Was für zeit sie also in dem Comoedien lustig alle tag können zubringen, weisset yeglicher woll, der sie etwan hatt sehen agieren oder spilen....
... Midt solchen vndt viel anderen kurtzweilen mehr vertreiben die Engellender ihr zeit, erfahren in den Comedien, wasz sich in anderen Landen zutraget, vndt gehendt ohne scheüchen, mann vndt weibs personen an gemelte ort, weil mehrtheils Engellender nicht pflegen viel ze reysen, sondern sich vergnügen zehausz frembde sachen ze erfahren vnndt ihre kurtzweil ze nemmen.’
[1046] C. A. Mills in The Times (11 April 1914) from the travels of ‘a foreign nobleman, to be published by J. A. F. Orbaan from a Vatican MS.’. Mills says that the visit was to the Globe, but the passage quoted does not exclude the Rose or Swan.
[1047] G. von Bülow in 2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. (1892), vi. 6, 10, from MS. penes Count von der Osten of Plathe, Pomerania; cf. Wallace, Blackfriars, 105, who identifies the Samson play, rightly, with that of the Admiral’s men at the Fortune (cf. p. 180), and that at the Blackfriars, wrongly I think, with Chapman’s The Widow’s Tears. He assumes that the theatre visited on 13 Sept, was the Globe, but it might have been the Rose.
[1048] ‘13. Den 13 ward eine comedia agirt, wie Stuhl-Weissenburg erstlich von den Türken, hernacher von den Christen wiederum erobert....
14. Auf den Nachmittag ward eine tragica comoedia von Samsone und dem halben Stamm Benjamin agirt. Als wir zu dem Theatro gingen ...’.
[1049] Cf. ch. xii (Chapel).
[1050] Grosart, Dekker, iv. 210 (S. R. July 1608, printed 1609). The ‘two houses’ are, of course, those of York and Lancaster. Note the final puns.
[1051] Cf. ch. x. Fynes Moryson says in his Itinerary, iii. 2. 2 (c. 1605–17), ‘The Theaters at London in England for Stage-plaies are more remarkeable for the number, and for the capacity, than for the building,’ and in the continuation (c. 1609–26, C. Hughes, Shakespeare’s Europe, 476), ‘The Citty of London alone hath foure or fiue Companyes of players with their peculiar Theaters capable of many thousands, wherein they all play euery day in the weeke but Sunday.... As there be, in my opinion, more Playes in London than in all the partes of the worlde I haue seene, so doe these players or Comedians excell all other in the worlde.’
[1052] Epigram 39. Both Curtain and Swan are named by W. Turner in Turners Dish of Stuffe, or a Gallimaufry (1662), but this cannot be dated; cf. ch. xv (Shank):