is to say, the public taste had just reached the Romantic stage. The next step was the longest stride yet towards the modern theatre, and deserves our curious notice. No sooner had the realism-the gaudy and gory pigment-ceased, and the imagination of the auditor appealed to, than, in the new sensation of thinking for himself, he began to ask himself if he had not grown weary of the same Bible stories told over and over again; and if, after all, it was not the clown and the devil, the Vice and the Scaramouth (which came on in the interludes between the acts in the didactics the spectator was expected to enjoy and never weary of) which he enjoyed most. He asked the question and answered it affirmatively so often that he presently felt like asserting himself, and by accordingly disbursing his testerns, the players took the hint, and lo! the Interlude became the Performance. At first, the Devil, Sin and Vice, without the didactics formerly put into their mouths, had nothing for it but to dash and duck about the stage, and club and pelt each other and sing and shout. As the old account is:

"But Vices in stage plaies

When theyr matter is gon,
They laugh out the rest

To the lookers-on." *

But soon words began to be written for these clowns to speak, as they whacked each other with sticks, or indulged in their inexplicable dumb show and noise. Thus the first comedy came to be written. The priests had devised the Miracle Play and its modifiers; to the priest, therefore, the actors looked for stage material. The first English comedy was written by John Still, Bishop of the sees of Bath and Wells. Much and strenuously as the clergy of the nineteenth century may fight the stage, now it has passed forever beyond clerical control, as long as the priest could control, he encouraged it; and it may not, perhaps, be malicious to add, that the improvement of stage plays did not arrive during, but rather some generations after, the period of its clerical control. The modern play is yet to be written which shall be quite as nasty as Gammer Gurton's Needle. Now, when the clergy saw their flocks running after these players of Interludes the "song-and-dance" men of that day—it would seem as if they turned to the boys in the cathedrals, whom they had received from their parents to train up for choristers-or for instruction, as Ben Jonson says, with the privilege of training them for acting as choristers as long as their voices served—and so, not only actually met half way the newly developing passion for theatrical performances, but made another bid for its monopoly. At least it seems hard to escape

* 1560, "The Contention between Churches and Counsell."

from that conclusion. These children certainly did play, and play for hire. And there was no necessity of their doing so for the need of revenue; for the cathedrals were supported then, precisely as they are now, by their tithes and endowments

Before tracing the record of these Children's Companies let us return for a moment to Shakespeare. It is very apparent that he had many things to say sarcastically of the crudities and absurdities of the actors he saw about him, and of the contemporary stage customs. Hamlet's advice to the players is a perfect interpolation, a "localism," in the fullest sense of the term; it is entirely immaterial to the play; Hamlet proposes that the players shall speak at least the "dozen or sixteen lines" which he tells them he has prepared, effectively. But he trains them in those, later. The entire passage, in which Hamlet tells of how he has heard actors of his day "tear a passion to tatters" and "out-Herod Herod," is too familiar to need quoting here. But it is not, perhaps, so familiar a fact, that this play of Hamlet, as played in Shakespeare's own day, contained another hit at the poor actors of "Interludes." The First Quarto of Hamlet, printed in 1603, is an evident attempt to give as much as possible of the story and the dialogue as could be caught from the mouths of the actors as they spoke it, by a short-hand writer or memorizer in the audience, which is sufficiently, I think, proved from the fact that the speeches are imperfect versions and idem sonans of the real dialogue, and not sketches or skeletons thereof, as they would have been were this Frst Quarto a first draft (as, however, many scholars believe and insist that it is *).

The Hamlet as played in Shakespeare's own theatre and under his own eyes and stage management (and it is worth noting, as we pass, that Shakespeare appears to have been the only actor who ever wrote plays, and brought them out himself, and who was contented to take minor characters in them, passing the leading parts on to others) was printed in 1604, in what is called the Second Quarto. The stage experience of the play from the very early date (probably 1560) of its first production up to 1623, probably led to much cutting and rearrangement. For, when two of Shakespeare's fellow-actors, in 1623, printed Hamlet, not for actors, but for readers, they either cut it very considerably more than at present would seem necessary, or else took the version they printed from the prompt-books, which showed the cutting and transposition work of the practical stage presentation of the play from 1604 to 1623. But, bad as this 1603 Hamlet is, and unauthentic and untouched by Shakespeare as it must

* See the late Richard Grant White's masterly and circumstantial argument in Vol. XI. of THE BANKSIDE SHAKESPEARE, where also Mr. E. P. Vining has presented some considerations which, however, appear to him to militate against Mr. White's conclusions as to the first draft" theory.

have been, there is one passage in it, following on to the well-known advice to the players, which the surreptitious reporter could hardly have invented, and still less could have set down as representing the well-known advice which every Shakespeare student in the world has by heart. The passage is not hinted at in the First Quarto, nor yet in the First Folio, which-added to the fact that it does not "sound like" Shakespeare-leads most commentators to reject it. But, from denying that Shakespeare wrote any of the plays, I have, perhaps, gone to the other extreme. At any rate, I confess to having grown cautious. In the absence of any evidence of Shakespeare's collaborateurs, we had better remain satisfied with one, nor am I aware that Shakespeare, like anybody else, could not have done less than his best, had he seen fit. And if Shakespeare thought proper to insert one localism, why should he not insert another? Still more, another on the same subject. Or, to be exact, if he inserted twenty-three lines to hit at the robustious periwig-pated fellows who strutted and bellowed and split the ears of the groundlings on the London stages, why should he not have continued the description for eleven lines more? However, here is the passage:

"And then you have some again, that keeps one suit of jests, as a man is known by one suit of apparel, and gentlemen quote his jests down in their tables, before they come to the play, as thus: Cannot you stay til I eat my porrige?' and 'You owe me a quarter's wages,' and 'My cote wants a cullison' t and 'Your beer is sour, and' (blabbering with his lips, and thus keeping in his cinkapaset of jests, when God knows, the warme clown cannot make a jest unless by chance, as a blind man catches a hare). Masters tell him."

This (which I have modernized in the spelling and form) may have been Shakespeare's hit at the Interlude actors who were still extemporizing, as the lines which precede it (and which are preserved in the First Folio and so always given as the "Advice to the Players") was to those who recited the set speeches. But it emphasizes one advantage which the clergy who trained the Children's Companies were able to fail themselves of, and they were not slow in so doing.

Just when these Children's Companies first appeared is a difficult matter to determine. No doubt the first appearance of stage talent in the lads was accidental. A tutor may have encouraged the talent, a

* Write.

+ A chevron, or decoration.

Cinque pas-the five-step waltz-i.e., the actor repeats his jokes as a dancer repeats his steps.

§ Thomas Wilson and Richard Tarleton, sworn in in the company known as the "Queen's Set," in 1583, were two rare men "who were valuable for their extemporall witt," says Stow's "Chronicle."

public exhibition been given, the novelty aiding, and further perform-
ances given for profit: precisely as now a company of college boys
has developed into tolerable or even excellent performers. The differ-
ence was that in those days the autocratical church authorities forced
this talent into sources of profit to themselves. For any appreciable
information on the subject we must use conjecture, supplemented
with such scattered records as are to be gathered. A theatrical com-
pany recruited among the choristers at St. Paul's Church called "The
Children of Paul's" appears to have petitioned King Richard III.
1
against the performance of "sacred pageants" by "lewd and ig-
norant persons." Here was a bold bid for a monopoly at the outset,
by the priests or masters (whatever their titles) of the boys whose collec-
tive name they used. Again, there is a record of a company, various-
ly mentioned as "The Boys of Pauls," "The boys of Powles," and of

15321

No. 1528.

the "Children of Powles," appearing before Henry VIII., in 1582, to Heney par play a Latin drama in which Luther was impersonated and ridiculed. d These two records cover a good many years. This particular company soon became prominent enough to attract a double fire. The Puritans, who screamed and at last to some purpose-against all dramatic performances, denounced the "Children" on one side, and the regular theatrical organizations jeered at, lampooned and abused them on the other. Here is a sample of the Puritan tirade:

"Plaies will neuer be supprest while her Maiesties unfledged minions flaunt it in silkes and sattins. They had as well be at the Popish service in the deuil's garments. . . . Euen in her Maiesties Chapell do these pretty upstart youthes profane the Lord's day by the lascivious writhing of thier tender limbes and gorgeous decking of thier apparell in feigning bawdie fables gathered from the idolatrous Heathen poets.

This selection is from a Broadside, "The Children of the Chapel Stript and Whipt," published in London in 1569. Of the hits at them in the regular theatres we have already the best possible sample. The attacks of the regular companies appear to have been the only ones the Children's Companies or their directors paid the slighest attention to. They retorted in the most judicious manner possible. They hurled not back abuse or criticism. They simply pointed to the advantage of comfortable quarters, clean seats, a light and permanent roof (for the Children's Companies performed in the Chapter Houses or Halls of the Religious Houses with which they were connected) over the regular theatres, which were still modelled on the old Inn Yards, and were mere enclosures of standing-room, open to the elements at the top, with some feeble attempt at tiered seats to supply what had been the galleries of the Inn, for the high-priced spectators. (A century and a half was to elapse before the pit was perceived to be the best part of the house, and was seated and called the orchestra.) In "Jacke Drum's

Entertainment, or the Comedie of Pasquil and Katherine, as it hath been sundry times plaid by the Children of Powles " (to quote the titlepage of the 1616 edition), and which became a favorite play, and so widely known that Shakespeare in All's Well That Ends Well makes the French lord allude to it: "If you give him not John Drum's entertainment" (III., vi., 40). We have the following bit of dialogue for the benefit of the house, which might well be a response to something like Guildenstern and Hamlet's appeal to the "front:

Sir Edward. I saw the Children of Powles last night, and troth they pleased me pretty well. The apes in time will do it handsomely. I like the audience that frequenteth there with much applause. A man shall not be choaked with garlic, nor be pasted to the balmy * jacket of a beer-brewer.

Planet. I' faith, 'tis a good gentle audience, and I hope the boies will come one day into the court of requests.

Brabant Jr. And they had good plaies?

The dialogue is then carried to the other charge that there is too much use of classical matter on the stage. The regular companies "produce such mustie foppery of antiquitie and do not suit the humourous ages back with clothes of fashion."

Planet. Well, Brabant, well, you will be censuring still.
There lies a jest in shep-will whip you for't.

Sir Ed. Gallants, I have no judgment in these things.

But will it please you sit?

These words were spoken in the singing-room of St. Paul's Cathedral, which was, for many years, set apart for the use of "The Boys of Pauls Company." There were no "best seats," a general admittance. of a "tester" covering all. By a decree from the throne, in 1585, Elizabeth ordained that masters of the endowed schools should train certain of the scholars, not only for performing Stage-plays, but Masques.

It

Performances by "Children's Companies," therefore, being encouraged by royalty, soon became the current "fad" or fashion. spread quickly to the universities. That famous and invaluable triplet of plays (invaluable to dramatic scholars as showing the firstlings of what we call to-day burlesque, no less than to their testimony to the estimation in which Shakespeare was held in the cultivated and pedantic circles of the date), the two parts of the Pilgrimage of Parnassus and The Return from Parnassus were the products of this fad after it reached Cambridge University, where the children were of a somewhat larger growth, in or about the years 1579-1589.

There were five companies in London alone, composed of choris

* That is, fragrant of his trade.