In the summer of 1596 a Dutch traveler named Johannes de Witt, a priest of St. Mary's in Utrecht, visited London, and saw, as one of the most interesting sights of the city, a dramatic performance at the Swan. Later he communicated a description of the building to his friend Arend van Buchell,[248] who recorded the description in his commonplace-book, along with a crude and inexact [drawing] of the interior (see page [169]), showing the stage, the three galleries, and the pit.[249] The description is headed: "Ex Observationibus Londinensibus Johannis de Witt." After a brief notice of St. Paul's, and a briefer reference to Westminster Cathedral, the traveler begins to describe what obviously interested him far more. I give below a translation of that portion relating to the playhouses:

There are four amphitheatres in London [the Theatre, Curtain, Rose, and Swan] of notable beauty, which from their diverse signs bear diverse names. In each of them a different play is daily exhibited to the populace. The two more magnificent of these are situated to the southward beyond the Thames, and from the signs suspended before them are called the Rose and the Swan. The two others are outside the city towards the north on the highway which issues through the Episcopal Gate, called in the vernacular Bishopgate.[250] There is also a fifth [the Bear Garden], but of dissimilar structure, devoted to the baiting of beasts, where are maintained in separate cages and enclosures many bears and dogs of stupendous size, which are kept for fighting, furnishing thereby a most delightful spectacle to men. Of all the theatres,[251] however, the largest and the most magnificent is that one of which the sign is a swan, called in the vernacular the Swan Theatre;[252] for it accommodates in its seats three thousand persons, and is built of a mass of flint stones (of which there is a prodigious supply in Britain),[253] and supported by wooden columns painted in such excellent imitation of marble that it is able to deceive even the most cunning. Since its form resembles that of a Roman work, I have made a sketch of it above.

Exactly when the Swan was opened to the public, or what troupes of actors first made use of it, we do not know. The visit of Johannes de Witt, however, shows that the playhouse was occupied in 1596; and this fact is confirmed by a statement in the lawsuit of Shaw v. Langley.[254] We may reasonably suppose that not only in 1596, but also in 1595 the building was used by the players.

THE INTERIOR OF THE SWAN PLAYHOUSE

Sketched by Johannes de Witt in 1596.

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Our definite history of the Swan, however, begins with 1597. In February of that year eight distinguished actors, among whom were Robert Shaw, Richard Jones, Gabriel Spencer, William Bird, and Thomas Downton, "servants to the right honorable the Earl of Pembroke," entered into negotiations with Langley, or, as the legal document puts it, "fell into conference with the said Langley for and about the hireing and taking a playhouse of the said Langley, situate in the old Paris Garden, in the Parish of St. Saviours, in the County of Surrey, commonly called and known by the name of the sign of the Swan." The result of this conference was that the members of Pembroke's Company[255] became each severally bound for the sum of £100 to play at the Swan for one year, beginning on February 21, 1597.

This troupe contained some of the best actors in London; and Langley, in anticipation of a successful year, "disbursed and laid out for making of the said house ready, and providing of apparel fit and necessary for their playing, the sum of £300 and upwards." Since he was at very little cost in making the Swan ready, "for the said house was then lately afore used to have plays in it," most of this sum went for the purchase of "sundry sort of rich attire and apparel for them to play withall."

Everything seems to have gone well until near the end of July, when the company presented The Isle of Dogs, a satirical play written in part by the "young Juvenal" of the age, Thomas Nashe, and in part by certain "inferior players," chief of whom seems to have been Ben Jonson.[256] The play apparently attacked under a thin disguise some persons high in authority. The exact nature of the offense cannot now be determined, but Nashe himself informs us that "the troublesome stir which happened about it is a general rumour that hath filled all England,"[257] and the Queen herself seems to have been greatly angered. On July 28, 1597, the Privy Council sent a letter to the Justices of Middlesex and of Surrey informing them that Her Majesty "hath given direction that not only no plays shall be used within London or about the city or in any public place during this time of summer, but that also those playhouses that are erected and built only for such purposes shall be plucked down." Accordingly the Council ordered the Justices to see to it that "there be no more plays used in any public place within three miles of the city until Allhallows [i.e., November 1] next"; and, furthermore, to send for the owners of the various playhouses "and enjoin them by vertue hereof forthwith to pluck down quite the stages, galleries, and rooms that are made for people to stand in, and so to deface the same as they may not be employed again to such use."[258]