In the summer of 1596 a Dutch traveler named Johannes de Witt, a priest of St. Mary's in Utrecht, visited London, and saw, as one of the most interesting sights of the city, a dramatic performance at the Swan. Later he communicated a description of the building to his friend Arend van Buchell,[248] who recorded the description in his commonplace-book, along with a crude and inexact drawing of the interior (see page 169), showing the stage, the three galleries, and the pit.[249] The description is headed: "Ex Observationibus Londinensibus Johannis de Witt." After a brief notice of St. Paul's, and a briefer reference to Westminster Cathedral, the traveler begins to describe what obviously interested him far more. I give below a translation of that portion relating to the playhouses: There are four amphitheatres in London [the Theatre, Curtain, Rose, and Swan] of notable beauty, which from their diverse signs bear diverse names. In each of them a different play is daily exhibited to the populace. The two more magnificent of these are situated to the southward beyond the Thames, and from the signs suspended before them are called the Rose and the Swan. The two others are outside the city towards the north on the highway which issues through the Episcopal Gate, called in the vernacular Bishopgate.[250] There is also a fifth [the Bear Garden], but of dissimilar structure, devoted to the baiting of beasts, where are maintained in separate cages and enclosures many bears and dogs of stupendous size, which are kept for fighting, furnishing thereby a most delightful spectacle to men. Of all the theatres,[251] however, the largest and the most magnificent is that one of which the sign is a swan, called in the vernacular the Swan Theatre;[252] for it accommodates in its seats three thousand persons, and is built of a mass of flint stones (of which there is a prodigious supply in Britain),[253] and supported by wooden columns painted in such excellent imitation of marble that it is able to deceive even the most cunning. Since its form resembles that of a Roman work, I have made a sketch of it above. [Footnote 248: Apparently he allowed Van Buchell to transcribe the description and the rough pen-sketch from his notebook or traveler's diary.] [Footnote 249: This interesting document was discovered by Dr. Karl T. Gaedertz, and published in full in _Zur Kenntnis der altenglischen Buehne_ (Bremen, 1888).] [Footnote 250: "Via qua itur per Episcopalem portam vulgariter Biscopgate nuncupatam."] [Footnote 251: "Theatrorum."] [Footnote 252: "Id cuius intersignium est cygnus (vulgo te theatre off te cijn)." Mr. Wallace proposes to emend the last clause to read: "te theatre off te cijn off te Swan," thus making "cijn" mean "sign"; but is not this Flemish, and does not "cijn" mean "Swan"?]