[5] Reprinted by the Rev. Mr. Briggs, the possessor. After a limited reprint it was republished as the first number of a cheap edition of Old English Dramas, published by T. White, 1830; a work carried on to a few volumes only. The text reads apparently very correct, and seems to have passed under a skilful eye. I have read it with attention, because I read it with delight. [It has since been reprinted by the Shakspeare Society, carefully collated from the unique original now in Eton College Library, by Mr. Payne Collier.]
[6] This song of Domesticity, as probably it never has been noticed, I preserve in the note, that the reader may decide on the melody of such native simplicity.
This song may have been written about the close of the reign of Henry the Eighth. The short ballad metres in our ancient poems are perfectly harmonious, and the songs are racy and joyous,—
| I. A thing very fitte For them that have witte And are felowes knitte Servants in one house to bee, As fast fast for to sitte, And not oft to flitte Nor varie a whitte, But lovingly to agree. II. No man complainyng Nor other disdainyng For losse or for gainyng, But felowes or friends to bee, No grudge remainyng, No work refrainyng, Nor helpe restrainyng, But lovingly to agree. III. No man for despite By worde or by write His felowe to twite, But further in honestie; No good turns entwite Nor old sores recite, But let all goe quite, And lovingly to agree. IV. After drudgerie When they be werie, Then to be merie, To laugh and sing they be free With chip and cherie, High derie derie, Trill on the berie, And lovingly to agree! |
[7] Hayley.
THE PREDECESSORS AND CONTEMPORARIES OF SHAKESPEARE.
The establishment of a variety of theatres is an incident in the history of the people, as well as of the national genius. The drama at first existed, it may be said, in privacy. Royalty and nobility maintained their own companies; the universities acted at their colleges, the “children” or the singing boys at the public schools, the lawyers at their halls; and some of the gentry at their seats had servants who were players. A stage for strollers would occasionally be hastily erected in the unsheltered yards of inns, and they would ramble into the country till an Act of Elizabeth in 1572 controlled these erratic bodies, classing them with “rogues and vagabonds.” Throughout the kingdom there was a growing predilection for theatrical entertainments—it was the national anticipation of a public theatre.
If Elizabeth, a popular sovereign, in 1572 checked the strollers assuming the character of players, two years afterwards, in 1574, she granted a patent to the servants of the Earl of Leicester[1] “to exercise the faculty of playing stage-plays, as well for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure;” and she added, “within our city of London, and of any of our cities.” This was a boon royally given, in which her “loving subjects” might gather from the tone of this dramatic state-paper, that the queen had resolved in council that the public should not be denied sharing in her own amusements.