1609, and did play in the Alchemist which was brought out by the King's company in 1610, it appears quite certain that he joined the latter company at about the former date. It is not known what parts he sustained; but from the character of the very numerous plays in which he is recorded as having been one of the principal actors, he was probably a comedian. The date at which he joined the company for which Shakespeare wrote his dramas, 1609, makes it quite certain that he could have been the original actor of characters in but very few of them. Underwood died in 1624; and from his will* we learn that he owned shares in the Curtain Theatre as well as the Black-friars and the Globe. His wife had died before him; and he left his young orphan children in the guardianship of certain of his "loving and kind fellows." The regard in which this company of actors held each other, and the confidence which they seem to have reposed in each other, are constantly apparent in all the surviving records of their individual or collective transactions. This is noteworthy chiefly because it is on record, and because of the prominence given to the association by Shakespeare's connection with it; for, to the honor of actors be it spoken, whatever may be the professional jealousies of the stage, which the close and candid observer will find neither less nor greater than those of the forum, the bar, the consulting room, or the pulpit, — there is among those who tread it a personal kindliness, and a readiness to share individual joys and alleviate individual sorrows, which is not so apparent among the members of other professions. In this respect actors, as a class, are no less distinguished than (in spite of their improvidence and addiction to pleasure) they are, and ever have been, by their freedom from those crimes which send men to prison or the gallows. Nicholas Tooley, alias Wilkinson, (or rather Wilkinson, alias Tooley,) was apprenticed to the great Burbadge. The date of his birth is not known; but in 1596 he had become a sharer in the Black-friars Theatre; his name standing last in the list of those who addressed the Privy Council in that year. His name appears in the original casts of The Alchemist and Catiline, produced by Shakespeare's company in 1610 and 1611, and also in many of those of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. We do not * For this will, See the Variorum of 1821, Vol. III. p. 214. know of any particular play of Snakespeare's in which he ap peared. He seems to have been an esteemed though not an eminent actor. He continued to be a member of the company until his death, which took place in 1623. In his will he left considerable legacies to several of his good friends and fellows, forgave some of them debts which they owed him, directed sums for which he was surety on the part of others to be paid, and gave a moderate marriage portion to Sarah Burbadge, the daughter of his master. There is a remarkable codicil to his will, of the same date as the will, the purpose of which appears in this passage: "by reason of the omission of my name of Wilkinson therein, [the will] I doe therefore, by this my presente codicil by the name of Nicholas Wilkinson alias Tooley, ratifie, confirm, &c., &c., as if I had been so named in my said last will, any omission of my said name of Wilkinson in my said last will, or any scruple, doubt, &c., &c., to the contrary notwithstanding." This codicil he signed Nicholas Wilkinson, alias Tooley, having signed the will Nicholas Tooley. From this it would appear that his name was Wilkinson, and that having assumed the name of Tooley, probably out of respect to the scruples of his family, he had become so accustomed to the latter that he actually forgot his right to the former. ... William Ecclestone's name first appears as one of the principal actors in Ben Jonson's Alchemist, when it was produced in 1610. At this time Shakespeare had retired from the stage, though he still retained his interest in the theatre, and afterward wrote, most probably, a play or two for it. Ecclestone, however, was quite surely the original performer of no character of Shakespeare's; for in 1611 he had left the King's company for that of the Prince of Wales, under the management of Henalowe and Alleyn; † though the appearance of his name in the list of the principal performers in Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune shows that he had returned to the former company in 1613. He continued a member of this company until 1619; but his name does not appear in Charles I.'s patent of 1625. It is not known when he died, or what were his circumstances. He appears to have attained no eminence. *For the entire will, See Chalmers' Apology for the Believers, &c., p. 450. See a copy of a document showing this in Mr. Collier's Memoirs of Ed ward Alleyn, published by the Shak. Soc., p. 98. Joseph Taylor was one of the more important members of the company distinguished by Shakespeare's fellowship. In 1608, when he was a very young man, (as he was married in 1610 and was living in 1652,) he owned a share and a half in the Blackfriars Theatre; and this shows that his talent was early manifested and recognized. He left the company for a while; he having been one of the Prince of Wales' players in 1611; † but he returned before 1613; and, as Mr. Collier observes, "he seems to have shifted about a good deal at this period." To follow his wanderings, is not worth our while; for the interest which we take in him depends on his connection with Shakespeare, not his separation from him. It is probable that he finally returned to the King's company upon the death of Burbadge, which took place in 1618; and that he succeeded to Burbadge's characters. For in the edition of John Webster's Duchess of Malfi published in 1623 there is a singular duplicate list of the principal performers in it; one giving the original cast, in 1616, and the other the cast at a subsequent date- probably 1621 or 1622; and by this list we learn that Burbadge had played Duke Ferdinand at the former date, and that it was assigned to Taylor at the latter. We also know from Wright's Historia Histrionica · that Taylor played Hamlet, originally Burbadge's part, "incomparably well;" he, according to tradition, having been instructed in it by Shakespeare himself. He also played Iago, as Wright assures us, and perhaps was the original performer of that character; playing it to Burbadge's Othello. Taylor's name does not appear in the lists of players which accompany the original edition of Jonson's plays; but the contrary is the case with regard to Beaumont and Fletcher's, and Massinger's. In 1625 Taylor had come to be regarded as the head of the company of the King's Players: in 1647 he was one of the ten actors who published the first folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. The dedication of this volume to Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, contains the following interesting allusion to the dedication of the first folio of Shakespeare's plays, and to the circumstances which led to the publication of Beaumont and Fletcher's in the same form: See the Life of Shakespeare, Vol. I., for an appraisement of the value o this property, and the names of the owners in 1608. + See Mr. Collier's Memoirs of Alleyn, p. 98 "But directed by the example of fome, who once fteered in ou qual tie, and fo fortunately afpired to choose your Honour, joyned with your (now glorified) Brother, Patrons to the flowing compositions of the Sweet Swan of Avon SHAKESPEARE; and fince, more particularly bound to your Lordships moft conftant and diffufive Goodneffe, from which, wee did for many calme yeares derive a fubfiftence to ourselves, and Protection to the Scene (now withered and condemn'd as we feare, to a long Winter and Sterilitie) we have prefumed to offer to your Selfe, what before was never printed of thefe Authours." The theatres were shut; and these poor actors were forced, and were permitted, to seek a subsistence through the sale for perusal, of such plays as The Custom of the Country, by the very Puritans who would not permit such plays as The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, King Lear, and Hamlet to be acted! These were the people who put a stop to bear-baiting "not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the men." Yet they had virtues, after a grim and ghostly fashion. In 1652 Taylor, with Lowin, as it has been already remarked, published Beaumont and Fletcher's Wild Goose Chase for the purpose of obtaining a much-needed pittance by the sale of it; and he died in the next year, at Richmond, where he was buried. as we are told by Wright. Of Robert Benfield we only know that he was a very useful member of the King's company; his name appearing in the casts of a great many of the plays by Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, and others, which were performed by that company. He appears not to have played at the Black-friars (perhaps nowhere else) until after Shakespeare left the stage; and most probably was the original performer of no character in his plays. He was living in 1647, and was one of the ten players who published Beaumont and Fletcher's works in that year. These facts are established by the dates of existing patents and lists of actors in which his name appears. Robert Gough's name appears in the plat of the Second Part of The Seven Deadly Sins in a position which makes it more than probable that he sustained the character of Aspasia. But though young enough to play a woman in 1588, he was man enough to marry the sister of his fellow Augustine Phillips in 1602.* Gough was probably the original actor of some of Shakespeare's female characters. His name appears in the casts of none of Jonson's or Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. He died in 1624, leaving a son, Alexander, who succeeded him as a "woman-actor" at the Black-friars.† Richard Robinson, or Dick Robinson as he was familiarly called by his fellows, was, in his earlier professional years at least, an actor of female parts. This appears from the following passage in Ben Jonson's The Devil is an Ass : "Ingine. There's Dicke Robinson A very pretty fellow, and comes often To a Gentlemans chamber, a friends of mine. We had The Gentleman's Land-lady invited him To' a Gossip's feast. Now sir he brought Dick Robinson.. Drest like a Lawyers wife, amongst 'hem all; (I lent him cloathes); but to see him behave it; And lay the law; and carve; ‡ and drink unto 'hem; And then talke baudy; and send frolicks, O! It would have burst your buttons, or not left you Merecraft. They say he's an ingenious youth! Robinson's name first appears in our dramatic literature as one of the original actors in Ben Jonson's Catiline, which was produced in 1611, and by the King's company. From that time. at least, he remained a member of this company until the closing of the theatres by the Puritans. That he had attained some distinction among his fellows, may be reasonably supposed from the position in which his name appears in various documents which have come down to us. The investigations of the English Shakespearian antiquaries have brought to light no other *For evidence of this, See the will of Augustine Phillips, (Chalmers' Apol ogy, &c., p. 431,) which is witnessed by Robert Goffe," and in which the tes tator leaves a legacy to his "Sister Elizabeth Goughe." † See Wright's Historia Histrionica. See Notes on The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Sc. 3, Vol. II. p. 309. ? Act II. Sc. 3, Vol. V. p. 73, ed. Gifford. |