certainly deserving of more respect than the commentators have been inclined to attach to it. It was originally related by D'Avenant, who, if the frequenters of the theatre had been in the habit of riding to the play, must have remembered the time; and if at that time, the lads who took charge of the horses were, as he affirmed, called Shakspeare's boys, that circumstance is the strongest possible corroboration of the story. But it was known to Rowe, and rejected by him; and Steevens advances this omission as a proof that our author's first biographer considered the anecdote incredible, and wholly undeserving his attention. Rowe's suppression of the fact may, however, have originated in some other cause than his suspicion of its truth. Might he not have been actuated by that absurd spirit of refinement, which is only too common among the writers of biography, as well as history, and which induces them to conceal or misrepresent every occurrence which is at all of a humiliating nature, and does not accord with those false and effeminate notions so generally entertained respecting the dignity of that peculiar class of composition? But, however inferior the situation which Shakspeare occupied on first entering upon his dramatic career, his talents were not long buried in obscurity. He rapidly rose to the highest station in the theatre; and, by the power of his genius, raised our national dramatio poetry, then in its merest infancy, to the highest state of perfection which it is perhaps capable of reaching.

It is impossible for any art to have attained a more rapid growth, than was attained by the art of dramatic writing in this country. The people had, indeed, been long accustomed to a species of exhibition called MIRACLES, or MYSTERIES, founded on sacred subjects, and performed by the ministers of religion themselves, on the holy festivals, in or near the churches, and designed to instruct the ignorant in the leading facts of sacred history. From the occasional introduction of allegorical characters, such as Faith, Death, Hope, or Sin, into these religious dramas, representations of another kind, called MORALITIES, had by degrees arisen, of which the plots were more artificial, regular, and connected, and which were entirely formed of such personifications; but the first rough

draught of a regular tragedy and comedy that appeared, Lord Sackville's Gorboduc, and Still's Gammer Gurton's Needle, were not produced till within the latter half of the sixteenth century, and but little more than twenty years previous to Shakspeare's arrival in the metropolis.

About that time, the attention of the public began to be more generally directed to the stage; and it throve admirably beneath the cheerful beams of popularity. The theatrical performances which had, in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, been exhibited on temporary stages, erected in such halls or apartments as the actors could procure, or, more generally, in the yards of the great inns, while the spectators surveyed them from the surrounding windows and galleries, began to be established in more convenient and permanent situations. About the year 1569, a regular playhouse, under the appropriate name of The Theatre was built. It is supposed to have stood somewhere in Blackfriars; and three years after the commencement of this establishment, yielding to her inclination for the amusements of the theatre, and disregarding the remonstrances of the Puritans, the queen granted license and authority to the Servants of the Earl of Leicester, "to use, exercise, and occupie the arte and facultie of playinge comedies, tragedies, interludes, stage-playes, as well for the recreation of our lovinge subjects, as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall thinke good to see them, throughoute our realme of England." From this time, the number of theatres increased with the ripening taste and the increasing demands of the people. Various noblemen had their respective companies of performers, who were associated as their servants, and acted under their protection; and during the period of Shakspeare's theatrical career, not less than seven principal play-houses were open in the metropolis.

Of these the Globe, and the play-house in Blackfriars, were the property of the company to which Shakspeare was himself attached, and by whom all his productions were exhibited. The Globe appears to have been a wooden building, of a considerable size, hexagonal without, and circular within; it was thatched in part, but a large portion of the

roof was open to the weather. This was the company's summer theatre; and the plays were acted by daylight at the Blackfriars, on the contrary, which was the winter theatre, the top was entirely closed, and the performances were exhibited by candle-light. In every other respect, the economy and usages of these houses appear to have been the same, and to have resembled those of every other contemporary theatre.

With respect to the interior arrangements, there were very few points of difference between our modern theatres and those of the days of Shakspeare. The terms of admission, indeed, were considerably cheaper; to the boxes the entrance was a shilling, to the pit and galleries only sixpence. Sixpence, also, was the price paid for stools upon the stage; and these seats, as we learn from Decker's Gull's Hornbook, were peculiarly affected by the wits and critics at the time. The conduct of the audience was less restrained by the sense of public decorum, and smoking tobacco, playing at cards, eating and drinking, were generally prevalent among them: the hour of performance also was earlier; the play beginning at first at one, and afterwards at three o'clock, in the afternoon. During the time of representation, a flag was unfurled at the top of the theatre; and the floor of the stage (as was the case with every floor at the time, from the cottage to the palace) was strewn with rushes. But in other respects, the ancient theatres seem to have been nearly similar to those of modern times: they had their pit, where the inferior class of spectators the groundlings-vented their clamorous censure or approbation; they had their boxes, and even their private boxes, of which the right of exclusive admission was hired by the night, for the more wealthy and refined portion of the audience; and there were again the galleries, or scaffolds above the boxes, for those who were content to purchase inferior accommodations at a cheaper rate. On the stage, the arrangements appear to have been nearly the same as at present the curtain divided the audience from the actors; which, at the third sounding, not indeed of the bell, but of the trumpet, was drawn for the commencement of the performance. Malone has puzzled himself and his readers, in

in his account of the ancient theatre, by the supposition that there was a permanent elevation of about nine feet, at the back of the stage, from which, in many of the old plays, part of the dialogue was spoken; and that there was a private box on each side of this platform. Such an arrangement would have precluded the possibility of all theatrical illusion; and it seems an extraordinary place to fix upon as a station for spectators, where they could have seen nothing but the backs and trains of the performers. But as Malone himself acknowledges the spot to have been inconvenient, and that "it is not very easy to ascertain the precise situation where these boxes were; " it may be presumed, from our knowledge of the good sense of our forefathers, that, if indeed such boxes existed at all, they certainly were not where the historian of the English stage has placed them. Malone was possessed with an opinion, that the use of scenes was unknown in the early years of our national drama, and he was perhaps not unwilling to adopt such a theory respecting the distribution of the stage as would effectually preclude the supposition that such aids to the imagination of the audience had ever been employed. That he was in error respecting the want of painted scenery, I cannot help suspecting, even against the high authority of Mr. Gifford. As to his permanent platform, or upper stage, he may, or may not, be correct in his opinion; all that is certain upon this subject is, that his quotations do not authorize the conclusion that he has deduced from them; and only prove that in the old, as in the modern theatre, when the actor was to speak from a window, or appear upon a balcony, or on the walls of a fortress, the requisite ingenuity was wanting to contrive an adequate representation of the place. But, with regard to the use of scenery, it is scarcely possible, from the very circumstances of the case, that such a contrivance should have escaped our ancestors. All the materials were ready to their hands; they had not to invent for themselves, but to adapt an old invention to their own purposes: and at a time when every better apartment was adorned with tapestry; when even the rooms of the commonest taverns were hung with painted cloths; while all the essentials of scenery were continually before

their eyes, we can hardly believe our forefathers to have been so deficient in ingenuity, as to suppose that they never could have conceived the design of converting the common ornaments of their walls into the decorations of their theatres. But, the fact appears to be, that the use of scenery was almost coexistent with the introduction of dramatic representations in this country. In the Chester Mysteries, written in 1268, and which are the most ancient and complete collection of the kind that we possess, we have the following stage direction: "Then Noe shall go into the arke with all his familye, his wife excepte. The arke must be boarded round about, and upon the bordes all the beastes and fowles hereafter rehearsed must be painted, that their wordes may agree with the pictures." In this passage, then, is a distinct reference to a painted scene; and it is not likely, that in the lapse of three centuries, while all other arts were in a state of rapid improvement, and the art of dramatic writing perhaps more rapidly and successfully improved than any other, the art of theatrical decoration should have alone stood still. It is not improbable that their scenes were few; and that these were varied as occasion might require, by the introduction of different pieces of stage furniture. Mr. Gifford, who adheres to Malone's opinion, says, "a table with a pen and ink thrust in, signified that the stage was a counting-house; if these were withdrawn, and two stools put in their places, it was then a tavern ;" and this might be perfectly satisfactory, as long as the business of the play was supposed to be passing within doors; but when it was removed to the open air, such meagre devices would no longer be sufficient to guide the imagination of the audience, and some new method must have been adopted to indicate the place of action. After giving the subject considerable attention, I cannot help thinking that Steevens was right in rejecting the evidence of Malone, strong as it may in some instances appear; and concluding that the spectators were, as at the present day, assisted in following the progress of the story, by means of painted and movable scenery. This opinion is confirmed by the ancient stage directions. In the folio Shakspeare, of 1623, we read, "Enter Brutus, in his orchard." "Enter Timon, in the