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It is faid in Camden's Annals of the reign of King James the First, that the theatre in Blackfriars fell down in the year 1623, and that above eighty perfons were killed by the accident; but he was mifinformed. The room which gave way was in

ticulars with relation to the kings fervants, petitions, warrants, bills, &c. and fuppofed to be a copy of fome part of the Lord Chamberlain of the Houfhold's book in or about the year 1622," I find "A warrant to the fignet-office (dated July 8th, 1622,) for a privie feale for his majefties licenfing of Robert Lee, Richard Perkins, Ellis Woorth, Thomas Baffe, John Blany, John Cumber, and William Robbins, late comedians of Queen Anne deceased, to bring up children in the qualitie and exercife of playing comedies, hiftories, interludes, morals, paftorals, ftage-plaies, and fuch like, as well for the follace and pleasure of his majestie, as for the honeft recreation of fuch as fhall defire to see them; to be called by the name of The Children of the Revels;—and to be drawne in such a manner and forme as hath been used in other lycenfes of that kinde." These very perfons, we have seen, were the company of the Revels in 1622, and were then become men.

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1623. Ex occafu domûs fcenicæ apud Black-friers Londini, 81 perfonæ fpectabiles necantur." Camdeni Annales ab anno 1603 ad annum 1623, 4to. 1691, p. 82. That this writer was misinformed, appears from an old tract, printed in the fame year in which the accident happened, entitled, A Word of Comfort, or a discourse concerning the late lamentable accident of the fall of a Room at a Catholick fermon in the Black-friers, London, whereby about four-score perfons were oppressed, 4to. 1623.

See alfo verfes prefixed to a play called The Queen, published by Alexander Goughe, (probably the fon of Robert Goughe, one of the actors in Shakspeare's company,) in 1653:

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we dare not fay

that Black friers we heare, which in this age
"Fell, when it was a church, not when a ftage;
"Or that the puritans that once dwelt there,

"Prayed and thriv'd, though the play-house were so near." Camden had a paralytick ftroke on the 18th of Auguft 1623, and died on the 9th of November following. The above-mentioned accident happened on the 24th of October; which accounts for his inaccuracy. The room which fell, was an upper room in HunfdonHoufe, in which the French Ambassador then dwelt. See Stowe's Chron. p. 1035, edit. 1631.

a private house, and appropriated to the fervice of religion.

I am unable to afcertain at what time the Globe theatre was built. Hentzner has alluded to it as exifting in 1598, though he does not exprefsly mention it. I believe it was not built long before the year 1596. It was fituated on the Bankfide, (the fouthern fide of the river Thames,) nearly oppofite to Friday-ftreet, Cheapfide. It was an hexagonal wooden building, partly open to the weather, and partly thatched." When Hentzner wrote, all the other theatres as well as this were compofed of wood.

4" Non longe ab uno horum theatrorum, quæ omnia lignea funt, ad Thamefin navis eft regia, quæ duo egregia habet conclavia," &c. Itin. p. 132. By navis regia he means the royal barge called the Gallyfoift. See the South View of London, as it appeared in 1599. 5 See "The Suit of the Watermen against the Players," in the Works of Taylor the Water-poet, p. 171.

6 In the long Antwerp View of London in the Pepyfian Library at Cambridge, is a reprefentation of the Globe theatre, from which a drawing was made by the Rev. Mr. Henley, and trans mitted to Mr. Steevens. From that drawing this cut was made.

The Globe was a publick theatre, and of confiderable fize, and there they always acted by daylight. On the roof of this and the other publick theatres a pole was erected, to which a flag was affixed. These flags were probably displayed only

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7 The Globe, we learn from Wright's Hiftoria Hiftrionica, was nearly of the fame fize as the Fortune, which has been already defcribed.

Hiftoria Hiftrionica, 8vo. 1699, P. 7.

9 So, in The Curtain-Drawer of the World, 1612: "Each playhouse advanceth his flagge in the aire, whither quickly at the waving thereof are fummoned whole troops of men, women, and chil

during the hours of exhibition; and it fhould feem from one of the old comedies that they were taken down in Lent, in which time, during the early part of King James's reign, plays were not allowed to be reprefented, though at a fubfequent period this prohibition was dispensed with.3

dren."-Again, in A Mad World, my Mafters, a comedy by Middleton, 1608: " the hair about the hat is as good as a flag upon the pole, at a common play-house, to waft company." See a South View of the City of London as it appeared in 1599, in which are reprefentations of the Globe and Swan theatres. From the words," a common play-house," in the paffage laft quoted, we may be led to fuppofe that flags were not difplayed on the roof of Blackfriars, and the other private playhouses.

This custom perhaps took its rife from a mifconception of a line in Ovid:

"Tunc neque marmoreo pendebant vela theatro,-" which Heywood, in a tract published in 1612, thus tranflates: "In thofe days from the marble house did waive

"No fail, no filken flag, or enfign brave."

"From the roof (fays the fame author, defcribing a Roman amphitheatre,) grew a loover or turret, of exceeding altitude, from which an ensign of filk waved continually;-pendebant vela theatro."-The mifinterpretation might, however, have arisen from the English cuftom.

2 "Tis Lent in your checks ;-the flag is down." A mad World, my Mafters, a comedy by Middleton, 1608.

Again, in Earle's Characters, 7th edit. 1638; " Shrove-tuesday hee [a player] feares as much as the bawdes, and Lent is more dangerous to him than the butchers.”

3 66 [Received] of the King's players for a lenten difpenfation, the other companys promifing to doe as muche, 44s. March 23, 1616.

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Of John Hemminges, in the name of the four companys, for toleration in the holydayes, 44s. January 29, 1618."

Extracts from the office-book of Sir George Buc. MSS. Herbert. Thefe difpenfations did not extend to the fermon-days, as they were then called; that is, Wednesday and Friday in each week.

After Sir Henry Herbert became poffeffed of the office of Mafter of the Revels, fees for permiffion to perform in Lent appear to have been conftantly paid by each of the theatres. The managers however did not always perform plays during that feafon. Some of

I formerly conjectured that The Globe, though hexagonal at the outside, was perhaps a rotunda within, and that it might have derived its name from its circular form. But, though the part appropriated to the audience was probably circular, I now believe that the house was denominated only from its fign; which was a figure of Hercules fup

the theatres, particularly the Red-Bull and the Fortune, were then let to prize-fighters, tumblers, and rope-dancers, who fometimes added a Mafque to the other exhibitions. These facts are ascertained by the following entries:

"1622. 21 Martii. For a prife at the Red-Bull, for the howse; the fencers would give nothing. 10s." MSS. Aftley.

"From Mr. Gunnel, [Manager of the Fortune,] in the name of the dancers of the ropes for Lent, this 15 March, 1624. £1. 0. 0. "From Mr. Gunnel, to allowe of a Mafque for the dancers of the ropes, this 19 March, 1624. 2. o. o.

We fee here, by the way, that Microcofmus, which was exhibited in 1637, (was not as Dr. Burney fuppofes in his ingenious Hiftory of Mufick, Vol. III. p. 385,) the first mafque exhibited on the publick stage.

From Mr. Blagrave, in the name of the Cockpit company, for this Lent, this 30th March, 1624. £2. 0. 0."

"March 20, 1626. From Mr. Hemminges, for this Lent allowanfe, £2. o. o." MSS. Herbert.

Prynne takes notice of this relaxation in his Hiftriomaflix, 4to. 1633: "There are none so addicted to stage-playes, but when they go unto places where they cannot have them, or when as they are fuppreffed by publike authority, (as in times of peftilence, and in Lent, till now of late,) can well fubfift without them." P. 784.

4"After thefe" (fays Heywood, fpeaking of the buildings at Rome, appropriated to fcenick exhibitions,)" they compofed others, but differing in form from the theatre or amphitheatre, and every fuch was called circus; the frame globe-like, and merely round." Apology for Actors, 1612. See alfo our author's prologue to King Henry V:

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But as we find in the prologue to Marfton's Antonio's Revenge, which was acted by the Children of Paul's in 1602:

"If any fpirit breathes within this round,

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no inference refpecting the denomination of the Globe can be drawn from this expreffion.

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