gave place at a subsequent period to small circular wooden frames, furnished with candles, eight of which were hung on the stage, four at either side: and these within a few years were wholly removed by Mr. Garrick, who, on his return from France in 1765, first introduced the present commodious method of illuminating the stage by lights not visible to the audience. 6 The body of the house was illuminated by cressets, or large open lanterns of nearly the same size with those which are fixed in the poop of a ship. If all the players whose names are enumerated in the first folio edition of our author's works, be longed to the same theatre, they composed a numerous company; but it is doubtful whether they all performed at the same period, or always continued in the same house." Many of the companies, in proceeded no farther than to bare painting, and not arrived to the stupendous wonders of your great ingeniers; especially not knowing yet how to place our lights, for the more advantage and illuminating of the scenes." Short discourse of the English Stage. See Cotgrave's French Dictionary, 1611, in v. Falot: "A cresset light, (such as they use in playhouses,) made of ropes wreathed, pitched, and put into small and open cages of iron." The Watchmen of London carried cressets fixed on poles till 1539 (and perhaps later). See Stowe's Survey, p. 160, edit. 1618. 7 An actor, who wrote a pamphlet against Mr. Pope, soon after the publication of his edition of Shakspeare, says, he could prove that they belonged to several different companies. It appears from the MS. Register of Lord Stanhope, treasurer of the chamber to King James I. that Joseph Taylor, in 1613, was at the head of a distinct company from that of Heminge called the Lady Elizabeth's servants, who then acted at the Hope on the Bankside. He was probably, however, before that period, of the King's Company, of which afterwards he was a principal ornament. Some of the players too, whose names are prefixed to the first folio edition of our author, were dead in the year the infancy of the stage, certainly were so thin, that the same person played two or three parts; and a battle on which the fate of an empire was supposed to depend, was decided by half a dozen combatants. It appears to have been a common practice in their mock engagements, to discharge small pieces of ordnance on or behind the stage.1 Before the exhibition began, three flourishes were played, or, in the ancient language, there were three soundings. Musick was likewise played be 1600, or soon after; and others there enumerated, might have appeared at a subsequent period, to supply their loss. See The Catalogue of Actors, post. In the Induction to Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1602, Piero asks Alberto what part he acts. He replies, "the necessity of the play forceth me to act two parts." See also the Dramatis Persona of many of our ancient plays; and below; p. 122, n. 9 6. "And so our scene must to the battle fly, "The name of Agincourt." King Henry V. Act IV. "Much like to some of the players that come to the scaffold with drumme and trumpet, to proffer skirmish, and when they have sounded alarme, off go the pieces, to encounter a shadow, or conquer a paper monster." Schoole of Abuse, by Stephen Gosson, 1579. So, in The True Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, and the Death of good King Henrie the Sixt, 1600: "Alarmes to the battaile.-York flics; then the chambers be discharged; then enter the king," &c. 2 Come, let's bethink ourselves, what may be found Notes from Black-fryars, by H. Fitz-Jeoffery, 1617. See also the Address to the readers, prefixed to Decker's Satiromastix, a comedy, 1602: "Instead of the trumpets sounding thrice before the play begin," &c. 4 tween the acts. The instruments chiefly used, were trumpets, cornets, hautboys, lutes, recorders, viols, and organs. The band, which, I believe, did not consist of more than eight or ten performers, sat (as I have been told, by a very ancient stage-veteran, who had his information from Bowman; the contemporary of Betterton,) in an upper balcony, over what is now called the stage-box. See the prologue to Hannibal and Scipio, a tragedy, 1637: "Betwixt the acts." The practice appears to have prevailed in the infancy of our stage. See the concluding lines of the second Act of Gammer Gurton's Needle, 1575: "In the towne will I, my frendes to vysit there, "And hether straight again, to see the end of this gere: "In the mean time, felowes, pipe upp your fiddles, 1 say take them, "And let your freyndes here such mirth as ye can make them." It has been thought by some that our author's dramas were exhibited without any pauses, in an unbroken continuity of scenes. But this appears to be a mistake. In a copy of Romeo and Juliet, 1599, now before me, which certainly belonged to the playhouse, the endings of the acts are marked in the margin; and directions are given for musick to be played between each act. The marginal directions in this copy appear to be of a very old date, one of them being in the ancient style and hand"Playe musicke." See the stage-directions in Marston's Sophonisba, acted at Blackfriars theatre, in 1606: "The ladies draw the curtains about Sophonisba ;-the cornets and organs playing loud full musicke for the act. Signat. B 4. Organ mixt with recorders, for this act. Signat. D 2. "Organs, viols, and voices, play for this act. Signat. E 2. "A base lute and a treble viol play for this act." Signat. F 2. In the last scene of Massinger's City Madam, which was first acted at Blackfriars, May 25, 1632, Orpheus is introduced chanting those ravishing strains with which he moved- From Sir Henry Herbert's Manuscript I learn, that the musicians belonging to Shakspeare's company were obliged to pay the Master of the Revels an annual fee for a licence to play in the theatre." Not very long after our poet's death the Blackfriars' band was more numerous; and their reputation was so high as to be noticed by Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke, in an account which he has left of the splendid Masque given by the four Inns of Court on the second of February, 1633-4, entitled The Triumph of Peace, and intended, as he himself informs us," to manifest the difference of their opinion from Mr. Prynne's new learning, and to confute his Histriomastix against interludes." A very particular account of this masque is found in his Memorials; but that which Dr. Burney has lately given in his very curious and elegant History of Musick, from a manuscript in the possession of Dr. Moreton, of the British Museum, contains some minute particulars not noticed in the former "Charon and Cerberus, to give him way The following stage-direction, which is found in the preceding scene, supports what has been suggested above, concerning the station of the musicians in our ancient theatres: "Musicians cume down, [i. e. are to come down,] to make ready for the song at Arras." This song was to be sung behind the arras. 6«For a warrant to the Musitions of the king's company, this 9th of April, 1627,-£.1. 0. 0." MS. Herbert. In a warrant of protection now before me, signed by Sir Henry Herbert, and dated from the Office of the Revels, Dec. 27, 1624, Nicholas Underhill, Robert Pallant, John Rhodes, and seventeen others, are mentioned as being "all imployed by the kings Ma.ties servants in theire quallity of playinge as musitions, and other necessary attendants." • See Vol. III. p. 376. printed account, and among others an eulogy on our poet's band of musicians. "For the Musicke," says Whitelocke," which was particularly committed to my charge, I gave to Mr. Ives, and to Mr. Lawes, 100l. a piece for their rewards: for the four French gentlemen, the queen's servants, I thought that a handsome and liberall gratifying of them would be made known to the queen, their mistris, and well taken by her. I therefore invited them one morning to a collation att St. Dunstan's taverne, in the great room, the Oracle of Apollo, where each of them had his plate lay'd by him, covered, and the napkin by it, and when they opened their plates, they found in each of them forty pieces of gould, of their master's coyne, for the first dish, and they had cause to be much pleased with this surprisall. "The rest of the musitians had rewards answearable to their parts and qualities; and the whole charge of the musicke came to about one thousand pounds. The clothes of the horsemen reckoned one with another at £.100 a suit, att the least, amounted to £.10,000.-The charges of all the rest of the masque, which were borne by the societies, were accounted to be above twenty thousand pounds. "I was so conversant with the musitians, and so willing to gain their favour, especially at this time, that I composed an aier myselfe, with the assistance of Mr. Ives, and called it Whitelock's Coranto; which being cried up, was first played publiquely by the Blackefryars Musicke, who were then esteemed the best of common musitians in London. Whenever I came to that house, (as I did sometimes in those dayes, though not often,) to see a play, the musitians would presently play Whitelocke's Coranto: |