FROM WYNKYN DE WORDE'S 'HYCKSCORNER.'
FROM ANTOINE VERARD'S 'THERENCE EN FRANÇOYS.'
[WOODCUTS IN ENGLISH PLAYS PRINTED BEFORE 1660][20]
WHEN loaves are lacking it seems natural to attach a high value to crumbs, and perhaps this may be accepted as an excuse for printing the following rough notes on the few woodcuts which I have been able to find in editions of English plays printed before 1660. An excuse is needed, because, while the artistic value of the cuts is distinctly low, the plays in which they are found, with the exception of Marlowe's 'Dr. Faustus,' are not of the first interest. On the other hand, as I hope to show, the woodcuts, as a rule, are not merely fancy pictures used only because they looked pretty. They are real illustrations, drawn by men who had certainly read the plays themselves, and in all probability had seen them. To have had, say, the play-scene from 'Hamlet' drawn, however rudely, as a title-cut by a contemporary artist would have been a very pleasant addition to our scanty sources of knowledge as to the appearance of the actors and the stage when Shakespeare's plays were first acted, and, though it is less interesting plays which have come down to us embellished with illustrated title-pages, we may as well take note of what fortune has given us.
Two at least of the old morality plays, 'Every Man' and 'Hyckscorner,' are prefaced with cuts, to some of which the names of the characters are attached on labels, so that we may be sure of their identity. Unfortunately most of these little figures are poor copies of those used in a French translation of 'Terence,' published by Antoine Vérard. In 'Hyckscorner' Wynkyn de Worde went farther. To fill up a gap on his title-page he inserts a picture of an elephant with a howdah on his back. I have read 'Hyckscorner' once, ten years ago, and I hope never to have to read it again. But if my memory serves me, there is nothing about an elephant in it, and this particular elephant agrees so closely with one used by John of Doesborgh to illustrate a tract about Prester John's country that I am afraid he was one of Wynkyn de Worde's job lots. Clearly these earliest cuts throw no light on the contemporary stage.
The title-cut of 'The pleasant and stately morall of the Three Lordes and Three Ladies of London,' printed by 'R. Ihones' in 1590, is of more interest. If I am right in my interpretation of it, it relates not to the play itself, but to a performance of any morality in a private hall. On the right is a philosophical-looking person with a wand in his hand, whom I take to be the 'Doctor' or 'Expositor,' who used to interpret to the audience the meaning of the old miracle plays and moralities. On the left is a man in ordinary dress of the sixteenth century, apparently an actor. Both these are turning their faces to a group of ladies seated on a dais, presumably as spectators. The picture is thus taken from the rear of the actors, and illustrates, though in rather a dull and conventional manner, the performances of a much earlier period than 1590. This is in keeping with the play itself, the 'statelie morall' being a curious hybrid, half morality, half play, the publication of which at a date when Shakespeare and Marlowe were already writing for the stage was a curious anomaly.
FROM 'THE THREE LORDS AND THREE LADIES OF LONDON,' 1590.