Wear this renown; 'tis just that who did give
So many poets life, by one should live.
Was he one of the Blackfriars?
True. Never as I have heard (for he was dead before my time). He was master of a company of his own, for whom he built the Fortune Playhouse from the ground, a large round brick building. This is he that grew so rich, that he purchased a great estate in Surrey and elsewhere; and having no issue, he built and largely endowed Dulwich College in the year 1619[81], for a master, a warden, four fellows, twelve aged poor people, and twelve poor boys, &c. A noble charity!
Love. What kind of play-houses had they before the wars?
True. The Blackfriars, Cockpit, and Salisbury Court were called private houses, and were very small to what we see now. The Cockpit was standing since the Restoration, and Rhodes's company acted there for some time.
Love. I have seen that.
True. Then you have seen the other two in effect, for they were all three built almost exactly alike for form and bigness. Here they had pits for the gentry, and acted by candlelight. The Globe, Fortune, and Bull were large houses, and lay partly open to the weather, and there they always acted by daylight.
Love. But prythee, Trueman, what became of these players when the stage was put down, and the Rebellion raised?
True. Most of them, except Lowin, Taylor, and Pollard (who were superannuated) went into the king's army, and, like good men and true, served their old master, though in a different, yet more honourable capacity. Robinson was killed at the taking of a place (I think Basing House) by Harrison, he that was after hanged at Charing Cross, who refused him quarter, and shot him in the head when he had laid down his arms; abusing Scripture at the same time in saying, Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently. Mohun was a captain, and (after the wars were ended here) served in Flanders, where he received pay as a major. Hart was a lieutenant of horse under Sir Thomas Dallison, in Prince Rupert's regiment; Burt was cornet in the same troop, and Shatterel quartermaster. Allen of the Cockpit was a major, and quartermaster-general at Oxford. I have not heard of one of these players; of any note that sided with the other party, but only Swanston; and he professed himself a Presbyterian, took up the trade of a jeweller, and lived in Aldermanbury, within the territory of Father Calamy. The rest either lost or exposed their lives for their king. When the wars were over, and the Royalists totally subdued, most of 'em who were left alive gathered to London, and for a subsistence endeavoured to revive their old trade privately. They made up one company out of all the scattered members of several; and in the winter before the king's murder, 1648, they ventured to act some plays, with as much caution and privacy as could be, at the Cockpit. They continued undisturbed for three or four days; but at last, as they were presenting the tragedy of the "Bloody Brother" (in which Lowin acted Aubery: Taylor, Rollo; Pollard, the Cook; Burt, Latorch; and, I think, Hart, Otto), a party of foot-soldiers beset the house, surprised 'em about the middle of the play,[82] and carried 'em away in their habits, not admitting them to shift, to Hatton House, then a prison, where, having detained them some time, they plundered them of their clothes, and let 'em loose again. Afterwards, in Oliver's time, they used to act privately, three or four miles, or more, out of town, now here, now there: sometimes in noblemen's houses, in particular, Holland House at Kensington, where the nobility and gentry who met (but in no great numbers) used to make a sum for them, each giving a broad piece, or the like. And Alexander Goffe, the woman-actor at Blackfriars (who had made himself known to persons of quality), used to be the jackal, and give notice of time and place. At Christmas and Bartholomew Fair, they used to bribe the officer who commanded the guard at Whitehall, and were thereupon connived at to act for a few days at the Red Bull,[83] but were sometimes, notwithstanding, disturbed by soldiers. Some picked up a little money by publishing the copies of plays never before printed, but kept up in manuscript. For instance, in the year 1652, Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wild-Goose Chase" was printed in folio, for the public use of all the ingenious, as the title-page says, and private benefit of John Lowin and Joseph Taylor, servants to his late majesty; and by them dedicated to the honoured few lovers of dramatic poesy, wherein they modestly intimate their wants, and that with sufficient cause; for whatever they were before the wars, they were after reduced to a necessitous condition. Lowin, in his latter days, kept an inn, the Three Pigeons at Brentford, where he died very old, for he was an actor of eminent note in the reign of King James I.; and his poverty was as great as his age. Taylor died at Richmond, and was there buried. Pollard, who lived single, and had a competent estate, retired to some relations he had in the country, and there ended his life. Perkins and Sumner of the Cockpit kept house together at Clerkenwell, and were there buried. These all died some years before the Restoration; what followed after, I need not tell you; you can easily remember.
Love. Yes; presently after the Restoration, the king's players acted publicly at the Red Bull for some time, and then removed to a new-built play-house in Vere Street, by Clare Market. There they continued for a year or two, and then removed to the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where they first made use of scenes, which had been a little before introduced upon the public stage by Sir William Davenant, at the Duke's Old Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, but afterwards very much improved, with the addition of curious machines, by Mr Betterton, at the New Theatre in Dorset Garden, to the great expense and continual charge of the players. This much impaired their profit o'er what it was before; for I have been informed by one of 'em, that for several years next after the Restoration every whole sharer in Mr Hart's company got £1000 per ann. About the same time that scenes first entered upon the stage at London, women were taught to act their own parts; since when we have seen at both houses several actresses, justly famed, as well for beauty as perfect good action. And some plays, in particular the "Parson's Wedding," have been presented all by women, as formerly all by men. Thus it continued for about twenty years, when Mr Hart, and some of the old men, began to grow weary, and were minded to leave off. Then the two companies thought fit to unite; but of late, you see, they have thought it no less fit to divide again, though both companies keep the same name of His Majesty's Servants. All this while the play-house music improved yearly, and is now arrived to greater perfection than ever I knew it. Yet for all these advantages, the reputation of the stage and people's affection to it are much decayed. Some were lately severe against it, and would hardly allow stage-plays fit to be longer permitted. Have you seen Mr Collier's book?