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Clinton, and the children of St. Paul's, Westminster, and Windsor: "Pedor and Lucia," "Alkeneon," "Mamillia,” “Truth, Faithfulness, and Mercy," "Herpetulus the Blue Knight, and Periobia !" (a fine title for a Christmas or Easter spectacle,) and "Quintus Fabius," something more classical and legitimate; "Timoclea at the siege of Thebes,"-In consequence of the tediousness of this play, we are told, "a mask of ladies representing the six Virtues could not be represented;" we trust Patience was not forgotten amongst them ;-" Philimon and Philicia," a pastoral-comical, or historical-pastoral," as Polonius would call it; and " Perseus and Anthomeris," most likely Andromeda. For these and five masks were made and purchased, monsters, great hollow trees, bays for the prologues, a gibbet to hang up Diligence ! counterfeit fishes for the play of Pedor, a dragon's head, a truncheon for the Dictator (Quintus Fabius of course, who, as he was surnamed Cunctator, or the Delayer, might with great propriety have ordered the suspension of Diligence), "deal-boards for the senate-house! pins, stiff and great, for the paynted clothes, and feathers for the new maskers." To these are added-charges for the diet of children while learning their parts and gestures, and for an Italian woman and her daughter who lent and dressed the "hairs" (wigs) of the children. In 1577, Walter Fyshe, the yeoman keeper of the royal revel stuff, provided for certain masks and plays-woolverings for pedlars' caps, bottles for pilgrims, a mariner's whistle, a scythe for Saturn, three devils' coats and heads, dishes for devils' eyes; Heaven, Hell, and "the Devil and all," I should say; but "not all," adds the facetious yeoman: "long poles and brushes for chimney-sweepers, in my Lord of Leicester's men's play; a coat, a hat, and buskins, all covered with feathers of colours for Vanity, in Sebastian's play; and a periwig of hair for King Xerxes' sister. *

From the reign of Edward the Third up to this period, the costumes of the actors appear to have been furnished at the expense, either of the sovereign, or the

* Collier's Annals, vol. i. p. 136.

nobleman, whose servants they were; but we now approach the time when regular theatres were built, and companies of players were formed, each establishment having its own wardrobe. "The Theatre," simply so called, perhaps from its being the first building dedicated expressly to public dramatic performances, was existing in 1576; and that called "the Curtain," in 1577. In 1576, also, the Blackfriars Theatre was built by James Burbadge, the father of the great tragedian and original representative of Shakspeare's heroes; and these erections were speedily followed by those of the Whitefriars, the Salisbury Court, the Globe, the Fortune, the Rose, the Hope, the Swan, the Newington, the Red Bull, &c. To Philip Henslowe, the proprietor of the Rose Theatre, and manager of the company of players called "the Lord-Admiral's men," we are indebted for a very detailed account of the dresses and properties of a public theatre in the dawn of England's drama, from a diary kept by him, and still preserved at Dulwich College; Mr. Malone* and Mr. Colliert have published several lists of articles of dress and decoration in use at that period. We shall content ourselves with extracting only such items as illustrate the dress of well-known characters, or particular professions. For instance, we find Tamberlyne's (Tamerlane's) coat with copper-lace, and his breeches of crimson velvet; Harry the Fifth's velvet gown, and his satin doublet laid with gold-lace; Tasso's robe and Dido's robe; Eve's bodice! and, what is almost as staggering, a ghost's bodice; Juno's coat; Vortigern's robe of rich taffety; Longshanks' suit (Edward the First's, in Peel's play?) senators' gowns, hoods, and caps; a green gown for Maid Marian; green coats and hats for Robin Hood and his men; a pair of hose for the Dauphin, and "Verona's son's hose;" French, Spanish, Venetian, and Danish suits, and portions of suits; janizaries' dresses, &c.; two leather "anteckes," coates (antique or antic ?) with bases (i. e. skirts) for Phaeton;

* Shakspeare, by Boswell, vol. iii.

Annals, vol. iii. p. 354-362.

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and various costumes for queens, cardinals, clowns, soldiers, shepherds, friars, heralds, &c. &c. In another list of clothes bought for his company is mentioned "a robe for to go invisible !" a curious item, which Malone has no doubt rightly conjectured meant a cloak, the wearer of which was supposed to be invisible to the rest of the performers. Several of the suits appear to have been of considerable value. "A doublet of white satin laid thick with gold-lace, and a pair of round-paned hose, of cloth of silver, the panes laid with gold-lace," costs 77., a tolerable proof of expense lavished on theatrical costumes even at this early period. But a still more interesting piece of evidence has been furnished us lately by Mr. Payne Collier,* who, amongst the MSS. of Lord Elsemere, keeper of the great seal to Queen Elizabeth, and lord chancellor of James the First, discovered Shakspeare's own valuation of the wardrobe of the Blackfriars Theatre; which part of the property he owned, as well as four shares of the profits of the establishment. The price demanded by him for the dresses alone is 5007., an enormous sum in those days; and Green in his "Groat's worth of Wit," A.D. 1592, makes a player boast that his share in the stage apparel should not be sold for two hundred pounds; a hit, perhaps, at Shakspeare himself, whom throughout he alludes to by the name of "Shakescene." Mr. Collier has also discovered, in the Duke of Devonshire's collection of the designs of Inigo Jones, a description of the character of Good-Fellowship, which gives us some information as to the original dressing of the part of Falstaff. The actor is directed to be attired "like a Sr Jo" Falsstaff," in a robe of russet quite low, with a great belly like a swollen man, long mustacheos, the shoes shorte and out of their great toes like naked feet, buskins to show a great swollen leg, a cup coming forth like a beake, a great head and bald, and a little cap "alla Venetiane," grey, a rod, and a scroll of parchment. be a question how much of this costume belonged

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* New facts regarding the Life of Shakspeare, 12mo. pp. 55. London 1835.

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of right to Falstaff, and how much to the allegorical personage. The naked feet, the rod, and the scroll should say, decidedly belonged to the latter. The low robe of russet, the great buskins, the long mustaches, the bald head, and the little grey Venetian cap, appear to be characteristic of the jovial knight. The cup undoubtedly so. The celebrated Burbadge we find, from an elegy upon him, lately discovered by Mr. Payne Collier, played Shylock in a red beard and wig, in order, it is supposed, to render the character more repulsive.

Fire, the implacable enemy and destroyer of all theatrical property, from the days of Geoffrey the Norman to those of Mr. Samuel James Arnold, consumed in 1613 the Globe, and in 1621 the Fortune theatre. Sir Henry Wotton, writing to his nephew three days after the conflagration of the former, says: "Now, to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Bankside. The King's players had a new play called All is true;' representing some principal pieces of the reign of King Henry the Eighth ; which set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage, the knights of the order with their Georges and garter, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within awhile to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King Henry making a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff, wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrick, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with bottle ale."

Reliq. Wotton, edit. 1672, p. 425.

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who were fortunate enough to experience it. Rowley" liked the play and the players, and encouraged, by his royal countenance at any rate, both the one and the other. Evelyn and Pepys, in their diaries, make frequent allusions to the getting up of the new dramas of Dryden, Sir W. D'Avenant, and others. Betterton, the actor, was sent to Paris by the royal command, expressly to observe the French stage, and transplant from it such improvements in decoration, &c. as might embellish our own. The introduction of moving scenery is attributed at this period jointly to Betterton and Sir W. D'Avenant; and the magnificent but extravagant costume of Louis the Fourteenth's reign began to render more preposterous the tragic heroes and heroines of ancient Greece and Rome. A print, appended to Kirkman's Drolls, affords us an ocular demonstration of the mode in which many of the principal characters were dressed at this time in the drolls or farces founded on the plays of Shakspeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, &c. It represents the stage of the Red Bull Theatre, which was entirely abandoned about 1663; the figures upon it are supposed to be the most popular actors of that time dressed in character. We perceive Falstaff and the Hostess (Dame Quickly); Clause, in "Beggar's Bush ;" the French dancing-master, from the Duke of Newcastle's "Variety;" the Changeling (from Middleton's tragedy?) the Clown, from Green's "Tu Quoque ;" the Simpleton, from Coxe's "Diana and Actæon," &c.

This print is sufficient evidence that no attention was paid to chronological correctness of costume; as Sir John Falstaff is attired in the habit of the time of Charles the First, in lieu of that of Henry the Fourth. He has a cup in his hand, according to the direction for his personation in the time of James the First; but the little grey Venetian cap is here exchanged for a hat, the robe of russet for a soldier's buff-leather jacket. He wears a lace vandyke collar and pair of cuffs, breeches full, and boots, or boothose, with lace tops to them, and large spur leathers. The next illustration of dramatic costume is the famous picture, painted by Wright, of the favourite come

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