Elizabethan England Part 22

[241] Unless this can be shown to have been written later, it must modify Mr. Halliwell's argument and statement, in his _Ill.u.s.trations_, pp. 36, 42, against the early theatres and houses--those before "_The Theatre_"

(Burbage's) in 1576--being "built" for play-acting. He says, p. 36, "In Northbrooke's Treatise, 1577-8, Youth asks,--'doe you speake against those places also whiche are made uppe and builded for such playes and enterludes, as the Theatre and Curtaine is, and other suche lyke places besides?' By 'other _suche lyke_ places,' that is, similar places, the writer perhaps alludes [or perhaps does not] to houses or taverns in which interludes were performed, speaking of such buildings generally, the construction of the sentence not necessarily implying that he refers to other edifices _built especially_ for dramatic representations." (Yet surely the fair and natural inference from the words is that the "other lyke places" were built for the same purpose as "the Theatre and Curtaine.") Again, at p. 42, "When Gosson, in his _Playes Confuted_, c.

1580, speaks of 'Cupid and Psyche plaid at Paules, and a greate many comedies more at the Blacke friers and in every playe house in London,' he _unquestionably_ refers to _houses or taverns temporarily employed_ for the performances alluded to." And, after quoting Rawlidge's _Monster Late Found out_, 1628,--"some of the pious magistrates made humble suit to the late Queene Elizabeth of ever-living memorie, and her Privy Counsaile, and obteined leave from her Majesty to thrust those players out of the Citty, and to pull downe the dicing houses; which accordingly was affected; and the play-houses in Gracious street, Bishopsgate street, nigh Paules, that on Ludgate hill, the Whitefriars, were put downe, and other lewd houses quite supprest within the liberties, by the care of those religious senators"--Mr. Halliwell says, "The 'play-houses' in Gracious or Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate Street, and on Ludgate Hill, were the yards respectively of the well-known taverns called the Cross Keys, the Bull, and the Belle Savage.[242] _There is no good reason_ for believing that the other 'play-houses' mentioned, those near St. Paul's and in the Whitefriars, were, at the period alluded to, other than buildings made for the representation of plays, _not edifices expressly constructed for the purpose_."--F.

[242] He quotes from Flecknoe's _Short Discourse of the English Stage_, 1664, "about the beginning of queen Elizabeths reign they began here to a.s.semble into companies and set up theaters, first in the city, as in the inn-yards of the Cross-Keyes and Bull, in Grace and Bishopsgate street, at this day is to be seen."--_Ill.u.s.trations_, p. 43.--F.

[243] See Crowley's Epigrams on this, E. E. T. Soc. p. 17.--F.

[244] Very short men or very tall tobacco.--W.

[245] _Pa.s.sions or Patience_, a dock so called, apparently from the Italian name under which it was introduced from the South, _Lapazio_, a corruption of _L. lapathum_, having been mistaken for _la Pa.s.sio_, the Pa.s.sion of Jesus Christ, _Rumex Patientia_, L. Dr. Prior, _Popular Names of British Plants_, p. 175.--F.

[246] The use of tobacco spread very fast in England, to the disgust of Barnaby Rich, James I., and many others. Rich, in _The Honestie of this Age_, 1614, pp. 25-6, complains of the money wasted on it. He also contests the fact admitted by Harrison above, of tobacco doing good; says it's reported that 7000 houses live by the trade of tobacco-selling, and that if each of these takes but 2s. 6d. a-day,--and probably it takes 5s.--the sum total amounts to 399,375 a year, "all spent in smoake."

"They say it is good for a cold, for a pose, for rewms, for aches, for dropsies, and for all manner of diseases proceeding of moyst humours: but I cannot see but that those that do take it fastest, are as much (or more) subject to all these infirmities (yea, and to the poxe itself) as those that have nothing at all to do with it.... There is not so base a groome that commes into an ale-house to call for his pot, but he must have his pipe of tobacco; for it is a commoditie that is nowe as vendible in every taverne, inne, and ale-house, as eyther wine, ale, or beare; and for apothicaries shops, grosers shops, chandlers shops, they are (almost) never without company that, from morning till night, are still taking of tobacco. What a number are there besides that doe keep houses, set open shoppes, that have no other trade to live by, but by the selling of tobacco!" See Sir John Davies's Epigram 'Of Tobacco, x.x.xvi.' (Marlowe's _Works_, ed. Cunningham, p. 268) singing its praises in 1598; and also that '_In Syllam_, xxviii.', p. 267, on the boldness of the man who horrified 'society' then, "that dares take tobacco on the stage," 'dance in Paul's,' etc. (and contrast with him the capital description of a Gull in Epigram II., p. 263). Also the Epigram '_In Ciprium_, xxii.', 7, p.

266, col. 1.--F.

[247] Lady Dorothy Stafford's son, and not the William Stafford who wrote the _Compendious & briefe Examination_, 1581. See my Forewords to the Society's edition.--F.

[248] Will the memory of this do for the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ contagious fogs, corn rotted (II. i. 88-100), and empty fold? The rainfloods of 1594 suit better, no doubt; see the end of my _Stafford_ Forewords.--F.

[249] Charles Howard, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, a half-cousin of the poet Surrey.--W.

[250] The respective "minions" (_i.e._, "darlings") of the second Edward and the second Richard; but both, unlike Dudley, died wretchedly, one in exile, the other by the block.--W.

[251] "The 10. of Aprill the Parliament brake vp at Westminster, for the time, wherein was granted three subsidies of 2.s. 8.d. the pound goods, and foure s. lands, and 6. fifteenes."--Stowe's _Annals_, ed. 1605, p.

1272. (A good 'Oration of her maiesty to the parliament men' follows.)--F.

[252] MS. corrected. I'm not sure of either word. '_Comeling_' is Harrison's word for 'foreigner'; '_homeling_' for 'native.' Can't we revive 'em? They're a nice pair.--F.