of females; and appears to have borne some resemblance to the audiences now annually collected to entitled "Jack Drum's Entertainment, or the Comedy of Pasquil and Katherine, 4to. 1601, which was acted by the Children of St. Paul's. In the Introduction, in answer to the Tyreman, who complains that the Author had snatched the play-book from him, and with violence kept the boys from entering on the stage, one of the children says, "You much mistake the action, Tyerman; "His violence proceeds not from a mind "That grudgeth pleasure to this generous presence, "Unto this choice selected audience." Again, in the fifth Act: "Sir Edw. Now by my troth, and [if] I had thought on't, too "I would have had a play; i' faith, I would. "I saw the Children of Pauls last night, "And troth they pleas'd me pretty pretty well; "The apes in time will do it handsomely. "Pla. I' faith, "I like the audience that frequenteth there "With much applause. A man shall not be choked "The barmy jacket of a beer-brewer. 66 Brah. Jun. Tis a good gentle Audience; and I hope the boys "Will come one day into the Court of Requests." [This, I believe, is nothing more than a poor pun: 'I hope they will one day be in request.'] "Brah. Sen. Ay, and [if] they had good plays; but they produce "Such musty fopperies of antiquity, "And do not suit the humorous age's back "With cloaths in fashion." See also the Prologue to Antonio and Mellda, 1601, acted by the children of St. Paul's: VOL. II. hear one of Terence's comedies acted by the young gentlemen of Westminster school. Such dramas, "The wreath of pleasure and delicious sweets 66 Upon our weakness: only we give up "The worthless present of slight idleness "But oh, the healthy dryness of her braine "To breathe her blushing numbers to such ears: "Yet, most ingenious, deign to veil our wants." So also, Lilly himself, in the Prologue to his Campaspe : "We here conclude; wishing that although there be in your precise judgments an universal mislike, yet we may enjoy by your wonted courtesies, a general silence." Again, in the Prologue to Sapho and Phaon, 1594, when it was acted at Blackfriars: 66 - yet we have ventured to present our exercise before your judgments, when we know them [their exercise] full of weak matter, yielding rather to the curtesie which we have ever found than to the precisenes which we ought to feare." Again, in the Prologue to his Mydas: "We are jealous of your judgments, because you are wise; of our own performance, because we are unperfect; of our author's device, because he is idle. Only this doth encourage us ;-that presenting our studies before gentlemen, though they receive an inward mislike, we shall not be hissd with an open disgrace. Stirps rudis urtica est; stirps generosa rosa." See also the concluding speech of Marston's Antonio's Revenge, performed at St. Paul's, in 1601 or 1602: "And O if ever time create a Muse "That to the immortal fame of virgin faith Dares once engage his pen to write her death, perhaps it may be urged, were little suited to a courtly audience, composed of both sexes, before which they sometimes were exhibited: but let it be remembered that they were not originally intended for such an audience; and even at court, we know that many of the female nobility, and attendants on the Queen, were, like her Majesty, acquainted with the Latin language; consequently neither his allusions nor his quotations, could even there fail of being understood by a large portion of his auditors; and "Presenting it in some black tragedy, 66 May it have gentle presence, and the scenes suckd up "By calm attention of choice audience." That the audience at this theatre consisted only of men, appears from Marston's Epilogue to Antonio and Mellida; in which, as well as in some of Lilly's plays, the address is only to the male sex; "Gentlemen. Though I remain an armed Epilogue," &c. See also Lilly's Prologue to Midas: "Gentlemen; so nice is the world," &c.; and the quotation above, from a subsequent part of the same prologue. So, in the Induction of Jack Drum's Entertainment, played at St. Paul's: "In good faith, gentlemen, I think we shall be forced to give you right Jack Drums Entertainment," &c. The Epilogue to Lilly's Galathea, where we find "You ladies may see," &c. was a court epilogue. In the theatres, where women were admitted as well as men, those supplicatory addresses are to both sexes. See the Epilogue to As You Like It, and many other plays. The price of admission into the theatre of St. Paul's, appears to have been double to what was demanded at the playhouse at Newington Butts, which was then specifically called The Theatre, and probably to the price of admission at the Curtain, at that period; a circumstance which contributed to render the audience more select. See Lilly's Pap with a Hatchet, &c. [1589], Signat. D 3. in marg.: "If it be shewed at Paules, it will cost you fourepence, at the Theater twopence." their introduction, instead of being thought a fault, was undoubtedly considered a beauty. In further support of Spenser's eulogy on this poet, I may add, that several of his characters are happily conceived, and some of them may have been models to subsequent dramatists. In our author's early plays, we may sometimes trace, in the lower characters, an imitation of Lilly's manner". His Alchemist and Astronomer in Galathea, perhaps, gave rise to Jonson's Subtle, and Congreve's Foresight; and Sir Tophas in Endymion may in like manner have been the remote original of Malvolio in Twelfth Night, where nearly the same name is applied to another character. In his Galathea, to the change of sex in which piece I suspect Spenser particularly alludes, when he speaks of his admired poet's "fine counterfesance, and unhurtful sport," the opening may, longo intervallo, remind us of the first scene in The Tempest, as that of Richard the Third is evidently formed on a passage in Lilly's Campaspe and of the numerous songs in 7 See particularly The Comedy of Errors, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 8 "Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; "To the lascivious pleasing of a lute." K. Richard III. Act I. Sc. I. "Is the warlike sound of drum and trump turn'd to the soft noise of lyre and lute? The neighing of barb'd steeds, whose his plays, many of which are uncommonly elegant and happy, and seem to have been particularly alluded to by Spenser, some passages have been expressly imitated by Shakspeare. But how, it will be asked, can John Lilly be alluded to, under the words-" our pleasant Willy?" This seeming difficulty may be easily removed, by attending to the phraseology of Spenser's age, and adverting to a conceit, which seems frequently to have governed him in the formation of poetical names, shadowing real persons. In his time shepherd was a common denomination of a poet. Thus Shakspeare, in As You Like It, apostrophizing Marlowe, who was not a pastoral, but a dramatick poet, "Dead shepherd, now I see thy saw of might; In like manner Spenser, throughout his poem, entitled Colin Clout's Come Home Again, as well as in various other parts of his works, uses these terms as synonymous. loudness fill'd the air with terrour, and whose breaths dimmed the sun with smoak, converted to delicate tunes and amorous glances," &c. Campaspe, 1584. Here we find the germ of the preceding passage, in which Shakspeare, with his usual felicity, has expanded Lilly's thought. This parallelism was first pointed out by Mr. Reid. 9" That want with comick sock to beautify In the last line, I conceive Spenser particularly alluded to Lilly's songs, which are eminently smooth and elegant in their composition, and doubtless had the aid of such musick as then was most in vogue. |