A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 15Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 15
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
the guard at Whitehall, and were thereupon connived at to
act for a few days at the Red Bull,[83] but were sometimes,
notwithstanding, disturbed by soldiers. Some picked up a
little money by publishing the copies of plays never before
printed, but kept up in manuscript. For instance, in the year
1652, Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wild-Goose Chase" was printed
in folio, for the public use of all the ingenious, as the
title-page says, and private benefit of John Lowin and Joseph
Taylor, servants to his late majesty; and by them dedicated
to the honoured few lovers of dramatic poesy, wherein they
modestly intimate their wants, and that with sufficient cause;
for whatever they were before the wars, they were after reduced
to a necessitous condition. Lowin, in his latter days, kept an
inn, the Three Pigeons at Brentford, where he died very old,
for he was an actor of eminent note in the reign of King James
I.; and his poverty was as great as his age. Taylor died at
Richmond, and was there buried. Pollard, who lived single, and
had a competent estate, retired to some relations he had in the
country, and there ended his life. Perkins and Sumner of the
Cockpit kept house together at Clerkenwell, and were there
buried. These all died some years before the Restoration; what
followed after, I need not tell you; you can easily remember.
+Love.+ Yes; presently after the Restoration, the king's
players acted publicly at the Red Bull for some time, and
then removed to a new-built play-house in Vere Street, by
Clare Market. There they continued for a year or two, and
then removed to the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where they
first made use of scenes, which had been a little before
introduced upon the public stage by Sir William Davenant, at
the Duke's Old Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, but afterwards
very much improved, with the addition of curious machines,
by Mr Betterton, at the New Theatre in Dorset Garden, to the
great expense and continual charge of the players. This much
impaired their profit o'er what it was before; for I have been
informed by one of 'em, that for several years next after the
Restoration every whole sharer in Mr Hart's company got £1000
_per ann._ About the same time that scenes first entered upon
the stage at London, women were taught to act their own parts;
since when we have seen at both houses several actresses,
justly famed, as well for beauty as perfect good action.
And some plays, in particular the "Parson's Wedding," have
been presented all by women, as formerly all by men. Thus it
continued for about twenty years, when Mr Hart, and some of the
old men, began to grow weary, and were minded to leave off.
Then the two companies thought fit to unite; but of late, you
see, they have thought it no less fit to divide again, though
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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