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where he is or els, the tale wil not be conceiued." In Sidney's time the players helped themselves and their audiences by hanging up sign-boards over the entrances, in order to indicate the locality to which the speakers who used each entrance were supposed to belong; and it must not be taken for granted that, a quarter of a century later, the conservatism of the mimes had wholly learnt to dispense with this piece of naïveté. My own criticism of the Fortune-Swan-Globe reconstruction must be limited to a single, but not, I think, an unimportant point. I do not see how the central traverse, between the inner and the outer stage, can possibly have come where Dr. Brodmeier and the Harvard architect put it. To this arrangement there are two principal objections. In the first place, how were entrances and exits effected when the traverse was closed and the outer stage alone in use? Dr. Brodmeier's plan only permits of them through the traverse itself. There were occasions when this would have been grotesque; as, for example, Act II, Scene iii, of Cymbeline. The inner stage represents Imogen's bedchamber in which the trunk scene has just taken place. On the outer stage Cloten is serenading Imogen. Cymbeline enters and

says:

Attend you here the door of our stern daughter?
Will she not forth?

Obviously he cannot himself have just entered through that door. I suppose that at Harvard such exits and entrances were managed round the edge of the stage beyond the columns, and through the side curtains of the inner stage. The grotesqueness would be avoided by this plan, since only a few of the audience would see the use made of the side curtains. But indeed the side curtains raise more difficulties than they solve; and this brings me to my second objection. The galleries in which the audience sat ran, as De Witt's drawing shows, right round the house until they came into contact with the back wall of the stage. If the traverse was closed and the tiremen were arranging beds and other properties upon the inner stage, the sides of the inner stage must have been closed also, or all the preparations would have been visible. This was recognised at Harvard, and supplementary traverses were provided, running back from the columns to the stage-wall. In Dr. Brodmeier's plan the sides of the inner stage are permanently closed, in order that he may obtain side entrances to the inner stage. But it does not seem to have been considered how this would affect the line of vision of the spectators at the stage end of the auditorium. The depth from the columns to the back wall

seems to be taken as from a third to a half of the whole depth of the stage, say from ten to fourteen feet. A fair number of Dr. Brodmeier's spectators would never see anything upon the inner or the upper stage, and would be seriously incommoded when action was proceeding on the side of the outer stage farthest from them. The corresponding spectators at Harvard would be rather better off, because the side traverses would be drawn to give them a view of the inner scenes. But they also would often have their view of the outer stage blocked; and at the best surely these solid columns, with curtains clinging about them, must have proved very inconvenient obstacles to vision from various parts of the house, and must have provoked at least as much irritation and bad language as the largest matinée hat. My personal belief is that there were no columns and that therefore the traverse could not hang between them. I think of the Globe as a very simple affair, with a large open outer stage, forty-three feet wide by twentyseven and a half deep, and a flat back wall hung with arras. Above is the balcony or upper stage with its short traverse; beneath the two doors to the extreme right and left, and between them another traverse, some thirty feet long, a parting in the middle of which furnishes the third door which some stage-directions imply. When this traverse is drawn, it discloses an inner stage contrived in the twelve and a half feet depth of the tiring-house and hung around with more arras. As this inner stage is what Mr. Reynolds calls an alcove, its traverse does not interfere with the use of the two principal doors or of the upper stage. It is not so large as the inner stage of the reconstruction already discussed, but surely quite large enough to represent a lobby, a study, a bed-chamber, a shop, a friar's cell, or the inside of a tomb. If a banqueting-hall or a court of justice was needed, it held the seats of state, and the rest of the action spread over the outer stage. Possibly it was raised two or three steps above the outer stage. It did not necessarily contain all the moveable properties; such things as tables for a feast could easily be carried on to the outer stage, and carried away naturally enough when done with. The fact that all the action would be visible is really, I think, a great argument in favour of the simpler Globe.

And now, how did this notion of the forth-standing columns on the stage come about? The only possible evidence for them is that of the Swan drawing. I think it is just conceivable that De Witt did not mean them to be supported on the stage at all, but to be part of the structure of the back wall and to be flush or nearly flush with the rest of this. If so, he drew them very badly. But then he

drew the rest of his illustration very badly; and after all, he does not seem to have intended it as anything more than a rough note for the purpose of illustrating a certain analogy which he fancied that he discovered between the structure of the Swan and that of the Roman theatrum. "Cuius quidem formam," he says, "quod Romani operis umbram videatur exprimere supra adpinxi." It may even be doubted whether he did not do his drawing from memory after he got back to his inn. The trumpeter, for instance, would not really have been sounding when the action had already begun. Moreover, it is only Arend van Buchell's copy that we have, and not De Witt's original. Altogether the drawing cannot be insisted upon very much as regards the exact position of the columns. This is especially so, in view of the fact that there are other grounds for thinking it highly improbable that there were any columns supported by this particular stage. In addition to the builder's contract for the Fortune in 1600, the Dulwich papers contain another made by Henslowe in 1613 with the carpenter Gilbert Katherens for the building of the Hope. In this the model quoted in the specification is none other than the Swan. Katherens is to make the Hope "of suche large compasse, fforme, widenes, and height" as is the Swan. The outside staircases are to be like those of the Swan, and the partitions between the rooms are to be made as they are made at the Swan. The instructions as to the stage are noticeable. It is to be "a stage to be carryed or taken awaie, and to stande vppon tressels good substanciall and sufficient for the carryinge and bearinge of suche a stage.' Similarly, Katherens must "builde the Heavens all over the saide stage to be borne or carryed wthout any postes or supporters to be fixed or sett vppon the saide stage. The "heavens" are, of course, the same as the "shadow or cover" of the Fortune. The reason for these arrangements at the Hope was that the building was to serve for bull-baiting and bear-baiting as well as for plays, and that for these purposes a permanent stage would be in the way. I have no proof that the Swan was used for baiting, although it was certainly used for acrobats, fencers, and spectacular entertainments; and it is possible that the moveable stage and the heavens supported from above may have been features of the Hope which were not copied from the Swan. But on the whole I think that the presumption is the other way, particularly as the Swan stage is not paled in and its trestles are conspicuous in De Witt's drawing. Obviously, if the stage was moveable, it could not support De Witt's columns. The Hope also was to have "turned cullumes uppon and over the stage," and I believe that in both theatres these columns formed part of the decoration of the stage-wall. If they did

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not stand forward on the stage at the Swan, the reason, sufficiently flimsy beforehand, for putting them in that position at the Globe disappears altogether. They were not needed for support of the heavens, as the analogy of the Hope shows; and if these, at the Globe, were supported from the stage at all, the most convenient method would have been by comparatively slender posts rising from its outermost corners. I am assuming that the heavens of the Globe and the Fortune, like that of the Hope, covered the whole stage, and were not a mere penthouse such as is shown in the Swan drawing. Here again I believe that De Witt misrepresents the Swan, and that the heavens projected farther and sloped down much less than he indicates. Were it otherwise, they would obstruct the view from part of the topmost gallery; and it really must be assumed that even an Elizabethan architect meant the spectators to see something. Dr. Brodmeier's plan fails to guard against this obstruction. In the Harvard theatre the top gallery is well below the heavens, but these do not extend over more than the inner stage.

Many minor questions in connection with the structure of the Globe call for solution. Were stools allowed for spectators upon the stage, and if so where were they placed? Where was the trap through which spirits arose and vanished? Was the balcony used solely as an upper stage, or did it also contain a music-room, and possibly the "lords' rooms" or private boxes? And if the musicroom and the lords' rooms were not there, where were they? What was the nature of the "top" or "tower" above the balcony, and how was the "creaking throne" with its deus ex machina brought down from the heavens to please the groundlings? These are alluring themes, but within the limits of this paper it has seemed best to keep to fundamentals.

E. K. CHAMBERS.

T

THE SONNETS.

HE Sonnets of Shakespeare present so many problems to the student that a writer who attempts to treat them shortly must confine himself to a statement of his own conclusions upon each question that arises, without much consideration of what can be urged on the other side. In following this course I may plead as excuse that I have already discussed these problems at length in another place. Accordingly what follows will be limited to the attempt to make the position which I believe to be the true one intelligible to those who have no special knowledge of the matters in debate.

1. Allowing, as everyone must allow, that the real interest of the Sonnets lies in their unequalled poetry, the question nevertheless cannot fail to present itself to every reader, how far he is justified in finding in them an element of autobiography. He asks whether he may assume that at least the apparent groundwork of story underlying them may be taken as matter of fact; that is to say, that Shakespeare was at some time during his life in London attracted to, and fascinated by, a brilliant youth, who on his side took pride and pleasure in the poet's friendship; or whether this is a mere invention, devised by the dramatic instinct of Shakespeare as a mould for lyric effusions, which could find no convenient vehicle in his dramas. How can such a question be determined? No argument, one way or the other, can be based on the use of the sonnet-form; for, if a large number of Elizabethan sonnets are clearly, and some avowedly, mere exercises in a fashionable form made for fashionable patrons, on the other hand, Spenser's sonnets were written during his courtship of the lady who became his wife, and Sidney's were written (with what degree of earnestness is in dispute) to Lady Rich. The answer can be found, I believe, in an examination of the poems themselves. The first 126 sonnets form a series, not so complete as to create suspicion of

'The Sonnets of Shakespeare, with an introduction and notes by H. C. Beeching. Boston, U.S.A., and London, Ginn & Co.

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