more in interludes, minstrels, jugglers, pedlers, tinkers, and petty chapmen, shall wander abroad, and have not licence of two justices of the peace at the least, whereof one to be of the quorum, where and in what shire they shall happen to wander." The circumstance of belonging to any baron, or person of greater degree, was in itself a pretty large exception; and if in those times of rising puritanism the licence of two justices of the peace was not always to be procured, the large number of companies enrolled as the servants of the nobility offers sufficient evidence that the profession of a player was not a persecuted one, but one expressly sanctioned by the ruling powers. The very same statute throws by implication as much odium upon scholars as upon players; for amongst its vagabonds are included "all scholars of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge that go about begging, not being authorised under the seal of the said Universities."* There was one company of players, the Earl of Leicester's, which within two years after the legislative protection of this act received a important privilege from the Queen herself. In 1574 a writ of privy zeal was issued to the keeper of the great seal, commanding him to set forth letters patent addressed to all justices, &c., licensing and authorizing James Burbage, and four other persons, servants to the Earl of Leicester, "to use, exercise, and occupy the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, interludes, stageplays, and such other like as they have already used and studied, or hereafter shall use and study, as well for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall think good to see them." And they were to exhibit their performances "as well within our city of London and liberties of the same," as "throughout our realm of England." Without knowing how far the servants of the Earl of Leicester might have been molested by the authorities of the city of London, in defiance of this patent, it is clear that the patent was of itself insufficient to insure their kind reception within the city; for it appears that, within three months after the date of the patent, a letter was written from the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor, directing him "to admit the comedy-players within the city of London, and to be otherwise favourably used." This mandate was probably obeyed; but in 1575 the Court of Common Council, without any exception for the objects of the patent of 1574, made certain orders, in the city language termed an act, which assumed that the whole authority for the regulation of plays was in the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen; that they only could license theatrical exhibitions within the city; and that the players whom they did license should contribute half their receipts to charitable purposes. The civic authorities appear to have stretched their power somewhat too far; for in that very year James Burbage, and the other servants of the Earl of Leicester, erected their theatre amidst the houses of the great in the Blackfriars, within a stone's throw of the city walls, but absolutely out of the control of the city officers. The immediate neighbours It is curious that the act against vagabonds of the 39th of Elizabeth somewhat softens this matter; for in its definition of vagabonds it includes "all persons calling themselves scholars, going about begging." It says nothing, with regard to players, about the licence of two justices; and requires that the nobleman's licence shall be under his hand and seal. of the players were the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Hunsdon, as we learn from a petition against the players from the inhabitants of the precinct.* The petition was unavailing. The rooms which it states "one Burbadge hath lately bought" were converted into a common playhouse;" and within fourteen years from the period of its erection William Shakspere was one of its proprietors. " The royal patent of 1574 authorised in the exercise of their art and faculty 'James Burbadge, John Perkyn, John Lanham, William Johnson, and Robert Wylson," who are described as the servants of the Earl of Leicester. Although on the early stage the characters were frequently doubled, we can scarcely imagine that these five persons were of themselves sufficient to form a company of comedians. They had, no doubt, subordinate actors in their pay; they being the proprietors or shareholders in the general adventure. Of these five original patentees four remained as the "sharers in the Blackfriars Playhouse" in 1589, the name only of John Perkyn being absent from the subscribers to a certificate to the Privy Council that the company acting at the Blackfriars "have never given cause of displeasure in that they have brought into their plays matters of state and religion." This certificate-which bears the date of November, 1589exhibits to us the list of the professional companions of Shakspere in an early stage of his career, though certainly not in the very earliest. The subject-matter of this document will require to be noticed in another chapter. The certificate describes the persons subscribing it as "her Majesty's poor players," and sets forth that they are "all of them sharers in the Blackfriars Playhouse." Their names are presented in the following order : 1. James Burbadge. 6. John Taylor. 8. Thomas Pope. 9. George Peele. 10. Augustine Phillipps. 11. Nicholas Towley. 12. William Shakespeare. 16. Robert Armyn. The position of James Burbage at the head of the list is a natural one. He was no doubt the founder of this theatrical company. The petition of 1576 • Lord Hunsdon's name appears to this petition, but the Lord Chamberlain's does not appear. against the Blackfriars Theatre mentions "one Burbadge" as having lately bought certain rooms in the precinct. This distinction was long preserved to his more celebrated son Richard, the second in the list. He died in 1619; and he probably continued at the head of the sharers until his decease gave occasion to the briefest epitaph ever written-"Exit Burbidge."* It would appear, from Jonson's masque of Christmas,' presented at Court in 1616, that Burbage and Heminge were joint managers; for Venus, who appears as "a deaf tire-woman," says she could have let out Cupid by the week to the King's players: "Master Burbage has been about and about with me, and so has old Master Heminge too; they have need of him." The early companionship of Shakspere with Richard Burbage became unquestionably a friendship which lasted through life; for he was one of the three professional friends-" fellows" -mentioned in the poet's will. Richard Burbage, by universal consent, was the greatest actor of his time. Sir Richard Baker calls him such an actor as no age must ever look to see the like." William Shakspere and Richard Burbage were, in all probability, nearly of the same age. At the date of the certificate before us Shakspere was twenty-five. The third and fifth shares in this list were of the original patentees in 1574. But the fourth amongst those patentees stands the fourteenth in the list. If the order in the list be evidence of the rank which each person held in the company-and such a deduction is reasonable from the fact of the Burbages being at the head of the list-it is clear that the order was determined upon another principle than that of seniority. Of John Laneham, whose name follows that of the Burbages, we know nothing. Thomas Greene, the fourth name attached to this certificate, is the person who has been conjectured to have been a native of Stratford-upon-Avon, and to have introduced Shakspere to the theatre. He was a comic actor, of great and original powers; and so celebrated was he as the representative of a particular part in one comedy, that the play was called after his name, Greene's Tu Quoque,' and bears his portrait in the title-page. This comedy, which long continued to be popular, was written by John Cook. Although the title-page of this play states that it "hath been divers times acted by the Queen's Majesty's servants," it is probable that Greene did not long continue a member of the company to which Shakspere belonged. He is mentioned by name in the Tu Quoque as the clown at the Red Bull. His name does not appear in a petition to the Privy Council from the Blackfriars company in 1596; and he is not included in the list of the "names of the principal actors" of all Shakspere's plays, which is prefixed to the folio of 1623. Greene, as well as others of higher eminence, was a poet as well as an actor. In the lines which have been ascribed to him upon somewhat doubtful anthority, he is made to say "I prattled poesy in my nurse's arms." But his ambition was not powerful enough to induce him to claim the honours Philipot's additions to Camden's 'Remains concerning Britain.' of a poet till a very ripened age; for upon the accession of James I. he addressed to the king A Poet's Vision, and a Prince's Glory,' in which he is thus spoken to in the vision: "What though the world saw never line of thine, He Robert Wilson, the fifth on the list, was a person of great celebrity. was amongst the first of the Queen's sworn servants in 1583. His reputation was long enduring as an actor in a very peculiar vein. Howes describes him as of 'a quick, delicate, refined, extemporal wit." This was a traditional reputation. But Meres, writing in 1598, after mentioning Antipater Sidonius as "famous for extemporal verse in Greek," and alluding to a similar power in Tarleton, adds-"And so is now our witty Wilson, who for learning and extemporal wit, in this faculty is without compare or compeer, as to his great and eternal commendations he manifested in his challenge at the Swan on the Bankside." Wilson, as we have seen, belonged to the very earliest period of our regular drama; and there can be little doubt that originally a great deal of the comedy was improvised by men or real talent, such as Tarleton and himself. But Wilson was also a dramatic writer. Prior to 1580 he had written a play on the subject of Catiline, which is mentioned in Lodge's Reply to Gosson."* Of his poetical capacity we may form some judgment from one of his plays, 'The Cobbler's Prophecy,' printed as early as 1594. It probably belongs to an earlier period; for allegorical characters are introduced in company with the Heatheu gods, and with a cobbler, by name Ralph, upon whom rests the burthen of the merriment, the character being probably sustained by Wilson himself. He was one of the authors also of Sir John Oldcastle, Part I.' It appears from Henslowe's papers that Wilson was not only associated with three dramatic friends in writing this play, but that he, in the production of other pieces for Henslowe's theatre, repeatedly co-operated with Drayton, Chettle, Dekker, Anthony Munday, and others. We find entries of his name amongst Henslowe's authors from 1597 to 1600. His name is not amongst the petitioners of the Blackfriars company in 1596. We may therefore conclude that he had then quitted the company, and had become permanently associated with that of Henslowe, as a dramatic writer, and probably as a performer. The sixth on the list, John Taylor, was probably an old actor; and might be the father of the famous Joseph Taylor, of whom tradition says that Shakspere taught him to play Hamlet. Anthony Wadeson, the seventh on the list, was a dramatic writer as well as a player. He probably had left the Blackfriars company early, for his name does not appear to the petition of 1596; and in 1601 we find him a writer for Henslowe's theatre. The diary of that manager contains the following entry amongst his catalogue of plays and their authors: 'The Honourable Life of the Humorous Earl of Gloster, with his Conquest of Portugal, by Anthony Wadeson.' His name is not amongst the list of actors of Shakspere's plays. Thomas Pope, the eighth name of the certificate, as well as Augustine Phillipps, the tenth name, are mentioned by Heywood, in his Apology for Actors,' 1612, amongst famous performers: "Though they be dead, their deserts yet live in the remembrance of many." Pope, Phillipps, Towley, Kempe, Richard Burbage, and Shakspere himself, are the only names in the list of 1589 which appear to the petition of 1596; and it is also to be noticed, that, out of the same sixteen persons, these six, with the addition of Robert Armin, are the only ones amongst the original fellows of Shakspere who are mentioned in the list of the names of the principal actors in Shakspere's plays. William Kempe, the thirteenth name in the certificate, was the famous successor of Tarleton, the extemporising clown, who died in 1588. Of this pair Heywood says, "Here I must needs remember Tarleton, in his time gracious with the Queen, his sovereign, and in the people's general applause, whom succeeded Will. Kempe, as well in the favour of her Majesty, as in the opinion and good thoughts of the general audience." Kempe was a person of overflowing animal spirits, as we may judge from his own extraordinary account of his morris-dance from London to Norwich. But it was for Shakspere to give his vivacity a right direction; and to associate his powers with such enduring delineations of human nature as Dogberry and Bottom. William Johnson, the fourteenth name, has been already mentioned as one of the first patentees. Of Baptist |