The usual time of acting was early in the afternoon, plays being generally performed by day-light.† All female parts were performed by men, no English actress being ever seen on the public stage‡ before the civil wars. Lastly, with regard to the play-house furniture and ornaments, a writer of King Charles the Second's time § who well remembered the preceding age, assures us, that in general "they had no other scenes nor decorations of the stage, but only old tapestry, and the stage strewed with rushes, with habits accordingly." || Yet Coryate thought our theatrical exhibitions, &c. splendid, when compared with what he saw abroad. Speaking of the Theatre for * "He entertaines us (says Overbury in his Character of an Actor) in the best leisure of our life, that is, betweene meales; the most unfit time either for study, or bodily exercise." Even so late as in the reign of Charles II., plays generally began at three in the afternoon. † See Biogr. Brit. i. 117. n. D. I say "no English actress..... on the public stage," because Prynne speaks of it as unusual enormity, that "they had Frenchwomen actors in a play not long since personated in Blackfriars Play-house." This was in 1629, vid. p. 215. And though female parts were performed by men or boys on the public stage, yet in Masques at court, the queen and her ladies made no scruple to perform the principal parts, especially in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. Sir William Davenant, after the Restoration, introduced women, scenery, and higher prices. See Cibber's Apology for his own Life. § See a short discourse on the English Stage subjoined to Flecknor's Loves Kingdom, 1674, 12mo. It appears from an Epigram of Taylor the Water-poet, that one of the principal theatres in his time, viz. the Globe, on the Bankside, Southwark, (which Ben Jonson calls the "Glory of the Bank, and Fort of the whole Parish,") had been covered with thatch till it was burnt down in 1613.-(See Taylor's Sculler, Epig. 22, p. 31. Jonson's Execration on Vulcan.) Puttenham tells us they used vizards in his time," partly to supply the want of players, when there were more parts than there were persons, or that it was not thought meet to trouble... princes chambers with too many folkes." [Art of Eng. Poes. 1589, p. 26.] From the last clause, it should seem that they were chiefly used at the Masques at court. Comedies at Venice, he says, "The house is very beggarly and base in comparison of our stately playhouses in England: neyther can their actors compare with ours for apparrell, shewes, and musicke. Here I observed certaine things that I never saw before; for, I saw WOMEN Act, a thing that I never saw before, though I have heard that it hath been sometimes used in London: and they performed it with as good a grace, action, gesture, and whatsoever convenient for a player, as ever I saw any masculine actor." * It ought, however, to be observed, that amid such a multitude of play-houses as subsisted in the metropolis before the civil wars, there must have been a great difference between their several accommodations, ornaments, and prices: and that some would be much more showy than others, though probably all were much inferior in splendour to the two great theatres after the Restoration. * Coryate's Crudities, 4to. 1611, p. 247. The preceding ESSAY, although some of the materials are new arranged, hath received no alteration deserving notice, from what it was in the second edition, 1767, except in Section IV., which, in the present impression, hath been much enlarged. This is mentioned, because, since it was first published, the History of the English Stage hath been copiously handled by Mr. Thomas Warton in his "History of English Poetry, 1774," &c., 3 vols. 4to. (wherein is inserted whatever in these volumes fell in with his subject); and by Edmond Malone, Esq., who, in his "Historical Account of the English Stage," (Shaksp. vol. i. pt. ii. 1790,) hath added greatly to our knowledge of the economy and usages of our ancient theatres. END OF THE ESSAY. I. Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and Were three noted outlaws, whose skill in archery rendered them formerly as famous in the North of England, as Robin Hood and his fellows were in the midland counties. Their place of residence was in the forest of Englewood, not far from Carlisle, (called corruptly in the ballad English-wood, whereas Engle- or Ingle-wood, signifies wood for firing.) At what time they lived does not appear. The author of the common ballad on The Pedigree, Education, and Marriage of Robin Hood, makes them contemporary with Robin Hood's father, in order to give him the honour of beating them: viz. The father of Robin a Forester was, Two north-country miles and an inch at a shot, For he brought Adam Bell, and Clim of the Clough, And William a Clowdéslee To shoot with our Forester for forty mark; And our Forester beat them all three. vol. i. This seems to prove that they were commonly thought to have lived before the popular hero of Sherwood. Our northern archers were not unknown to their southern countrymen, their excellence at the long-bow is often alluded to by our ancient poets. Shakspeare, in his comedy of Much ado about Nothing, act i., makes Benedicke confirm his resolves of not yielding to love, by this protestation, "If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat,* and shoot at * Bottles formerly were of leather; though perhaps a wooden bottle might be here meant. It is still a diversion in Scotland to me; and he that hits me, let him be clapt on the shoulder and called Adam :" meaning Adam Bell, as Theobald rightly observes, who refers to one or two other passages in our old poets wherein he is mentioned. The Oxford editor has also well conjectured that " Abraham Cupid,” in Romeo and Juliet, act ii., sc. 1, should be " Adam Cupid," in allusion to our archer. Ben Jonson has mentioned Clym o' the Clough in his Alchemist, act i., sc. 2. And Sir William Davenant, in a mock poem of his, called The long Vacation in London, describes the attorneys and proctors as making matches to meet in Finsbury-fields. "With loynes in canvas bow-case tyde :* Works, p. 291, fol. 1673. I have only to add further, concerning the principal hero of this ballad, that the BELLS were noted rogues in the North so late as the time of Queen Elizabeth. See, in Rymer's Foedera, a letter from Lord William Howard to some of the officers of state, wherein he mentions them. As for the following stanzas, which will be judged from the style, orthography, and numbers, to be very ancient, they are given (corrected in some places by a MS. in the Editor's old folio) from a black-letter quarto, Emprinted at London in Lothburye by Wyliyam Copland, (no date). That old quarto edition seems to be exactly followed in "Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry, &c., Lond. 1791," 8vo., the variations from which, that occur in the following copy, are selected from many others in the folio MS. hang up a cat in a small cask, or firkin, half filled with soot; and then a parcel of clowns on horseback try to beat out the ends of it, in order to show their dexterity in escaping before the contents fall upon them. * i. e. Each with a canvas bow-case tied round his loins. aboye mentioned; and when distinguished by the usual inverted' comma,' have been assisted by conjecture. In the same MS. this ballad is followed by another, entitled Young Cloudeslee, being a continuation of the present story, and reciting the adventures of William of Cloudesly's son: but greatly inferior to this both in merit and antiquity. PART THE FIRST. MERY it was in the grene forèst Wyth bowes and arrowes kene; To raise the dere out of theyr denne; As by thre yemen of the north countrèy, 5 To Englyshe wood for to gone. * Clym of the Clough, means Clem. [Clement] of the Cliff: for so Clough signifies in the North. |