Soon after the period he fpeaks of, a regular French theatre was established in London, where without doubt women acted. They had long be

"It is infamous in this author's judgment [Dion Caffius] for emperors or perfons of quality to dance upon a flage, or act a play."

In the Office-book of Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, I find a warrant for payment of rol. " to Jofias Floridor for himfelfe and the reft of the French players, for a tragedy by them acted before his Majeftie in Dec. laft." Dated Jan. 8, 1635-6. Their houfe had been licenfed, April 18, 1635- I find alfo "L.10. paid to John Navarro for himself and the reft of the company of Spanish players, for a play prefented before his Majestie, Dec. 23, 1635.'

We have already feen that Henrietta Maria had a precedent for introducing the comedians of her own country into England, King Henry the Seventh having likewife had a company of French players.

Sir Henry Herbert's manufcript furnishes us with the following notices on this fubject:

"On tuesday night the 17 of February, 1634, [1634-5,] a Frenche company of players, being aproved of by the queene at her house too nights before, and commended by her majefty to the kinge, were admitted to the Cockpitt in Whitehall, and there prefented the king and queene with a Frenche comedy called Melife, with good approbation: for which play the king gives them ten pounds.

"This day being Friday, and the 20 of the fame monthe, the kinge tould mee his pleasure, and commanded mee to give order that this Frenche company fhould playe the too fermon daies in the weeke, during their time of playinge in Lent, and in the house of Drury-lane, where the queenes players ufually playe.

"The kings pleasure I fignifyed to Mr. Becton, [the Manager of Drury-lane theatre,] the fame day, who obeyd readily.

"The houfe-keepers are to give them by promife the benefit of their intereft for the two days of the first weeke.

"They had the benefitt of playinge on the fermon daies, and gott two hundred pounds at leaft; befides many rich clothes were given them.

"They had freely to themfelves the whole weeke before the weeke before Eafter, which I obtaynd of the king for them.

The 4 Aprill, on Eafter monday, they playd the Trompeur pany, with better approbation than the other.

"On Wenfday night the 16 Aprill, 1635, the French playd Alcimedar with good aprobation."

fore appeared on the Italian as well as the French ftage. When Coryate was at Venice, [July, 1608,] he tells us, he was at one of their playhouses, and faw a comedy acted. "The houfe, (he adds) is very beggarly and bafe, in comparison of our ftately playhouses in England; neither can their actors compare with us for apparell, fhewes, and muficke. Here I obferved certaine things that I never faw before; for I faw women act, a thing that I never faw before, though I have heard that it hath been fome

In a marginal note Sir Henry Herbert adds, "The Frenche offered mee a prefent of .10; but I refufed itt, and did them many other curtefys, gratis, to render the queene my miftris an acceptable fervice."

It appears from a fubfequent paffage, that in the following month a theatre was erected exprefsly for this troop of comedians.

"A warrant granted to Jofias d'Aunay, Hurfries de Lau, and others, for to act playes at a new houfe in Drury-lane, during pleasure. ye 5 may, 1635.

The king was pleafed to commande my Lord Chamberlain to direct his warrant to Monfieur Le Fevure, to give him a power to contract with the Frenchemen for to builde a playhouse in the manage-house, which was done accordinglye by my advife and allow

ance."

"Thes Frenchmen," Sir Henry adds in the margin, "were commended unto mee by the queene, and have paft through my handes, gratis."

"

They did not however pafs quite free, for from a fubfequent entry it appears, that they gave Blagrave [Sir Henry's deputy] three pounds for his paines.'

In the following December the French paftoral of Florimene was acted at court by the young ladies who attended the queen from France.

"The paftorall of Florimene, (fays Sir Henry) with the defcrip tion of the fccanes and interludes, as it was fent mee by Mr. Inigo Jones, I allowed for the prefs, this 14 of Decemb. 1635. The paftorall is in French, and 'tis the argument only, put into English, that I have allowed to be printed.

"Le paitorale de Florimene fuft reprefenté devant le roy et la royne, le prince Charles, et le prince Palatin, le 21 Decem. jour de St. Thomas, par les filles Françoife de la royne, et firent tres bien, dans la grande fale de Whitehall, aux depens de la royne." MS. Herbert.

times used in London; and they performed it with as good a grace, action, gefture, and whatsoever convenient for a player, as ever I saw any mas culine actor."3

The practice of men's performing the parts of women in the fcene is of the highest antiquity. On the Grecian stage no woman certainly ever acted. From Plutarch's Life of Phocion, we learn, that in his time (about three hundred and eighteen years before the Chriftian era) the performance of a tragedy at Athens was interrupted for fome time by one of the actors, who was to perfonate a queen, refufing to come on the stage, because he had not a fuitable mafk and dress, and a train of attendants richly habited; and Demofthenes in one of his orations,* mentions Theodorus and Ariftodemus as having often reprefented the Antigone of Sophocles.'

3 Coryate's Crudities, 4to. 1611, p. 247. I have found no ground for this writer's affertion, that female performers had appeared on the English ftage before he wrote.

+ De fals. leg. Tom. II. p. 199, edit. Taylor.

5 See alfo Lucian. de Salt. II. 285, edit. Hemfterhufii." Becaufe" (fays that lively writer)" at firft you preferred tragedy and comedy and vagrant fidlers and finging to the harpe, before dancing, calling them truly exercifes, and therefore commendable, let us, I pray, compare them feverally with dancing. Where, if it pleafe you, we will pafs the pipe and harpe as parts and inftruments of dancing, and confider tragedy as it is; firft, according to its propertyes and drefs. What a deformed and frightfull fight is it, to fee a man raifed to a prodigious length, ftalking upon exalted bufkins, his face difguifed with a grimme vizard, widely gaping, as if he meant to devour the fpectators? I forbear to speake of his fluft brefts, and fore-bellyes, which make an adventitious and artificial corpulency, left his unnatural length fhould carry difproportion to his flenderneffe: as alfo his clamour from within, when he breakes open and unlockes himfelfe; when he howles iambicks, and most ridiculously fings his own fufferings, and renders himself by his very tone odious. For as for the reft, they are inventions of ancient poets. Yet as long as he perfonates only fome Andromache and Hecuba, his finging is tolerable. But for a Hercules to enter

This fact is alfo afcertained by an anecdote preferved by Aulus Gellius. A very celebrated actor, whose name was Polus, was appointed to perform the part of Electra in Sophocles's play; who in the progrefs of the drama appears with an urn in her hands, containing, as the fuppofes, the afhes of Oreftes. The actor having fome time before been deprived by death of a beloved fon, to indulge his grief, as it fhould feem, procured the urn which contained the afhes of his child, to be brought from his tomb; which affected him fo much, that when he appeared with it on the fcene, he embraced it with unfeigned forrow, and burst into tears.6

That on the Roman ftage alfo female parts were represented by men in tragedy, is ascertained by

dolefully finging, and to forget himfelf, and neither to regard his lyons fkynne, nor clubbe, muft needs appear to any judging man a folecifme. And whereas you diflike that in dancing men fhould act women; this is a reprehenfion, which holds for tragedies and comedyes too, in which are more womens parts, then mens." Dialogue on dancing, tranflated by Jafper Mayne, folio, 1664.

6 Hiftrio in terra Græcia fuit fama celebri, qui geftus et vocis claritudine et venuftate cæteris anteftabat. Nomen fuiffe aiunt Polum; tragedias poetarum nobilium fcite atque affeverate actitavit. Is Polus unice amatum filium morte amifit. Eum luctum quum fatis vifus eft eluxiffe, rediit ad quæftum artis. In eo tempore Athenis Electram Sophoclis acturus, geftare urnam quafi cum Orefti offibus debebat. Ita compofitum fabulæ argumentum eft, ut veluti fratris reliquias ferens Electra comploret commiferaturque interitum ejus, qui per vim extinctus exiftimatur. Igitur Polus lugubri habitu Electræ indutus offa atque urnam a fepulchro tulit filii, et quafi Orefti amplexus opplevit omnia non fimulachris neque imitamentis, fed luctu atque lamentis veris et fpirantibus. Itaque quum agi fabula videretur, dolor accitus eft." Aul, Gel. Lib. VII. c. v.

Olivet in a note on one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, (Lib. IV. c. xv.) mentions a fimilar anecdote of a mime called Seia, for which he quotes the authority of Plutarch; but no fuch perfon is mentioned by that writer. Seia, according to Olivet, performed the part of Andromache. I fufpect he meant to cite PetrarchSeia probably reprefented Andromache in a tragick pantomime.

one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, in which he fpeaks of Antipho, who performed the part of Andromache; and by a paffage in Horace, who informs us, that Fufius Phocæus being to perform the part of Ilione, the wife of Polymneftor, in a tragedy written either by Accius or Pacuvius, and being in the courfe of the play to be awakened out of fleep by the cries of the fhade of Polydorus, got fo drunk, that he fell into a real and profound fleep, from which no noife could roufe him."

Horace indeed mentions a female performer, called Arbufcula; but as we find from his own authority that men perfonated women on the Roman ftage, fhe probably was only an emboliaria, who performed in the interludes and dances exhibited between the acts and at the end of the play. Servius * calls her mima, but that may mean nothing more than one who acted in the mimes, or danced in the pantomime dances; and this feems the more probable from the manner in which fhe is mentioned by Cicero, from whom we learn that the part of Andromache was performed by a male actor on that very day when Arbufcula exhibited with the highest applaufe.+

7 Epiftol. ad Atticum, Lib. IV. c. xv.

8

"Non magis audivit quam Fufius ebrius olim, "Cum Ilionam edormit, Catienis mille ducentis, "Mater te appello, clamantibus." Sat. Lib. II. Sat. iii. Compare Cicero, Tufculan. I. 44.

9 "fatis eft equitem mihi plaudere, ut audax

Contemptis aliis explofa Arbujula dixit." Lib. I. Sat. x.

2 In eclog. x.

3 Sunt Mimi, ut ait Claudianus, qui letis falibus facete rifum. movent; Pantomimi vero, ut idem ait, nutu manibufque loquaces,” Vet. Schol.

Epiftol. ad Atticum, L. IV. c. xv,