intruding too boldly into some female's company; sometimes by reason of some amorous, scurrilous, or disgraceful words, that are uttered of or to some female spectators; sometimes by reason of some speeches or passages of the play, particularly applied to some persons present or absent; sometimes by reason of some husbands, w▬▬▬masters, or corrival's jealousy, or affront, whose wife, w, or mistress, being there in person, is perhaps solicited, abused, or jeared at in his presence; sometimes by reason of the apprentices resort to playhouses, especially on Shrove Tuesday; sometimes by means of other accidents and occasions. Many have been the murders, more the quarrels, the duels, that have grown from our stage-plays, whose large encomiums of rash valour, duels, fortitude, generosity, impatientcy, homicides, tyranny, and revenge, do so exasperate men's raging passions, and make them so impatient of the very smallest injury, that nothing can satisfy, can expiate it, but the offender's blood. Hence it is that some players, some play-haunters, now living, not satisfied with the murder of one, have embrued their barbarous un-christian hands in the blood of two, of three, if not of four several men. And so far are they from ruing the odiousness of these their bloody deeds, that they glory in the number of their murders as the very trophies of their valour."

We

We cannot disprove the truth of Prynne's account of the dissentions and fatal quarrels originating at theatres; we must, therefore, admit it, and nearly perhaps in its full extent. That such a man should look for Divine punishments on the crimes thus perpetrated is perfectly natural, nor were they by any means undeserving of it: yet I think, though several circumstances occurred that were in themselves punishments, we may venture to doubt that fire came from heaven and caused "the sudden fearful burning, even to the ground, both of the Globe and Fortune playhouses, no man perceiving how these fires caine," unless we suppose that heaven suggested it to the mind of a fanatic; it would be performing an acceptable service to morality, if he applied a little of that we term culinary to the combustibles within those places, as some iuvisible agent has lately done to the antient rivals of Drury Lane and Covent Garden. As Master Prynne imagined doubts might exist as to what no man perceived, he advances one step further to convince his readers, that if something good did not interfere with the stage, something bad did; which was no other than the black gentleman himself, who came visibly on the stage at the Bell Savage playhouse, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, to the great amazement of actors and audience, when the former were enacting the history of Faustus. Many persons who witnessed

the

the first appearance of Satan related this fact to Prynne, and "some" were" distracted with that fearful sight;" but not the reiators of course.

An earthquake which occurred in 1580 was wrested by Stubs in his "Anatomy of Abuses" into a fearful judgement on the persons assembled at the different theatres at the moment of the concussion. 66 God," he observes, "caused the earth on a sudden mightily to shake and tremble, as though all would have fallen to the ground; whereat, the people sore amazed, many of them leaped down from the top of the turrets, pinnacles, and towers, where they stood to the ground; whereby some had their legs broken, some their arms, some their backs, some were hurt one where, some another where, and many sore crushed and bruised; but not any but they went away sore afraid and wounded in conscience."

The drift of this passage is readily comprehended; but the words turrets, pinnacles, and towers, where the audience stood, produces a difficulty not readily solved. Did the author mean to say metaphorically, that the seats were elevated like turrets, &c.; or are we to understand them as descriptive of the style of the buildings, and decorated with Gothic pinnacles and turrets?

To close the list of judgements with an accident that strongly resembled one, we must have recourse to Field, who has been mentioned before.

"Upon

Upon the 13 of January, anno 1583, being the Lord's day, an infinite number of people, men, women, and children, resorted unto Paris garden to see bear-baiting, plays, and other pastimes, and being altogether mounted aloft upon their scaffolds and galleries, and in the midst of all their jollity and pastime, all the whole building (not one stick so much as standing) fell down miraculously to the ground with much horror and confusion. In the fall of it, five men and two women were slain outright, and above 150 persons more, sore wounded and bruised, whereof many died shortly after; some of them having their brains dashed out, some their heads all gnashed, some their legs broken, some their arms, some their backs, some one hurt, some another; there being nothing heard there but woful shrieks and cries, which did even pierce the skies: children bewailing the death and hurts of their parents, parents of their children; wives of their husbands, and husbands of their wives; so that every way, from four of the clock in the afternoon till nine at night, espe cially over London bridge, many were carried in chairs, and led betwixt their friends, and so brought home to their houses with sorrowful heavy hearts, like lame cripples."

Charles I. very commendably passed an act in the first year of his reign, forbidding all theatrical amusements, or any of the inferior pastimes of

the

the people, on Sundays; and Mr. Prynne very shortly after had the satisfaction of seeing them totally prohibited by those who assumed the reins of government. But whether the people did not quite accord with this demonstration of morality, or Satan began to inflame the minds of the publick, even before the restoration of monarchy, is not for me to decide. However, Mr. Malone informs us, "In the latter end of the year 1659, some months before the restoration of King Charles II., the theatres, which had been suppressed during the usurpation, began to revive, and several plays were performed at the Red Bull in St. John's street, in that and the following year, before the return of the King."

Charles II. having been restored to the throne of England in 1660, he did not, amongst the other weighty affairs of his new situation, neglect the stage; and accordingly granted two patents, one of which was to Sir William Davenant, and the other to Henry Killigrew, Esq. Those patents formed two distinct companies; that secured to Killigrew and his heirs, received the title of King's servants, and acted at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; Davenant that of the Duke's company, he appropriated to the Theatre in Dorset Gardens. The King's servants were considered part of the Royal household, and about ten of them had cloth and lace allowed them for liveries: the Lord Chamber