The Spaniards, whose pay was in arrear, had now lost all dis- cipline. After the raising of the siege of Leyden they had beset Utrecht and pillaged and maltreated the inhabitants, till Valdez contrived to furnish their pay. No sooner had Requesens ex- pired than they broke into open mutiny and acted as if they were entire masters of the country. After wandering about some time and threatening Brussels, they seized and plundered Alost, where they established themselves; and they were soon after joined by the Walloon and German troops. To repress their violence, the council of state restored to the Netherlands the arms of which they had been deprived, and called upon them i54 SIEGE OF LEYDEN by a proclamation to repress force by force, but these citizen- soldiers were dispersed with great slaughter by the disciplined troops in various rencounters. Ghent, Utrecht, Valenciennes, Maestricht were taken and plundered by the mutineers; and at last the storm fell upon Antwerp, which the Spaniards entered early in November, and sacked during three days. More than a thousand houses were burnt, eight thousand citizens are said to have been slain, and enormous sums in ready money were plundered. The whole damage was estimated at twenty-four million florins. The horrible excesses committed in this sack procured -for it the name of the "Spanish Fury." The government was at this period conducted in the name of the State of Brabant. On September 5th De Heze, a young Brabant gentleman who was in secret intelligence with the Prince of Orange, had, at the head of five hundred soldiers, entered the palace where the council of state was assembled, and seized and imprisoned the members. William, taking ad- vantage of the alarm created at Brussels by the sack of Antwerp, persuaded the provisional government to summon the States- General, although such a course was at direct variance with the commands of the King. To this assembly all the provinces except Luxemburg sent deputies. The nobles of the southern provinces, although they viewed the Prince of Orange with sus- picion, feeling that there was no security for them so long as the Spanish troops remained in possession of Ghent, sought his assistance in expelling them, which William consented to grant only on condition that an alliance should be effected between the northern and the southern, or Catholic, provinces of the Nether- lands. SEARCH FOR THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE BY FROBISHER A.D. 1576 GEORGE BEST Martin Frobisher, the English navigator, was born in Yorkshire about 1535. When a lad he went to sea, and seems early to have dreamed of a shorter route to China through the Arctic Ocean. He became the pioneer in the long search for a northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the northern coasts of the American continent. He even contemplated the planting of English colonies on the Pacific shore of the New World. Columbus had found the western way to China barred by the conti- nent of America. Magellan discovered a southwest passage around that continent. Half a century later Frobisher entered upon the northern quest. Frobisher was poorly educated, and wrote with difficulty. The nar- rative of his first voyage was written by George Best from an account furnished by Frobisher himself, whom Best accompanied on his second and third voyages. The present narrative has therefore all the value of a first-hand record, and it 'is included in the Principal Navigations of Hakluyt. Although over two hundred voyages have now been made in search of this passage, which in 1850-1854 was achieved by Sir Robert McClure, the long-cherished hopes of its advantages have not been realized. The route, for commercial purposes, is thus far quite useless, owing to arctic conditions. Great gains, however, through these expeditions, have been made in scientific knowledge. \A7HICH thing being well considered and familiarly known to our General, Captain Frobisher, as well for that he is thoroughly furnished of the knowledge of the sphere and all other skills appertaining to the art of navigation, as also for the confirmation he hath of the same by many years' experience both by sea and land; and being persuaded of a new and nearer pas- sage to Cataya1 than by Cabo de Buona Speranc.a, which the Portugals yearly use, he began first with himself to devise, and 1 Cathay (China). EXPLORATIONS OF FROBISHER 157 then with his friends to confer, and laid a plain plot unto them that that voyage was not only possible by the northwest, but also, he could prove, easy to be performed. And further, he deter- mined and resolved with himself to go make full proof thereof, and to accomplish or bring true certificate of the truth, or else never to return again; knowing this to be the only thing of the world that was left yet undone, whereby a notable mind might be made famous and fortunate. But although his will were great to perform this notable voy- age,1 whereof he had conceived in his mind a great hope by sundry sure reasons and secret intelligence, which here, for sundry causes, I leave untouched; yet he wanted altogether means and ability to set forward and perform the same. Long time he conferred with his private friends of these secrets, and made also many offers for the performing of the same in effect unto sundry merchants of our country, above fifteen years before he attempted the same, as by good witness shall well appear, albeit some evil-willers, which challenge to themselves the fruits of other men's labors, have greatly injured him in the reports of the same, saying that they have been the first authors of that action, and that they have learned him the way, which themselves as yet have never gone. But perceiving that hardly he was hearkened unto of the merchants, which never regard virtue without sure, certain, and present gains, he repaired to the court, from whence, as from the fountain of our common wealth, all good causes have their chief increase and maintenance, and there laid open to many great estates and learned men the plot and sum of his device. And among many honorable minds which favored his honest and commendable enterprise, he was specially bound and beholding to the Right Honorable Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, whose favorable mind and good disposition hath always been ready to countenance and advance all honest actions, with the authors and executers of the same. And so by means of my lord his honorable countenance he received some 1 Further details of this voyage may be gathered from the log of Christopher Hall, master of the Gabriel, printed in Hakluyt. The pres- ent narrative, prefixed to Best's accounts of the second and third voy- ages, was preceded by a treatise intended to prove all parts of the earth, even the poles, equally habitable. I58 EXPLORATIONS OF FROBISHER comfort of his cause, and by little and little, with no small ex- pense and pain, brought his cause to some perfection, and had drawn together so many adventurers and such sums of money as might well defray a reasonable charge to furnish himself to sea withal. He prepared two small barks of twenty and five-and-twenty ton apiece, wherein he intended to accomplish his pretended voyage. Wherefore, being furnished with the aforesaid two barks, and one small pinnace of ten ton burden, having therein victuals and other necessaries for twelve months' provision, he departed upon the said voyage from Blackwall, the 15. of June,1 Anno Domini 1576. One of the barks wherein he went was named the Gabriel, and the other the Michael; and, sailing northwest from Eng- land upon the 1 1. of July he had sight of an high and ragged land, which he judged to be Frisland,2 whereof some authors have made mention; but durst not approach the same by reason of the great store of ice that lay alongst the coast, and the great mists that troubled them not a little. Not far from thence he lost company of his small pinnace, which by means of the great storm he supposed to be swallowed up of the sea; wherein he lost only four men. Also the other bark, named the Michael, mistrusting the matter, conveyed themselves privily away from him, and returned home, with great report that he was cast away. The worthy captain, notwithstanding these discomforts, al- though his mast was sprung and his topmast blown overboard with extreme foul weather, continued his course toward the northwest, knowing that the sea at length must needs have an ending and that some land should have a beginning that way; 1 The date is incorrect. Hall quitted his moorings at Ratcliffe on the 7th, and left Deptford on the 8th. In passing the royal palace of Green- wich, says Hall, " we shot off our ordnance, and made the best show we could. Her majesty, beholding the same, commended it, and bade us farewell, with shaking her hand at us out of the window." Gravesend was passed on the i2th. 8 The land was Greenland. Friesland was the name given to the Faroe Islands in the voyage of the brothers Zeni. Hall saw the rocky spires of the coast " nsing like pinnacles of steeples " in the afternoon sun. EXPLORATIONS OF FROBISHER 159 and determined therefore at the least to bring true proof what land and sea the same might be so far to the northwestward, be- yond any that man hath heretofore discovered. And the 20. of July he had sight of an high land, which he called " Queen Eliza- beth's Foreland, " * after her majesty's name. And sailing more northerly alongst that coast, he descried another foreland,2 with a great gut, bay, or passage, dividing as it were two main lands or continents asunder. There he met with store of exceeding great ice all this coast along, and, coveting still to continue his course to the northward, was always by contrary wind detained overthwart these straits, and could not get beyond. Within few days after, he perceived the ice to be well con- sumed and gone, either there engulfed in by some swift cur- rents or indrafts, carried more to the southward of the same straits, or else conveyed some other way; wherefore he determined to make proof of this place, to see how far that gut had continuance, and whether he might carry himself through the same into some open sea on the back side, whereof he con- ceived no small hope; and so entered the same the one-and- twentieth of July, 'and passed above fifty leagues therein, as he reported, having upon either hand a great main or continent. And that land upon his right hand as he sailed westward he judged to be the continent of Asia, and there to be divided from the firm of America, which lieth upon the left hand over against the same. This place he named after his name, " Frobisher's Straits, " 3 like as Magellanus at the southwest end of the world, having dis- covered the passage to the South Sea, where America is divided from the continent of that land, which lieth under the south pole, and called the same straits "Magellan's Straits." After he had passed sixty leagues into this aforesaid strait, he went ashore, and found signs where fire had been made. He saw mighty deer, that seemed to be mankind, which ran at him ; and hardly he escaped with his life in a narrow way, where he was fain to use defence and policy to save his life. In this place he saw and perceived sundry tokens of the peoples resorting thither. 1 The northeast corner of the island to the north of Resolution Island. * The North Foreland, at the southeast corner of Hall's Island. 3 Afterward called Frobisher Bay. 160 EXPLORATIONS OF FROBISHER And being ashore upon the top of a hill, he perceived a number of small things fleeting in the sea afar off, which he supposed to be porpoises, or seals, or some kind of strange fish; but coming nearer, he discovered them to be men in small boats made of leather. And before he could descend down from the hill, certain of those people had almost cutoff his boat from him, having stolen secretly behind the rocks for that purpose; where he speedily hastened to his boat, and bent himself to his halberd, and nar- rowly escaped the danger, and saved his boat. Afterward he had sundry conferences with them, and they came aboard his ship, and brought him salmon and raw flesh and fish, and greedily devoured the same before our men's faces. And to show their agility, they tried many masteries upon the ropes of the ship after our mariners' fashion, and appeared to be very strong of their arms and nimble of their bodies. They ex- changed coats of seals' and bears' skins, and such like, with our men, and received bells, looking-glasses, and other toys in recom- pense thereof again. After great courtesy and many meetings, our mariners, contrary to their captain's direction, began more easily to trust them; and five of our men going ashore were by them intercepted with their boat, and were never since heard of to this day again; so that the captain being destitute of boat, bark, and all company, had scarcely sufficient number to con- duct back his bark again. He could now neither convey himself ashore to rescue his men, if he had been able, for want of a boat; and again the sub- tle traitors were so wary, as they would after that never come within our men's danger. The captain, notwithstanding, desir- ous of bringing some token from thence of his being there, was greatly discontented that he had not before apprehended some of them; and, therefore, to deceive the deceivers, he wrought a pretty policy. For knowing well how they greatly delighted in our toys, and specially in bells, he rang a pretty loud bell, making signs that he would give him the same who would come and fetch it. And because they would not come within his danger for fear, he flung one bell unto them, which of purpose he threw short, that it might fall into the sea and be lost. And to make them more greedy of the matter he rang a louder bell, so that in the end one of them came near the ship side to receive the bell. EXPLORATIONS OF FROBISHER 161 Which when he thought to take at the captain's hand, he was thereby taken himself; for the captain, being readily provided, let the bell fall, and caught the man fast, and plucked him with main force, boat and all, into his bark out of the sea. Where- upon, when he found himself in captivity, for very choler and disdain he bit his tongue in twain within his mouth; notwith- standing, he died not thereof, but lived until he came in England, and then he died of cold which he had taken at sea. Now with this new prey, which was a sufficient witness of the captain's far and tedious travel toward the unknown parts of the world, as did well appear by this strange infidel, whose like was never seen, read, nor heard of before, and whose language was neither known nor understood of any, the said Captain Frobisher returned homeward, and arrived in England, in Harwich, the second of October following, and thence came to London, 1576, where he was highly commended of all men for his great and notable attempt, but specially famous for the great hope he brought of the passage to Cataya. And it is especially to be remembered that at their first arri- val in those parts there lay so great store of ice all the coast along, so thick together, that hardly his boat could pass unto the shore. At length, after divers attempts, he commanded his com- pany, if by any possible means they could get ashore, to bring him whatsoever thing they could first find, whether it were li ving or dead, stock or stone, in token of Christian possession, which thereby he took in behalf of the Queen's most excellent majesty, thinking that thereby he might justify the having and enjoying of the same things that grew in these unknown parts. Some of his company brought flowers, some green grass; and one brought a piece of black stone, much like to a sea coal in color, which by the weight seemed to be some kind of metal or mineral. This was a thing of no account in the judgment of the captain at first sight ; and yet for novelty it was kept, in respect of the place from whence it came. After his arrival in London, being demanded of sundry his friends what thing he had brought them home out of that country, he had nothing left to present them withal but a piece of this black stone. And it fortuned a gentlewoman, one of the adventurer's wives, to have a piece thereof, which by chance she threw and burned in the fire, so E., VOL. X.— II. i62 EXPLORATIONS OF FROBISHER long that at the length being taken forth, and quenched in a little vinegar, it glistened with a bright marquesite of gold. Where- upon the matter being called in some question, it was brought to certain gold-finers in London to make assay thereof, who gave out that it held gold, and that very richly for the quantity.1 After- ward the same gold-finers promised great matters thereof if there were any store to be found, and offered themselves to adventure for the searching of those parts from whence the same was brought. Some that had great hope of the matter sought secretly to have a lease at her majesty's hands of those places, whereby to enjoy the mass of so great a public profit unto their own private gains. In conclusion, the hope of more of the same gold ore to be found kindled a greater opinion in the hearts of many to advance the voyage again. Whereupon preparation was made for a new voyage against the year following, and the captain more specially directed by commission for the searching more of this gold ore than for the searching any further discovery of the passage. And being well accompanied with divers resolute and forward gentle- men, her majesty then lying at the Right Honorable the Lord of Warwick's house, in Essex, he came to take his leave ; and kiss- ing her highness' hands, with gracious countenance and com- fortable words departed toward his charge. 'The English assayers all pronounced the stone worthless. An Ital- ian, Giovanni Baptista Agnello, reported it to contain gold. On being questioned as to how it was that he alone was able to produce gold from the stone, he is said to have replied, " Bisogna sapere adular la natura " C Nature requires coaxing "). Agnello's assay necessarily involved the addition of other substances for the purpose of separating the gold ; and it has been suggested that the gold produced by him was itself added during this process. There is no good reason for thinking so. Pyrites often contains a minute proportion of gold. Admitting the possibility of trickery in the case of the small specimen submitted to Agnello, it is in- credible that the fraud should have been successfully repeated when the two hundred tons of mineral brought back by the second expedition came to be tested. The mineral undoubtedly contained gold, but not enough to pay for the carriage and working. BUILDING OF THE FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND A.D. 1576 KARL MANTZIUS A History of the Theatre, the scholarly work of Mantzius, has had no time to become a classic — published 1904 — but certainly the author has delved into his subject with a minuteness and presented it with a lively interest which fully justify the selection of his work for presen- tation here. The theatre has become so prominent an institution among us that its origin must be of interest to all ; and the building of the first theatre is inextricably interwoven with the larger and vaguer story of the rise of the modern drama itself. The dramatic arts of Greece and Rome had never been wholly forgotten. Their traditions survived in Italy in the crude pantomime performances of the common people. Practically, however, the Middle Ages invented a new dramatic art of their own, developed from the gorgeous religious pantomime of the church services. The theatre was born of the cathedral ; the stage, of the altar. The plays, at first purely religious, rapidly developed a comic side, which by degrees became their central theme. The moral purpose of the performance was forgotten ; and the Church disowned its evil changeling. To none of these early plays can the term " drama " be accurately ap- plied ; for each and all of them lack plot. They are merely a series of disconnected scenes, pictures having small connection and less develop- ment. The idea of pursuing a single, slowly developing story to its cli- max and conclusion dawns upon the modern stage only with the English Elizabethan drama. Despite our imperfect knowledge of the plays and players of that time, one feels almost justified in saying that the modern drama was created about 1580 by Christopher Marlowe and was raised to the highest point of its development about 1600 by William Shakespeare. A T the date of Shakespeare's birth, 1564, no permanent thea- tre as yet existed in England. But there had long existed a class of professional actors, descended partly from the mys- tery- and the miracle-playing artisans of the Middle Ages, partly from the strolling players, equilibrists, jugglers, and jesters. Professional Italian actors, players of the commedia dell1 163 164 FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT arte, who in the sixteenth century spread their gay and varjed art all over Europe, also supplied English players with that touch of professional technique in which their somewhat vacillating and half-amateurish arts were still wanting. While, however, as far as France is concerned, the Italian influence must strike everybody who studies the stage history of the country, the evidence of a fertilization of English scenic art by the commedia dell' arte is scanty. Yet I think it is sufficient to deserve more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon it. In' any case there is sufficient evidence to prove that Italian professional actors penetrated into England and exercised their art there. In January, 1577, an Italian comedian came to London with his company. The English called him Drousiano, but his real name was Drousiano Martinelli, the same who, with his brother Tristano, visited the court of Philip II, and there is no reason to suppose that he was either the first or the last of his countrymen who tried to carry off English gold from merry London. The typ- ical Italian masks are quite well known to the authors of that pe- riod. Thus Thomas Heywood mentions all these doctors, zanies, pantaloons, and harlequins, in which the French, and still more the Italians, distinguished themselves. In Kyd's Spanish Trag- edy, and in Ben Jonson's The Case is Altered, mention is made of the Italian improvised comedy, and a few of the well-known types of character in the dramatic literature of the time bear dis- tinct traces of having been influenced by Italian masks, e.g., Ralph Roister Doister in UdalFs comedy of that name; as well as the splendid Captain Bobadill and his no less amusing com- panion, Captain Tucca, in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Hu- mour and The Poetaster, all of which are reproductions of the typical capitano. However, it is not these literary testimonies that I consider the most striking evidence of the influence of Italian professional technique on English professional actors. It is a remarkable discovery made by the highly esteemed Shakespearean archaeol- ogist, Edmund Malone, about a century ago, in Dulwich Col- lege, that mine of ancient English dramatic research, founded by the actor Edward Alleyn. FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT 165 Among the notes left by the old pawnbroker and theatrical manager, Henslowe, and the various papers, letters, parts, ac- counts, etc., of his son-in-law, the famous and very wealthy actor Alleyn, among these rare documents, to which we owe a great part of our knowledge of the Shakespearean stage, Malone found four remarkable card-board tables, on which the plots of as many plays were put down, together with the names of the per- sons represented, their entrances and exits, cues for music, son- nets, etc. According to Collier's description, these tables — one of which only is preserved, the three others having disappeared through the carelessness and disorder which at that time prevailed in the Dulwich treasury — were about fifteen inches in length and nine in breadth. They were divided into two columns, and between these, toward the top of the table, there was a square hole for hanging it up on a hook or some such thing. They bore the fol- lowing titles : 1. The Plotte of the Deade Man's Fortune. 2. The Plotte of the First Parte of Tamar Cain. 3. The Plotte of Frederick and Basilea. 4. The Plotte of the Second Parte of the Seven Deadlie Sinns. The last-mentioned play is known for certain to have been composed by the excellent comic actor, Richard Tarlton. Ga- briel Harvey, the astrologist, and the implacable antagonist of Thomas Nash, tells us in his letters how Tarlton himself in Ox- ford invited him to see his celebrated play on The Seven Deadly Sins; Harvey asked him which of the seven was his own deadly sin, and he instantly replied, "By G — , the shine of other gen- tlemen, lechery." Tarlton died in the year 1588, and some of the other plays, especially The Dead Man's Fortune, are considered to be a good deal older than his. They belong, therefore, to an early period of the English Renaissance stage. These four tables caused considerable trouble to Malone and his contemporary Steevens, as well as to later investigators, as they are without equals in the archaeology of the English stage. If these men had known that such tables, containing the plot of the piece which was acted at the time, were always hung upon the stage of the Italian commedia dell' arte in order to assist the 166 FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT memory of the improvising actors, they would have seen instantly that their essential historical importance to us consists in their showing by documentary evidence how the early Elizabethan scenic art in its outer form was influenced and improved by the Italians. The fact that one of the principal characters in the oldest scenario, The Dead Man's Fortune, bears the name of " Pante- loun" further confirms this supposition. This is not the place to investigate how far the English were influenced by Italian professional dramatic art. At any rate, the English national character differed too much from the Italian to allow it to receive more than an outward and formal stamp. And even this superficial effect is much less significant in England than in France. Still, we are certainly not mistaken in assum- ing that it helped to strengthen English dramatic art, which al- ready possessed no small amount of power; and we may take it for granted that about the time of Shakespeare's birth London possessed a socially and professionally organized class of actors, in spite of the fact that they did not yet possess a theatre of their own. Before proper theatres were built, and after the time of the great mysteries, the actors found a refuge for their art chiefly in the inns, those splendid and expensive old public-houses which convey to our minds the idea of old-fashioned and picturesque comfort ; where the nobility and clergy sought their quarters in winter, and where the carriers unloaded their goods in the large square yards, which were surrounded on all sides by the walls of the inn. On these walls there were galleries running all round, supported by wooden pillars and with steep picturesque ladders running up to them. It was in these yards of the Cross Keys in Gracechurch Street, of The Bull in Bishopsgate Street, La Belle Sauvage on Ludgate Hill, or the Tabbard Inn in Southwark that the actors set up their stages. Perhaps it was this very circumstance that became one of the indirect reasons why they finally were obliged to build a house for themselves. Certainly the inns offered advantages to the actors; they were meeting-places for the public, frequented by lords and other persons of distinction; probably the companies paid next to noth- FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT 167 ing for the use of them. In themselves they afforded good room for the audience, with a natural pit for ordinary people in the yard, and with more comfortable "boxes" for the more distin- guished part of the audience on the surrounding balconies and at the windows facing the yard. On the other hand, these inn-theatres had their drawbacks. In the first place, the actors were not on their own ground, and so, after all, they were only tolerated. Secondly, it must have been very difficult for them to keep to regular prices, and espe- cially to secure the payment of the entrance fee, as they had prob- ably to collect the money during or after the performance, thus depending on the liberality of the public for their remuneration. And finally, worst of all, they were led into quarrels with the lord mayor and with the citizens. Indeed, it is not unlikely that these performances in the inns caused a good deal of noise and disturbance in the quarters where they took place, and that the joyous, but by no means re- fined or quiet, "pit," when going home, excited by one of Tarl- ton's jigs and by the strong ale of the inn, was not animated by very respectful feelings toward their sour Puritan fellow-citizens, who were scandalized as they watched "merry London" crowd- ing past their windows. Nor is it improbable that these anything but respectful feelings vented themselves in some of the coarse expressions in which the plays of those times abound, where Puritanism, the sworn enemy, is concerned; "this barbarous sect," as it is called by a modern English author, "from whose inherited and contagious tyranny this nation is as yet but im- perfectly released." It is certain, at any rate, that the Puritan citizens entertained a deep and sincere hatred of anything connected with plays and actors, and if it had been in their power to do what they liked, the world would once for all have been relieved of such perni- cious and wicked vagabonds as William Shakespeare, Christo- pher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson. Fortunately, however, this power did not lie with the Puri- tans only. Luckily, this sect, which like a malicious growth seemed to have gathered to itself all the stubbornness, insensibility, and rude obstinacy of the nation, was counterbalanced by a refined i68 FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT and intellectual nobility, which was inspired by the new artistic and philosophical thought of the Renaissance, and seemed to foresee, if not fully to recognize, what a mine of poetry the Eng- lish theatre of those times was destined to be. Thanks to men like Sir Francis Walsingham, Lords Leicester, Nottingham, Strange, and Sussex, the drama resisted for a time the violent and unwearied attacks of the Puritans. Most fortunately for the actors also, Queen Elizabeth, as well as her successors, James I and Charles I, was fond of plays and favorably inclined toward their performers. Elizabeth rendered a great service to the actors by placing them under the patronage of the nobility. The municipal au- thorities, who were frequently Puritan, considered neither dra- matic art nor dramatic poetry as an acceptable means of liveli- hood; consequently, those who cultivated these noble arts easily exposed themselves to being treated as "masterless men," un- less they could give a reference to some distinguished aristo- cratic name. The Queen ordered by law — in a statute which has often been misunderstood — "that all common players of interludes wandering abroad, other than players of interludes belonging to any baron of this realme, or any other honorable personage of greater degree, to be authorized to play under the hand and scale of arms of such baron or personage, shall be adjudged and deemed rogues and vagabonds"; in other words, the Queen urged all actors, for their own sakes, to place themselves under the patronage of some nobleman, in order to protect them against the persecution of the Puritan citizens. But even such mighty protection could not entirely shield them, and it was this very power of the London corporation to injure the actors that caused the establishment of the first Lon- don theatre. In the year 1572 the plague broke out in London; it killed many thousands of people, and kept recurring at certain inter- vals during the next twenty or thirty years, carrying horror and death with it. Under these circumstances all dramatic per- formances were prohibited for a time in London, a precau- tion which was reasonable enough, as the dense crowding of people might have helped to spread the disease. But the mag- FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT 169 istratc seems to have caught eagerly at this opportunity of in- terfering. In Harrison's Description of England the event is reported as follows: "Plaies are banished for a time out of London, lest the resort unto them should ingender a plague, or rather dis- perse it, being already begonne. Would to God these comon plaies were exiled for altogether as seminaries of impiety, and their theatres pulled downe as no better than houses of baudrie. It is an evident token of a wicked time when plaiers wexe so rich that they can build suche houses. As moche I wish also to our comon beare baitinges used on. the Sabaothe daics." We cannot help noticing the predilection of the Puritans for the coarse bear-fights, which in their opinion were only displeas- ing to God when performed on a Sabbath, whereas the play- houses at any time were no better than the "ill-famed stews" in Southwark. It cannot be denied, however, that under the pre- vailing circumstances it was quite right that the playhouses should be temporarily forbidden. But the sudden and unwarranted expulsion of all dramatic performances from the precincts of London a few years later, 1575, cannot be accounted for otherwise than by the increasing popularity which these plays enjoyed among the non-Puritan public, and the envy with which the clergy saw the people crowd- ing much more to the places where actors interpreted the rising poets than to those where the preachers themselves enunciated their gloomy doctrine. In the year 1574 the actor James Burbage, with four other actors, all belonging to the retinue of the Earl of Leicester, had received permission from the Queen to perform all kinds of plays anywhere in England, "for the recreation of her beloved sub- jects as well as for her own comfort and pleasure, if it should please her to see them." Perhaps it was a counter-move on the part of the Puritan community when the lord mayor and the corporation in the fol- lowing year straightway forbade all plays within the precincts of the town. If so, it proved a failure. James Burbage reso- lutely hired a liberty outside the city, and here, in 1576, on the premises of an ancient Roman Catholic priory, he built the first English playhouse, which he named "The Theatre/' 170 FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT In the following year The Theatre gained an ally in "The Curtain," which was built in the same neighborhood, both, of course, causing great indignation among the Puritans. In 1577, the year after the first playhouse had been erected, there ap- peared a furious pamphlet, by John Northbrooke, against "dic- ing, dancing, plays and interludes as well as other idle pas- times." No doubt all possible means were taken to have plays for- bidden and the playhouses pulled down, but though the attack of the Black Army never ceased for a moment, the Puritans did not succeed in getting the better of the theatres till the year 1642, when they acquired political power through the civil war; and, fortunately for the part of mankind which appreciates art, this precious flower of culture, one of the richest and most remark- able periods in the life of dramatic art, had developed into full bloom before the outbreak of the war. In a sermon of 1578 we read the following bitter and deep- drawn sigh by the clergyman John Stockwood: "Wyll not a fylthye playe wyth the blast of a trumpette sooner call thyther a thousande than an houres tolling of a bell bring to the sermon a hundred ? — nay, even heere in the Citie, without it be at this place and some other certaine ordinarie audience, where shall you finde a reasonable company? — whereas, if you resort to the Theatre, The Curtayne, and other places of playes in the Citie, you shall on the Lord's Day have these places, with many other that I cannot reckon, so full as possible they can throng." That the bold defiance with which James Burbage and the ether actors met the lord mayor and the corporation should prove so successful lay almost in the nature of things. The pro- hibition of plays within the bounds of the city of London did not mean that they were looked upon with animosity by the people, but merely that a majority of the corporation was unfriendly to them. It was soon shown that, though the wise city fathers could easily forbid the actors to perform their plays in London, they could not prevent the enthusiastic public from walking in crowds a mile out of town in order to see such performances, es- pecially as people were quite accustomed to the journey. Bur- bage, who was a business-like man, had chosen his ground quite close to the public places, where the Londoners practised their FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT 171 open-air sports and amused themselves with tennis and foot- ball, stone-throwing, cock-fights, and archery. Although Burbagc called his new building "The Theatre," the title was not intended to mean the theatre par excellence, for the word "theatre" was not then commonly used to denote a building in which dramatic representations were performed. It is more probable that he thought he had succeeded in choosing an elegant name with a certain suggestion of the old classics, which was euphonious and not quite common. The usual name for a theatre was the playhouse, a house in- tended for all kinds of games and sport, such as fencing, bear- fights, bull-fights, jigs, morris-dances, and pantomimes, as well as for dramatic performances. It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that the theatrical en- tertainments of those times were something more or less literary; anyhow, something quite apart from the dramatic performances of the present day. They were meant to satisfy mixed desires in the nation; but, besides satisfying its craving for beautiful, pict- uresque language, fine spectacles, and merry jests, they also gratified its desire for the display of physical strength, for shal- low rhyming tricks and competitions, graceful exercises of the body, indeed for all that might be included under the notion of sport and give opportunity for betting. Therefore, the plays, properly so called, alternated with fights between animals, in which bears and bulls were baited by great blood-thirsty bulldogs, or with fencing-matches fought by celebrated English and foreign fencing-masters, with rope- dancing, acrobatic tricks, and boxing. Even the serious per- formances ended with a more or less absurd jig, in which the clown sang endless songs about the events of the day, and danced interminable morris-dances. Shakespeare and his contemporaries, whose works are now reckoned among the first literature — so much so that they are scarcely read any longer — at the time of which we are speaking were nothing but practical playwrights, and Shakespeare was so far from dreaming that the time would come when his plays would be counted among the most precious treasures of posterity that, as we know, he did not even take the trouble to have a printed edition of his works published. 172 FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT The many fighting- scenes in the plays of the time, in Shake- speare's among the rest, the wrestling-match in As You Like It, the duel between Macduff and Macbeth, the fencing-scene be- tween Hamlet and Laertes, no doubt afforded opportunities for magnificent displays of skill in the use of arms and in physical exercises, and we may be sure that the spectators followed those scenes with an interest which was perhaps more of a sporting than of a literary nature. It was according to a well-calculated plan, therefore, that the elder Burbage erected his playhouse north of the city, in Finsbury Fields, where from ancient times the people had been accustomed to see and practise military exercises and other sports, and where the soldiers were still in the habit of practising archery and musketry. And it was with equally sound calculation that he gave the theatre its particular form, which remained essentially the same in all the playhouses of the Shakespearean period. Before the establishment of the permanent theatres there had long existed amphitheatres for the performance of fights be- tween animals, the so-called "rings." These rings — the audi- torium as well as the arena — were open all round, and the seats, like those of the ancient Greek theatre, were placed according to the natural formation of the ground. Burbage retained the circular amphitheatrical form; being a joiner as well as an actor and manager, he was no doubt his own architect in his new theatrical enterprise. But instead of the roofless, open-air auditorium, he con- structed a covered circular wooden building with stories or gal- leries, which was made so as to contain a number of boxes for the distinguished and well-paying public, and which entirely en- closed the open, uncovered arena, which, as it recalled the inn- yards, was called the "yard," or afterward, perhaps on account of the high pitlike construction surrounding it, the "pit," whence the poorest and humblest spectators enjoyed the performances. Finally, he built a covered "tire-house" — or " tiring-house," as it was called in those times — for the actors, a place in which also all the requisites and the so-called "properties" were kept. This tiring-house stood within the circle, and its roof towered up above the auditorium. FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT 173 From the tiring-house the stage — a simple wooden platform resting on rams — was pushed forward, and it might be removed when the arena was to be used for fights between animals, etc., instead of dramatic performances. By this reform of the building — a reform which became epoch-making to the whole Shakespearean period — James Bur- bage obtained a threefold advantage: more comfortable seats for the more distinguished portion of the audience, where they were sheltered from wind and weather; the use of the house both for plays and the baiting of animals; and the power to oblige the public to pay their admission at certain doors of his building, which spared him the unpleasant and unsafe collec- tion of money from spectators, who might not always be very willing to pay. But this result was not obtained without considerable ex- pense. Though we are not so fortunate as to possess a drawing of the outside or inside of The Theatre, about the shape of which, therefore, we must partly draw our conclusions from analogy with other playhouses, we are comparatively well informed as to its outward history till it was pulled down, in 1598- 1599- Thus we know that the enterprise cost James Burbage six hundred sixty-six pounds thirteen shillings fourpence, a consid- erable sum in those days, which would be equal to about eightfold that amount in our own time. This money Burbage borrowed of his father-in-law, John Braynes, to whom he had to pay high interest, and it repre- sented only the cost of the building itself, for he did not buy the ground on which it stood. This ground belonged to one Giles Allen, and in the contract between him and Burbage it was set- tled, among other points, that if, in the course of the first ten years after the drawing up of the lease, Burbage spent a sum of two hundred pounds or more on the building, he should have a right to remove it after the expiration of the lease. The lease was drawn up in the year 1576, for a period of twenty-one years. In spite of many pecuniary difficulties, which the heavy rent and high interest naturally entailed on Burbage — who for some time even seems to have been o*bliged to mort- 174 FIRST THEATRE IN ENGLAND BUILT gage his entire property — and innumerable annoyances from the Puritans, Burbage succeeded in keeping his theatre above water till the expiration of the lease and till his own death, which oc- curred in 1597. 