The Engraving represents one of the playhouses of Shakspeare's time, as the premises appeared a few years since. This theatre was in Golden Lane, Barbican, and was built by that celebrated and benevolent actor Edward Alleyn, the pious founder of Dulwich College, in 1599. It was burnt in 1624, but rebuilt in 1629. A story is told of a large treasure being found in digging for the foundation, and it is probable that the whole sum fell to Alleyn. Upon equal probability, is the derivation of the name "The Fortune." The theatre was a spacious brick building, and exhibited the royal arms in plaster on its front. These are retained in the Engraving; where the disposal of the lower part on the building into shops, &c. is a sorry picture of the "base purposes" to which a temple of the Drama has been converted.
According to the testimony of Ben Jonson and others, Alleyn was the first actor of his time, and of course played leading characters in the plays of Shakspeare and Jonson. He was probably the Kemble of his day, for his biographers tell us such was his celebrity, that he drew crowds of spectators after him wherever he performed; so that possessing some private patrimony, with a careful and provident disposition, he soon became master of an establishment of his own—and this was the Fortune. Although Alleyn left behind him a large sum, it is hardly probable that he made it here; for in his diary, which, we believe is extant, he records that he once had so slender an audience, that the whole receipts of the house amounted to no more than three pounds and a few odd shillings—a sum which would not pay the expenses; for it appears by the MS. of Lord Stanhope, treasurer to James I. that the customary sum paid for the performance of a play at court, was 20 nobles, or 6l. 12s. 4d.[1] Alleyn was likewise proprietor of the Blackfriars' Theatre, near what is still called Playhouse Yard. However he might have gathered laurels on the stage, he must have gained his fortune by other means. He was keeper of the King's Bear Garden and Menagerie, which were frequented by thousands, and produced Alleyn, the then great sum of 500l. per annum. He was also thrice married, and received portions with his two first wives; and we need not insist upon the turn which matrimony gives to a man's fortune.
Among the theatrico-antiquarian gossip of The Fortune is, that it was once the nursery for Henry VIII.'s children—but "no scandal about the"—we hope.
FINE ARTS
EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
All men are critics, in a greater or less degree. They can generalize upon the merits and defects of a picture, although they cannot point out the details of the defects, or in what the beauty of a picture consists; and to prove this, only let the reader visit the Exhibition at Somerset House, and watch the little critical coteries that collect round the most attractive paintings. Could all these criticisms be embodied, but in "terms of art," what a fine lecture would they make for the Royal Academy.
Our discursive notice would, probably, contribute but little to this joint-stock production; but as even comparing notes is not always unprofitable, we venture to give our own.
The present Exhibition is much superior to that of last year. There are more works of imagination, and consequently greater attractions for the lover of painting; for life-breathing as have been many of the portraits in recent exhibitions, the interest which they created was of quite a different nature to that which we take in not a few of the pictures of the present collection. Portraits still superabound, and finely painted portraits too; but, strange to say, there are fewer female portraits in the present than in any recent exhibition.
But the elite are seven pictures by Mr. Wilkie, who has reappeared, as it were, in British art, after an absence from England; during which he appears to have studied manners and costume with beautiful effect; and the paintings to which we allude, are triumphant proofs of his success. They are embodiments or realizations of character, manners, and scenery, with which the painter has been wont to mix, and thus to transfer them to his canvass with vividness and fidelity—merits of the highest order in all successes of art. We shall touch upon these pictures in our ramble through the rooms—