In hopes of gain

He will trip it

On the toe."

He is made to say in an old comedy,* "I am somewhat hard of study, an like your honour, but if you will invent any extemporal merriment I'll put out the small sacke of wit I ha' left in venture with them." He was held in high estimation by his contemporaries, and his name was frequently coupled even with that of Burbadge. The time of his death is uncertain; according to the " Biogra phia Dramatica" it occurred in 1603, of the plague. JOHN HEMINGS was another Warwickshire manhow many of the old players came from that part of the country-Hemings was born at Shottery, not far from Stratford, about 1556. Before Eliza. beth's death he was one of the principal proprietors of the Globe, and his name is joined with that of Shakespeare and Burbadge in King James's licence of 1603. He is accredited with the honour of being the original Falstaff, and had even the greater honour of being, with Condell, the editor and publisher of the first folio of Shakespeare's plays (1623). According to the following passage, it would appear that he received at least a portion of the manuscript from the author direct: "His mind and hand went

* It was a custom in the old plays to introduce the actors by name into the inductions, and even into the body of the drama, and make them talk about themselves.

HEMINGS, CONDELL AND SLY.

31

together, and what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarcely received from him a blot in his papers." (The italics are my own). Payne Collier thinks that many of the old actors were engaged in business as well as professionally, and remarks that as Hemings was free of the Grocer's Company he might have been a grocer. But in his will he is styled John Hemings, gentleman, which term could scarcely in those days, when the word meant something, and was not applied indiscriminately to a coalheaver and a prince, have been used to describe a tradesman. He died in 1630, and was buried in St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, in which parish he had resided all

his life.

CONDELL, his collaborateur in the folio, was also a resident of Aldermanbury, and the owner of property in that parish; he was a man of substance who had shares in the Blackfriars Theatre and kept his country house at Fulham. No particular Shakespearian part has been assigned to him, but he was the original Bobadil, as well as of several of Beaumont and Fletcher's and Webster's great characters. He died in 1627.

WILLIAM SLY, who has been previously mentioned in conjunction with Kempe, was the original Osric. COWLEY. was the original Verges; ARMIN succeeded Kempe in the character of Dogberry; LowIN SUCceeded Hemings as Falstaff, and was the original

Volpone, Mammon, Bosola, Amintor; he had a share and a half in the Blackfriars, and married a wealthy wife; but, unlike those already mentioned, he lived on into the troublous times of the rebellion, and lost all at the suppression of the theatres. NATHAN FIELD was said to be second only to Burbadge as an actor. He was one of the children of " Her Majesty's Revels," and is in the original cast of Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels." Born in 1587, he was too young to have been an original, at least as an adult, in any of Shakespeare's plays, but he succeeded to Burbadge in several of his great characters, and was especially famous in the Moor.

Field is in sooth an actor-all men know it,
And is the true Othello of the poet,"

says an old rhymester.

JOSEPH TAYLOR has been accredited by Davies with being the original Hamlet; but even if there was no direct evidence against this assertion, it would be absurd to suppose that Burbadge, in the height of his powers, would have allowed another actor to possess himself of such a character. Taylor was his successor in the part, and might, even during the latter years of "Roscius," have played it when the other was indisposed. He is said to have been the original Iago, but after Burbadge's death, he took Othello.

The little that is known of the remaining actors

ALLEYN AND DULWICH COLLEGE.

3383

enumerated in the folio would scarcely prove interesting reading. They were nearly all men of good position, who left behind at their deaths a very respectable amount of money and landed property. Another celebrated player of this period, EDWARD ALLEYN, has been coupled with Burbadge by Sir Richard Baker as one of two actors "such as no age must ever look to see the like." Among other parts he was the original of Marlowe's "Jew of Malta," and "Tamerlane." In conjunction with Philip Henslowe, he built the " Fortune " and having accumulated considerable wealth, founded, as is well known, Dulwich College for six poor men and women, and twelve children. At first it was intended that the recipients of this bounty should be drawn exclusively from the theatrical profession; but it is said that the refusal of the pensioners to admit among them an old door-keeper of the theatre, so disgusted the founder that he at once changed the nature of the bequest. Since 1857 this charity has been entirely reconstituted. The revenue left by Alleyn was £600 a year, it is now £17,000. His excellences as an actor have been set forth by Jonson, who, comparing him with Roscius and Æsopus of Rome, says:

"Who both their graces in thyself hast more
Outstript, than they did all who went before;
And present worth in all dost so contract,
As others speak but only thou dost act.
VOL. I.

D

Wear this renown. 'Tis just that who did give

So many poets life, by one should live."

Heywood, in one of the prologues to the "Jew of Malta" speaks of him as

"Proteus for shapes, and Roscius for a tongue."

There never was such a general passion for dramatic entertainments as at this period; the art was thoroughly studied and understood, as how could it be otherwise under the reign of such dramatists as Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Shakespeare ?* The actors lived in their fine old substantial city houses, or in grand country manors, such as Edward Alleyn inhabited at Dulwich, esteemed and sought after by the best people, and if commonly prudent died rich and honoured. Their worst enemy was the plague; while it raged, and that was pretty frequently, all theatres were closed, and they had to migrate into the country, which was not profitable.

But as Puritanism advanced, the prosperity of the theatrical profession began to decline. In 1622 there were but four principal companies-the King's,

* Boys were regularly apprenticed to the profession. Each principal was entitled to have a boy or apprentice, who played the young and the female characters, and for whose services he received a certain sum. We find in Henslowe's accounts an item for buying the services of one for eight pounds. Thus trained under great masters it is not to be wondered at that they grew up to be such consummate masters of their art.