placed on the stage, and were generally occupied by the wits, gallants, and critics of the day: thus Decker observes, —“ by sitting on the stage, you have a signed patent to engross the whole commodity of censure; may lawfully presume to be a girder, and stand at the helm to steer the passage of scenes. The passage in italics which closes this quotation, would seem to be decisive of the long agitated question relative to the use of scenery; Mr. Malone asserting,- -"that the stage of Shakspeare was not furnished with moveable painted scenes, but merely decorated with curtains, and arras or tapestry hangings, which, when decayed, appear to have been sometimes ornamented with pictures † ;" and Mr. Steevens contending, that where so much machinery as the plays of Shakspeare require, is allowed to have been employed, the less complicated adjunct of scenes could scarcely be wanting; for that where the column is found standing, no one will suppose but that it was once accompanied by its usual entablature. In short," he adds, "without characteristic discriminations of place, the historical dramas of Shakspeare in particular would have been wrapped in tenfold confusion and obscurity; nor could the spectator have felt the poet's power, or accompanied his rapid transitions from one situation to another, without such guides as painted canvas only could supply. But for these, or such assistances, the spectator, like Hamlet's mother, must have bent his gaze on mortifying vacancy; and with the guest invited by the Barmecide, in the Arabian tale, must have furnished from his own imagination the entertainment of which his eyes were solicited to partake.” ‡ I the machinery accompanying trap-doors, tombs, and cauldrons, the aqu-arance of ghosts, phantoms, and monsters, the descent of pool, the magic evanishment of articles of furniture and provision, and the confliction of the elements, were not strangers to the Shakaparan theatre, it surely would have been an easy matter to have Chull's Horn book, p. 138. | Redd's Shakspeare, vol. iii. pp. 106-108. Ibid. p. 109. note. transferred the frame-work and painted canvas which, according to Holinshed, and even preceding chroniclers, decorated the pageants and tournaments of those days, to the business of the stage. Nor can we, indeed, conceive, as Mr. Steevens has remarked, how the minute inventory of Imogen's bedchamber, and the accurate description of the exterior of Inverness Castle, could have been rendered intelligible or endurable without such assistance. It is highly, probable, therefore, from these considerations, and from the passage in Decker, that, notwithstanding the mass of negative evidence collected by Mr. Malone, moveable painted scenes were occasionally introduced on the stage during the age of Shakspeare; and it may be further reasonably concluded, that, from the phrase of STEERING the PASSAGE of scenes, the mechanism was formed and conducted on a plan approximating that which is now familiar to a modern audience. The conjecture of Mr. Steevens, however, that private theatres had no scenes, while the public had, owing to the former admitting part of the audience on the stage, who might interfere with the convenient shifting of such an apparatus, is annihilated by the quotation from Decker, who expressly says, that " by SITTING ON THE STAGE, you have a signed patent to stand at the helm to steer the passage of the scenes," by which it would appear, that those who obtained seats on the private stage, occasionally amused themselves by assisting the regular mechanists in the adjustment of the scenery. We learn, also, from Heywood*, that the internal roof of the stage was either painted of a sky-blue colour, or hung with drapery of a similar tint, in order to represent the HEAVENS; and there is much reason to suppose, with a very ingenious commentator, that when the idea of a gloomy and starless night was to be impressed, these heavens were hung with black, whence, among many passages * Apology for Actors, 1612. sig. D. in Shakspeare illustrative of this position, the following line manifestly owes its origin: 66 Hung be the Heavens with black, yield day to night." It has, likewise, been asserted, and, indeed, to a certain extent, proved, by the same learned writer, that the lower part of the stage was distinguished by the name of HELL; and he quotes the annexed passage from Chapman as decisive on the subject: "The fortune of a Stage (like fortune's self) That rise from this HELL, or fall from this HEAVEN." + From this connection of the celestial and infernal regions with the stage, Mr. Whiter has inferred, through the medium of numerous pertinent quotations from Shakspeare and his contemporaries, that a vast mass of imagery was so blended and associated in the mind of our great poet, as to form an intimate union in his ideas between HELL and NIGHT; the DARKENED HEAVENS and the STAGE of TRAGEDY ‡; and this, too, at an early period, even during the composition of his Rape of Lucrece, which contains some striking instances of this theatrical combination. To these notices on the interior structure of the Shakspearean theatre, we shall now add the most material circumstances relative to its economy and usages. The mode of announcing its exhibitions, if we except the medium of newspapers, a resource of subsequent times, seems to have been not less effectual and extensive than that of the present day. Playbills were printed, expressing the title of the piece or pieces to be performed, but containing neither the names of the characters, nor *Whiter's Specimen of a Commentary on Shakspeare, pp. 157, 158. + Ibid. pp. 178. 183.; and see Prologue to All Fools, by Chapman, 1605, in Old Plays, vol. iv. p. 116. Whiter's Specimen, p. 184. of the actors; these were industriously circulated through the town, and affixed to posts and public buildings, a custom which forms the subject of a repartee recorded by Taylor the water-poet, who began to write towards the close of Shakspeare's life:-" Master Field, the player,” he relates, "riding up Fleet-street a great pace, a gentleman called him, and asked him, what play was played that day. He being angry to be staied on so frivolous a demand, answered, that he might see what play was plaied upon every poste. I cry you mercy, said the gentleman, I tooke you for a poste, you rode so fast.” * In the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, the Days of Acting, at the public theatres, were chiefly confined to Sundays, Her Majesty's licence to Burbage in 1574, granting such exhibition on that day, out of the hours of prayer; and this was the day which the Queen herself usually selected for dramatic representation at court. The rapidly increasing taste, however, for theatric amusement soon induced the players to go beyond the limits of permission, and we find Gosson, in 1579, exclaiming, that the players, "because they are allowed to play every Sunday, make four or five Sundays, at least, every week." A reformation more consonant to morality and decorum took place in the subsequent reign; for, though plays were still performed on Sundays, at the court of James the First, yet they were no longer tolerated on that day at the public theatres, permission being now given, on application to the Master of the Revels, for Taylor's Works, p. 183. Mr. Malone is of opinion that to these play-bills we owe "the long and whimsical titles which are prefixed to the quarto copies of our author's plays. It is indeed absurd to suppose, that the modest Shakspeare, who has more than once apologized for his untutored lines, should in his manuscripts have entitled dramas most excellent and pleasant performances." Thus : "The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice, 1600.” any of his "A most pleasant and excellent conceited Comedie of Syr John Falstaffe and the Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602." "The late and much-admired Play, called Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609," &c. &c. Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. pp. 163–165. + Schoole of Abuse. Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 154. -- , during the winter, says and Fridays of period of Shakspeare's afternoon. In 1598, we are Javies, that one o'clock was the ▲ the play :— And at eleven the doth eat till one, bished his Gull's Horn-book, the hour nor did it become later until towards the catury. The time usually consumed in the es the prologue to Henry the Eighth, to have "Those that come Linea de may see away their shilling Vody u wo short hours.” * eu de payment in this passage, leads to the consideration x4 túmission, and the sum here specified, contemporary ...o;s us, was demanded for entrance into the best rooms Sixpence also, and sometimes a shilling, was paid for stools on the stage. Sixpence was likewise the price of so to the pit and galleries of the Globe and Blackfriars; but 1. over houses, a penny, or at most two-pence, gave access to the ending" or the " gallery-commoner." Dramatic poets, as in ...to 1.esent day, were admitted gratis. We may also add, that, from 10. verson addressed to the memory of Ben Jonson, by Jasper Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 4. +Decker's Gull's Horn-book, reprint, p. 18. note. |