+Love.+ I observe, Trueman, from what you have said, that plays in England had a beginning much like those of Greece; the Monologues and Pageants, drawn from place to place on wheels, answer exactly to the cart of Thespis, and the improvements have been by such little steps and degrees as among the ancients, till at last, to use the words of Sir George Buck (in his "Third University of England"), "Dramatic poesy is so lively express'd and represented upon the public stages and theatres of this city, as Rome in the auge (the highest pitch) of her pomp and glory, never saw it better performed, I mean (says he) in respect of the action and art, and not of the cost and sumptuousness." This he writ about the year 1631. But can you inform me, Trueman, when the public theatres were first erected for this purpose in London? +True.+ Not certainly; but I presume about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign. For Stow, in his "Survey of London" (which book was first printed in the year 1598), says--"Of late years, in place of these stage-plays (_i.e._, those of religious matters) have been used comedies, tragedies, interludes, and histories, both true and feigned: for the acting whereof certain public places, as the Theatre, the Curtine, &c., have been erected." And the continuator of "Stow's Annals," p. 1004, says that in sixty years before the publication of that book (which was Ann. Dom. 1529), no less than seventeen public stages, or common playhouses, had been built in and about London. In which number he reckons five inns or common hostelries to have been in his time turned into playhouses--one Cockpit, Saint Paul's Singing-school, one in the Blackfriars, one in the Whitefriars, and one in former time at Newington Butts. And adds: Before the space of sixty years past, I never knew, heard, or read of any such theatres, stages, or playhouses, as have been purposely built within man's memory. +Love.+ After all, I have been told that stage-plays are inconsistent with the laws of this kingdom, and players made rogues by statute.