scenes. At the back of the stage was a balcony," the platform of which was raised about eight or nine feet from the ground; it served as a window, gallery, or upper chamber; from it a portion of the dialogue was sometimes spoken; and in front of it curtains were suspended, to conceal, if necessary, those who occupied it from the audience. The internal roof of the stage, either painted blue, or adorned with drapery of that colour, was termed the heavens. The stage was generally strewed with rushes, but on extraordinary occasions was matted. We have reason to believe, that when tragedies were performed, it was hung with black. Movable painted scenery there was none: "The air-blest castle, round whose wholesome crest The martlet, guest of summer, chose her nest,- Where Jaques fed his solitary vein ; " "It appears," says Malone, "from the stage-directions given in The Spanish Tragedy, that when a play was exhibited within a play (if I may so express myself) as is the case in that piece and in Hamlet, the court or audience before whom the interlude was performed, sat in the balcony, or upper stage, already described; and a curtain or traverse, being hung across the stage for the nonce, the performers entered between that curtain and the general audience, and on its being drawn, began their piece, addressing themselves to the balcony, and regardless of the spectators in the theatre, to whom their backs must have been turned during the whole of the performance." Hist. Acc. of English Stage, p. 108. Though, as Mr. Collier remarks (Hist. of English Dram. Poet. iii. 363), the authorities here cited by Malone do not bear out his supposition, I cannot help thinking that it is right. There was no necessity, however, that, on such occasions, the actors should absolutely turn their backs on the audience. 12 Charles Lamb. A board containing the name of the place of action in large letters, was displayed in some conspicuous situation. At times, when a change of scene was necessary, the audience was required to suppose that the performers, who had not quitted the stage, had passed to a different spot.13 A bed thrust forth, showed that the stage was a bed-chamber; and a table with pen and ink, indicated that it was a counting-house. Rude contrivances were employed to imitate towers, walls of towns, hell-mouths, tombs, trees, dragons, &c.; trapdoors had been early in use; but to make a celestial personage ascend to the roof of the stage, was more than the mechanists of those days could always accomplish.14 Much money was often expended on theatrical apparel;15 but the dresses were, of course, less costly at 13 So in Peele's Old Wives Tale: "Smith. Well, masters, it seems to me you have lost your way in the wood: in consideration whereof, if you will go with Clunch to his cottage, you shall have house-room and a good fire to sit by, although we have no bedding to put you in. All. O blessed Smith, O bountiful Clunch! Smith. For your further entertainment, it shall be as it may be, so and so. [Here a dog bark.] Hark! this is Ball my dog, that bids you all welcome in his own language: come, take heed for stumbling on the threshold.-Open door, Madge, take in guest. Enter Old Woman. Old Wo. Welcome, Clunch, and good fellows all," &c.-See Peele's Dramatic Works and Poems, i. 209, ed. Dyce, 1829. 14 A stage-direction at the end of Greene's Alphonsus is, “Exit Venus; or, if you can conveniently, let a chair come down from the top of the stage, and draw her up." See Greene's Dramatic Works and Poems, ii. 67, ed. Dyce. 15 In 1590, John Alleyn gave 167. for "one cloke of velvett, with a cape imbrothered with gold, pearles, and redd stones, and one roabe of some theatres than at others. The performers of male characters occasionally wore periwigs. Female parts were played solely by boys or young men, who sometimes used visards. The person who spoke the Prologue, and who entered immediately after the third sounding, was usually dressed in a black velvet cloak: an Epilogue does not appear to have been a regular appendage16 to a play. During the performance, the clown would break forth into extemporaneous buffoonery; there was dancing and singing between the acts; and at the end of the piece was a song, or a jig,—a farcical rhyming composition of considerable length, sung or said by the clown, and accompanied with dancing and playing on the pipe and tabor. A prayer for the queen, offered by the actors on their knees, concluded all. The price of admission appears to have varied according to the rank and estimation of the theatres: it would seem that in Shakespeare's days a shilling was charged for a place in the best boxes or rooms; and that the entrance-money was the same to the pit as to the galleries, viz. sixpence, two-pence, or a penny (a matter the more difficult to determine, because "gallery" was cloth of golde;" and in the next year, John and Edward Alleyn paid no less than 207. 108. for "one blacke velvet cloake, with sleves ymbrodered all with silver and golde, lyned with blacke satten stryped with golde." The Alleyn Papers (printed for the Shakespeare Soc.), pp. 11, 12. 16 Mr. Collier thinks that many epilogues which were spoken have not come down to us, the printer having chosen to omit them, rather than give an additional leaf to the play. Hist. of English Dram. Poet. iii. 444. frequently synonymous with "room"). The performance commenced at three o'clock.17 During the reign of Elizabeth, plays were acted on Sundays, as well as on other days of the week ;18 but in the time of her successor, dramatic exhibitions on the Sabbath appear to have been tolerated only at court. Of the dramatists who immediately preceded Shakespeare, the most distinguished were Lyly, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, Kyd, Nash, and Lodge. The plays of Lyly are, on the whole, frigid and artificial: and it must be remembered that they were not intended for the public theatre. Neither Peele nor Greene were able to draw character with much strength or discrimination: their style is sometimes turgid, sometimes mean; and their blank verse, sweet and flowing as it is, fatigues the ear by its monotony. But in Peele's best drama, David and Bethsabe, there is no inconsiderable portion of tenderness and poetic beauty; and, till chance has discovered to us some common original of Comus and of The Old Wives Tale, he must be allowed the honour of having afforded hints to Milton. Greene, too, has his redeeming points: though less rich in fancy than Peele, he is occasionally elegant and spirited; and his Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, and his George-aGreen, the Pinner of Wakefield, may be pronounced the most pleasing comedies of the time:—after all, however, 17 See Collier's Hist. of English Dram. Poet. iii. 377. 19 In 1580, the magistrates of the city of London obtained from the Queen a prohibition against plays on the Sabbath, which seems to have continued in force but a short time. he is happiest in some of those lyric pieces, scattered through the vast variety of prose pamphlets which he produced with surprising facility. The Spanish Tragedy of Kyd excited great contemporary applause; and it was long remembered by the parodies which its more ridiculous passages called forth: doubtless it is here and there absurd enough; but if not so poetical as the plays of Peele and Greene, it excels them in touches of passion and in depth of thought. To the three writers last mentioned, Nash, as a dramatist, was decidedly inferior: as a prose-satirist he was justly celebrated; and in his controversy with Gabriel Harvey he exhibited such specimens of coarse wit and virulent invective, as may have been equalled, but have never been surpassed in any language. Lodge, like Nash, was more eminent in other walks of literature than in the drama: his satirical poetry is not without force; and several copies of verses interspersed among his different prose tracts are picturesque and graceful. Marlowe was gifted with a genius of far higher order, an intellect far more vigorous than any of these play-wrights. In delineating character, he reaches a degree of truth to which they make comparatively slight approaches; and in Faustus and Edward the Second, he attains to real grandeur and pathos. Even in his earlier tragedy, Tamburlaine, amid all its extravagance of incident and inflation of style, we recognise a power which none of his contemporaries possessed. He is, on good grounds, supposed to have been the first who introduced blank |