient depth to accommodate his "scenes."
[715] That is, he may give his "musical presentments," etc., either at the hours when he was accustomed to give plays, or after his plays are ended. This does not necessarily imply evening entertainments.
[716] Cunningham, The Whitefriars Theatre, in The Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv, 96.
[718] That he did not actually surrender the patent is shown by the fact that he claimed privileges by virtue of it after the Restoration; see Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Ancient Documents, p. 48.