From the receipts on these benefits I am led to believe that the prices were lower at the Globe theatre, and that therefore, though it was much larger than the winter theatre at Blackfriars, it did not produce a greater sum of money on any representation. If we suppose twenty pounds, clear of the nightly charges already mentioned, to have been a very considerable receipt at either of these houses, and that this sum was in our poet's time divided into forty shares, of which fifteen were appropriated to the housekeepers or proprietors, three to the purchase of copies of new plays, stagehabits, &c. and twenty-two to the actors, then the performer who had two shares on the representation of each play, received, when the theatre was thus successful, twenty shillings. But supposing the average nightly receipt (after deducting the nightly expences) to be about nine pounds, which we have seen to be the case, then his nightly dividend would be but nine shillings, and his weekly profit, if they played five times a week, two pounds five shillings. The acting season, I believe, at that time lasted forty weeks. In each of the companies then subsisting there were about twenty persons, six of whom probably were principal, and the others subordinate; so that we may suppose two shares to have been the reward of a principal actor; six of the second class perhaps enjoyed a whole share each; and each of the remaining eight half a share. On all these data, I think it may be safely concluded, that the performers of the first class did not derive from their profession more than ninety pounds a year at the utmost. Shakspeare, Heminge, Condell, Burbadge, Lowin, and Taylor had without doubt other shares as proprietors or leaseholders; but what the different proportions were which each of them possessed in that right, it is now impossible to ascertain. According to the supposition already stated, that fifteen shares out of forty were appropriated to the proprietors, then was there on this account a sum of six hundred and seventy-five pounds annually to be divided among them. Our poet, as author, actor, and proprietor, probably received from the theatre about two hundred pounds a year.-Having after a very long search lately discovered the will of Mr. Heminge, I hoped to have derived from it some information on this subject; but I was disappointed. He indeed more than once mentions his several parts or shares held by lease in the Globe and Blackfriars playhouses; but uses no expression by which the value of each of those shares can be ascertained. His books of ac

count, which he appears to have regularly kept, and which, he says, will show that his shares yielded him "a good yearly profit," will probably, if they shall ever be found, throw much light on our early stage history.

Thus scanty and meagre were the apparatus and accommodations of our ancient theatres, on which those dramas were first exhibited, that have since engaged the attention of so many learned men, and delighted so many thousand spectators. Yet even then, we are told by a writer of that age,4" dramatick poesy was so lively expressed and represented on the publick stages and theatres of this city, as Rome in the auge of her pomp and glory, never saw it better performed; in respect of the action and art, not of the cost and sumptuousness."

THE history of the stage as far as it relates to Shakspeare, naturally divides itself into three periods: the period which preceded his appearance as an actor or dramatick writer; that during which he flourished; and the time which has elapsed since his death. Having now gone through the two former of these periods, I shall take a transient view of the stage from the death of our great poet to the year 1741, still with a view to Shakspeare, and his works.

Soon after his death, four of the principal companies then subsisting, made a union, and were afterwards called The United Companies; but I know not precisely in what this union consisted. I suspect it arose from a penury of actors, and that the managers contracted to permit the performers in each house occasionally to assist their brethren in the other theatres in the representation of plays.

After the death of Shakspeare, the plays of Fletcher appear for several years to have been more admired, or at least to have been more frequently acted, than those of our poet.

* Sir George Buc. This writer, as I have already observed, wrote an express treatise concerning the English stage, which was never printed, and, I fear, is now irrecoverably lost.

During the latter part of the reign of James the First, Fletcher's pieces had the advantage of novelty to recommend them. I believe, between the time of Beaumont's death in 1615 and his own in 1625, this poet produced at least twenty-five plays. Sir Aston Cokain has informed us, in his poems, that of the thirty-five pieces improperly ascribed to Beaumont and Fletcher in the folio edition of 1647, much the greater part were written after Beaumont's death; and his, account is partly confirmed by Sir Henry Herbert's Manuscript, from which it appears that Fletcher produced eleven new plays in the last four years of his life. If we were possessed of the Register kept by Sir George Buck, we should there, I make no doubt, find near twenty dramas written by the same author in the interval between 1615 and 1622.

Sir William D'Avenant, about sixteen months after the death of Ben Jonson, obtained from his Majesty (Dec. 13, 1638,) a grant of an annuity of one hundred pounds per ann. which he enjoyed as poet laureat till his death. In the following year (March 26, 1639,) a patent passed the great seal authorizing him to erect a playhouse, which was then intended to have been built behind The Three Kings Ordinary in Fleet-street but this scheme was not carried into execu tion. I find from a Manuscript in the Lord Chamberlain's Office, that after the death of Christopher Beeston, Sir W. D'Avenant was appointed by the Lord Chamberlain, (June 27, 1639,)" Governor of the King and Queens company acting at the Cockpit in Drury Lane, during the lease which Mrs. Elizabeth Beeston, alias Hutcheson, hath or doth hold in the said house:" and I suppose he appointed her son Mr. William Beeston his deputy, for from Sir Henry Herbert's office-book, he appears for a short time to have had the ma nagement of that theatre.

In the latter end of the year 1659, some months before the Restoration of K. Charles II. the theatres, which had been suppressed during the usurpation, began to revive, and several plays were performed at the Red Bull in St. John's Street, in that and the following year, before the return of the king. In June, 1660, three companies seem to have been formed; that already mentioned; one under Mr. William Beeston in Salisbury Court, and one at the Cockpit in Drury Lane under Mr. Rhodes, who had been wardrobekeeper at the theatre in Blackfriars before the breaking out of the Civil Wars. Sir Henry Herbert, who still retained

his office of Master of the Revels, endeavoured to obtain from these companies the same emoluments which he had formerly derived from the exhibition of plays; but after a long struggle, and after having brought several actions at law against Sir William D'Avenant, Mr. Betterton, Mr. Mohun, and others, he was obliged to relinquish his claims, and his office ceased to be attended with either authority or profit. It received its death wound from a grant from King Charles II. under the privy signet, August 21, 1660, authorizing Mr. Thomas Killigrew, one of the grooms of his majesty's bedchamber, and Sir William D'Avenant, to erect two new playhouses and two new companies, of which they were to have the regulation; and prohibiting any other theatrical representation in London, Westminster, or the suburbs, but those exhibited by the said two companies.

Mr. THOMAS BETTERTON having been a great admirer of Shakspeare, and having taken the trouble in the beginning of this century, when he was above seventy years of age, of travelling to Stratford-upon-Avon to collect materials for Mr. Rowe's life of our author, is entitled to particular notice from an editor of his works. Very inaccurate accounts of this actor have been given in the Biographia Britannica and several other books. It is observable, that biographical writers often give the world long dissertations concerning facts and dates, when the fact contested might at once be ascertained by visiting a neighbouring parish church: and this has been particularly the case of Mr. Betterton. He was the son of Matthew Betterton (under-cook to King Charles the First) and was baptized, as I learn from the register of St. Margaret's parish, August 11, 1635. He could not have appeared on the stage in 1656, as has been asserted, no theatre being then allowed. His first appearance was at the Cockpit, in Drury Lane, in Mr. Rhodes's company, who played there by a license in the year 1659, when Betterton was twenty-four years of age. He married Mrs. Mary Saunderson, an actress, who had been bred by Sir William D'Avenant, some time in the year 1663, as appears by the Dramatis Personce of The Slighted Maid, printed in that. year. From a paper now before me, which Sir Henry Herbert has entitled a Breviat of matters to be proved on the trial of an action brought by him against Mr. Betterton in 1662, I find that he continued to act at the Cockpit till November, 1660, when he and several other performers entered into articles with Sir William D'Avenant; in consequence

of which they began in that month to play at the theatre int Salisbury Court, from whence after some time, I believe, they returned to the Cockpit, and afterwards removed to a new theatre in Portugal Row near Lincoln's Inn Fields.

On the 15th of Nov. 1660, Sir William D'Avenant's company began to act under these articles at the theatre in Salisbury-court, at which house or at the Cockpit they continued to play till March or April, 1662. In October 1660, Sir Henry Herbert had brought an action on the case against Mr. Mohun and several others of Killigrew's company, which was tried in December, 1661, for representing plays without being licensed by him, and obtained a verdict against them. Encouraged by his success in that suit, soon after D'Avenant's company opened their new theatre in Portugal Row, he brought a similar action (May 6, 1662,) against Mr. Betterton, of which I know not the event. In the declaration, now before me, it is stated that D'Avenant's company, between the 15th of November 1660, and the 6th of May 1662, produced ten new plays, and 100 revived plays; but the latter number being the usual style of declarations at law, may have been inserted without a strict regard to the fact.

Sir Henry Herbert likewise brought two actions on the same ground against Sir William D'Avenant, in one of which he failed, and in the other was successful. To put an end to the contest, Sir William in June 1662 besought the king to interfere.

The actors who had performed at the Red Bull, acted under the direction of Mr. Killigrew during the years 1660, 1661, 1662, and part of the year 1663, in Gibbon's, tenniscourt in Vere Street, near Clare-market; during which time a new theatre was built for them in Drury Lane, to which they removed in April, 1663. In the list of their stockplays, there are but three of Shakspeare.

Downes the prompter has given a list of what he calls the principal old stock plays acted by the king's servants, (which title the performers under Mr. Killegrew acquired,) between the time of the Restoration and the junction of the two companies in 1682; from which it appears that the only plays of Shakspeare performed by them in that period, were King Henry IV. P. I. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, and Julius Cæsar. Mr. Hart represented Othello, Brutus, and Hotspur; Major Mohun, Iago, and Cassius; and Mr. Cartwright Falstaff. Such was the lamentable taste of those