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LIGHTS

OF THE

OLD ENGLISH STAGE.

CHAPTER I.

RICHARD BURBADGE AND OTHER ORIGINALS OF SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTERS.

The Early English Drama and the First Theatres.-The Company of the Globe Play-House, Burbadge, Kempe, Heminge, Caudell, Sly, Taylor, and Alleyn.-Traditions of their Acting.

AN Elizabethan writer distinctly states that before 1570 "he neither knew nor read of any such theatres, set stages or playhouses as have been purposely built within man's memory." When the performances were not given in private houses, inn-yards still sufficed for accommodation, as they had a century and more previously. In 1572, so greatly had the number of actors increased that it was enacted that all who could not show licenses signed by two justices of the peace should be dealt with as rogues and vagabonds. The servants and mechanics, some from pride, some from idleness, some because they felt within them the stirrings of nobler talents, had deserted their legitimate callings and taken up wholly with their occasional ones; such was no doubt

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