Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3)

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Doran John. Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3)

CHAPTER I. PROLOGUE

CHAPTER II. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS

CHAPTER III. THE "BOY ACTRESSES," AND THE "YOUNG LADIES."

CHAPTER IV. THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY

CHAPTER V. THOMAS BETTERTON

CHAPTER VI "EXEUNT" AND "ENTER."

CHAPTER VII. ELIZABETH BARRY

CHAPTER VIII "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE."

CHAPTER IX. THE DRAMATIC POETS

CHAPTER X. PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS

CHAPTER XI. THE DRAMATIC AUTHORESSES

CHAPTER XII. THE AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

CHAPTER XIII. A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY

CHAPTER XIV. THE UNITED AND THE DISUNITED COMPANIES

CHAPTER XV. UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY

CHAPTER XVI. COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT

CHAPTER XVII. THE PROGRESS OF JAMES QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BARTON BOOTH

CHAPTER XVIII. BARTON BOOTH

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The period of the origin of the drama is an unsettled question, but it has been fixed at an early date, if we may accept the theory of a recent writer, who suggests that Moses described the Creation from a visionary pictorial representation, which occupied seven days from the commencement to the close of the spectacle!

Among the most remote of the Chinese traditions, the theatre holds a conspicuous place. In Cochin-China there is at this day a most primitive character about actors, authors, and audience. The governor of the district enjoys the least rude seat in the sylvan theatre; he directs the applause by tapping with his fingers on a little drum, and as at this signal his secretaries fling strings full of cash on to the stage, the performance suffers from continual interruption. For the largesse distributed by the patron of the drama, and such of the spectators as choose to follow his example, the actors and actresses furiously scramble, while the poor poet stands by, sees his best situations sacrificed, and is none the richer – by way of compensation.

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The performance of this play was, nevertheless, not prohibited. When the final attempt of Essex was about to be made, in February 1601 – "To fan the courage of their crew," says Mr. Hepworth Dixon, from whose Personal History of Lord Bacon I borrow these details, "and prepare the citizens for news of a royal deposition, the chiefs of the insurrection think good to revive, for a night, their favourite play. They send for Augustine Phillips, manager of the Blackfriars Theatre, to Essex House; Monteagle, Percy, and two or three more – among them Cuffe and Meyrick – gentlemen whose names and faces he does not recognise, receive him; and Lord Monteagle, speaking for the rest, tells him that they want to have played the next day Shakspeare's deposition of Richard II. Phillips objects that the play is stale, that a new one is running, and that the company will lose money by a change. Monteagle meets his objections. The theatre shall not lose; a host of gentlemen from Essex House will fill the galleries; if there is fear of loss, here are 40s. to make it up. Phillips takes the money, and King Richard is duly deposed for them, and put to death."

Meanwhile, the profession of player had been assailed by fierce opponents. In 1587,5 when twenty-three summers lightly sat on Shakspeare's brow, Gosson, the "parson" of St. Botolph's, discharged the first shot against stage plays which had yet been fired by any one not in absolute authority. Gosson's book was entitled, A School of Abuse, and it professed to contain "a pleasant invective against poets, players, jesters, and such like caterpillars of a Commonwealth." Gosson's pleasantry consists in his illogical employment of invective. Domitian favoured plays, argal, Domitian's domestic felicity was troubled by a player – Paris. Of Caligula, Gosson remarks, that he made so much of players and dancers, that "he suffered them openly to kiss his lips, when the senators might scarcely have a lick at his feet;" and the good man of St. Botolph's adds, that the murder of Domitian, by Charea, was "a fit catastrophe," for it was done as the Emperor was returning from a play!

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