William Shakespeare as He Lived: An Historical Tale

by Henry Curling

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE THEATRE OF THE BLACKFRIARS.

In our times the profession of an actor presents a picture of uninterrupted drudgery and discomfort. In Elizabeth's day such was not the case. There was not then that continual craving after novelty, that constant production of pieces, written for the hour and the topic of the day, which gives an actor no rest. In comparison to our own race of actors (excellent as many of them are for the sort of work they have to do,) the actors of Elizabeth's day were a company of magnificoes, "proper fellows of their hands," and "tall gentlemen in their own esteem."

The thing they took easily, and with a certain dignity of deportment. It was indeed edifying to see one of these goodly fellows with part in his hand, his plumed hat, "short cloak and slops," and eke his rapier, taking his early walk, either in the fields or on Bank Side, or peradventure hiring a boat at the Blackfriars, and thus gesticulating, with a short and diminutive bowled pipe in his mouth, studying the author's meaning to the letter, and getting up his lengths.

Sometimes they went forth in companies, these men, to some favourite rural haunt, some delightfully situated hostel or tavern by the river's bank, or to the bowery woods near Richmond or Greenwich. On such occasions they would take boat, and make the river echo with their jokes, and puns, and witticisms, as they were wafted along on its glassy surface. At other times a select few would hire horses and beat up the towns of Windsor, Mortlake[25], and other places which the occasional residence of the Court made more gay and populous; for these actors loved to haunt the whereabout of royalty. Their professional knowledge made them exceeding good companions too. Glorious fellows. And then how dearly too did "mine host of the tavern," enter into their joviality, and aid them in those little waggeries they were so prone to engage in.

None but those who have mixed amongst actors of talent, and know them intimately, can have an idea of the charm of their society. The very characters they have to personate, good or ill, and the moralities taught in the pieces they are obliged to study, ought to, and does, render them better men. Their study also is to give peculiar effect to all they say and do. And oft-times with them the most common place sentence is pointed into something witty. They understand the "jest's prosperity," and in an instant they penetrated through the follies, the ignorance and the cunning of the common-place. Their ideas being for the most part free, unfettered, and unshackled by mercantile matters, their sentiments are ennobled by the study of those parts they have to perform.

And oh, what fascination, what delight, what a world of itself, is the scenic hour! The romance of feeling, the inexpressible charm, belonging to that brilliant little period, none know but the actors themselves. It is oft-times their all of life; the rest is flat and stale? they live but for those few brief moments in which they glitter the observed of all observers, the admiration, the delight, nay, almost the envy of the audience. Like the lunatic, the lover, and the poet, they are "of imagination all compact." The actor has thrown himself into the author's conception. The poet's world is also the world of him who enacts the part the poet has written. He lives in his author's period, not only whilst acting, but whilst studying the part. The loves, the hates, the fears, the joys, the doing of all around are pertaining to himself—as if "'twas reality he felt."

Some of these men were very noble fellows, (if we may so term it), noble at least in sentiment, if not in blood, and who would have scorned to perform the mean acts perpetrated by men in a class far above them. They knew, too, in what the point of honour consisted, and were "sudden and quick in quarrel" where they conceived themselves insulted; and it was this virtue in the better sort of the actors of Elizabeth's day which made them sought for, and associated with, by many of the best of the nobility. Nay, it must be remembered that at a somewhat later period of England's history, and when civil war "channelled her fields," the actors were, to a man, found enranked amongst the cavaliers, and fighting "on the party of the King." Their professional education taught them to "hold in hate the canting round-heads," and they fought and bled for the better cause.

How dearly Shakespeare loved the scenic hour his own doings have, we think, proclaimed. The world around him, too, at the period in which he lived and wrote presented much that was grand and exciting. He had but to note what he observed in the vicinity of Elizabeth's Court, in order to pourtray some of his scenes.

From the first moment of his introduction within the walls of the theatre, he had felt the fascination of the "scenic hour," and become captivated with the society of the actors, oven rude as the pieces were which he found them performing. To one of his own natural parts and brilliant wit, there was to be found an endless fund of amusement amongst such men. Their way of life also had its charm. How he loved those summer excursions amidst the sweet scenery of Old Windsor—those country revels in which he mingled amongst the rural throng, in all the sports and pastimes "of the old age." He had now been resident in London some time, and besides being noticed by many of the "choice and master spirits of the age," had become acquainted with some of the native burghers of the city, and their connexions in the country around.