pounds every Christmas, and the fame fum at Midfummer, in lieu of his two benefits, which fums they regularly pay'd him from that time till the breaking out of the civil wars. From the receipts on thefe benefits I am led to believe that the prices were lower at the Globe theatre, and that therefore, though it was much larger than the winter theatre at Blackfriars, it did not produce a greater fum of money on any reprefentation. If we fuppofe twenty pounds, clear of the nightly charges already mentioned, to have been a very confiderable receipt at either of thefe houfes, and that this fum was in our poet's time divided into forty fhares, of which fifteen were appropriated to the housekeepers or proprietors, three to the purchafe of copies of new plays, ftage-habits, &c. and twenty-two to the actors, then the performer who had two fhares on the representation of each play, received, when the theatre was thus fuccefsful, twenty fhillings. But fuppofing the average nightly receipt (after deducting the nightly expences) to be about nine pounds, which we have feen to be the cafe, then his nightly dividend would be but nine fhillings, and his weekly profit, if they played five times a week, two pounds five fhillings. The acting feafon, I believe, at that time. lafted forty weeks. In each of the companies then fubfifting there were about twenty perfons, fix of whom probably were principal, and the others fubordinate; fo that we may fuppofe two fares to have been the reward of a principal actor; fix of the fecond clafs perhaps enjoyed a whole fhare each; and each of the remaining eight half a share. On all thefe data, I think it may be fafely concluded, that the performers of the first clafs did not derive from their profeffion more than ninety pounds a year at the utmost 3. Shakspeare, Heminge, Condell, Burbadge, that houfe. Suppofing there were twenty-one fhares divided among the actors, the piece, though performed with fuch extraordinary fuccefs, did not produce more than fix pounds ten fhillings each night, exclufive of the occafional nightly charges already mentioned. The verye hyerlings of fome of our plaiers," [i. e. men occafionally hired by the night] fays Stephen Goffon in the year 1579, "which Burbadge, Lowin, and Taylor, had without doubt other fhares as proprietors or leafeholders; but what the dif ferent proportions were which each of them poffeffed in that right, it is now impoffible to afcertain. According to the fuppofition already ftated, that fifteen fhares out of forty were appropriated to the proprietors, then was there on this account a fum of fix hundred and feventy-five pounds annually to be divided among them. Our poet, as author, actor, and proprietor, probably received from the theatre about two hundred pounds a year.-Having after a very long fearch lately difcovered the will of Mr. Heminge, I hoped to have derived from it fome information on this fubject; but I was difappointed. He indeed more than once mentions his feveral parts or hares held by leaje in the Globe and Blackfriars playboufes; but ufes no expreffion by which the value of each of those fhares can be ascertained. His books of account, which he appears to have regularly kept, and which, he fays, will fhew that his fhares yielded him "a good yearly profit," will probably, if they fhall ever be found, throw much light on our early ftage history. Thus fcanty and meagre were the apparatus and accommodations of our ancient theatres, on which thofe dramas were first exhibited, that have fince engaged the attention of fo many learned men, and delighted fo many thousand fpectators. Yet even then, we are told by a writer of that age3, "dramatick poefy was fo lively which ftand at reverfion of vis. by the weeke, jet under gentlemens nofes in futes of filke." Schoole of Abuse, p. 22. Hart, the celebrated tragedian, after the Restoration had but three pounds a week as an after, that is, about ninety pounds a year; for the acting feafon did not, I believe, at that time exceed thirty weeks; but he had befides, as a proprietor, fix fhillings and three-pence every day on which there was any performance at the king's theatre, which produced about £.56. 5. o. more. Betterton even at the beginning of the prefent century had not more than five pounds a week. 4 See his Will in a fubfequent page. 5 Sir George Buc. This writer, as I have already obferved, wrote an exprefs treatife concerning the English ftage, which was never printed, and, I fear, is now irrecoverably loft. As he was a friend of Sir Robert Cotton, I hoped to have found the Manufcript in the Cot i lively expreffed and reprefented on the publick ftages and theatres of this city, as Rome in the auge of her pomp and glory, never faw it better performed; in refpect of the action and art, not of the coft and fumptuoufnefs." Of the actors on whom this high encomium is pronounced, the original performers in our author's plays were undoubtedly the most eminent. The following is the only information that I have obtained concerning them. tonian library, but was difappointed. " Of this art," [the dramatick] fays Sir George," have written largely Petrus Vidorius, &c. as it were in vaine for me to fay any thing of the art, befides that I bave written thereof a particular treatife." The third University of England, printed originally in 1615, and re-printed at the end of Howes' edition of Stowe's Annals, folio, 1631, p. 1082. It is fingular that a fimilar work on the Roman ftage, written by Suetonius, (De Spectaculis et Certaminibus Romanorum,) has alfo perished. Some little account of their scenery, and of the feparation of the mimes and pantomimes from comedies, in which they were originally introduced, are the only particulars of this treatife that have been preferved; for which we are indebted to Servius, and Diomedes the grammarian. The latter fragment is curious, as it exhibits an early proof of that competition and jealoufy, which, from the first rife of the stage to the prefent time, has disturbed the peace of theatres : "Latinæ vero comœdiæ chorum non habent, fed duobus tantum membris conftant, diverbio, et cantico. Primis autem temporibus, ut afferit Tranquillus, omnia quæ in fcena verfantur, in comedia agebantur. Nam Pantomimus et Pithaules et Choraules in comedia canebant. Sed quia non poterant omnia fimul apud omnes artifices pariter excellere, fi qui erant inter actores comediarum pro facultate et arte potiores, principatum fibi artificii vindicabant. Sic factum eft, ut nolentibus cedere Mimis in artificio fuo cæteris, feperatio fieret reliquorum. Nam dum potiores inferioribus, qui in omni ergafterio erant, fervire dedignabantur, feipfos a comedia feparaverunt: ac fic factum eft, ut, exemplo femel fumpto, unufquifque artis fuæ rem exequi cæperit, neque in comediam venire." Grammaticæ linguæ Auctores Antiqui, Putschii, p. 4Ɛg. I have faid in a former page (47) that I believed Sir George Buc died foon after the year 1622, and I have fince found my conjecture confirmed. He died, as I learn from one of Sir Henry Herbert's papers, on the 20th of September, 1623. NAMES NAMES OF THE ORIGINAL ACTORS IN THE PLAYS OF SHAKSPEARE. From the folio, 1623. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. Having now once more occafion to mention our poet, I thall take this opportunity to correct an error into which I fufpect I have fallen, in a note on the Account of his Life; and to add fuch notices as I have obtained relative either to him or his friends, fince that Account was printed off; to which the prefent article is intended as a fupplement. The words in our poet's will," Provided that if fuch hufband as fhe fhall at the end of the faid three years be married unto," &c. feemed to me to afford a prefumptive proof that Shakspeare, when he made his will, did not know of the marriage of his daughter Judith, (the perfon there fpoken of,) which had been celebrated about a month before: a circumftance, however, which, even when I ftated it, appeared to me very extraordinary, and highly improbable. On further confideration I am convinced that I was mistaken, and that the words above-cited were intended to comprehend her then hufband, and any other to whom within three years the might be married. The word difcharge in the bequest to Judith, which had escaped my notice,-" One hundred pounds in difcharge of her marriage portion,"fhews that he must have been apprized of this marriage, and that he had previously covenanted to give her that fum. In the tranfcript of the inftrument by which a coat of arms was granted in 1599 to John Shakspeare, our poet's father, the original has been followed with a Vol. I. Part I. p. 182. fcrupulous fcrupulous fidelity; but on perufing the rough draughts of the former grant of arms in 1596, I am fatisfied that there is an error in the later grant, in which the following unintelligible paragraph is found: "Wherefore being folicited, and by credible report informed, that John Shakspeare, now of Stratford-uponAvon in the counte of Warwick, gent. whofe pagreat grandfather late rent and anteceffor for his faithefull and approved fervice to the late moft prudent prince, king Henry VII. of famous memorie, was advaunced with lands and tenements, geven to him in thofe parts of Warwick here, where they have continewed by fome descents in good reputation and credit," &c. On reviewing this inftrument, it appeared not very eafy to ascertain who the perfon here alluded to was, if only one was meant; nor is it at all probable that the great grandfather of John Shakspeare fhould have been his late or immediate predeceffor; to fay nothing of the word parent, which, unlefs it means relation in general, is as unintelligible as the reft. On examining the two rough draughts of the grant of arms to John Shakspeare in 1596, I found that in one of thefe, (apparently the more perfect of the two,) the correfponding words run thus: "-whofe parents and late anteceffors were for their valour and faithful fervices to the late moft prudent prince king Henry VII." &c. In the other thus: "whose pa-. rents [and] late anteceffors for their faithful and valiant fervice," &c. The word their is in this paper obliterated, and his written over it; and over anteceffors the word grandfather is written. The draughtfman however forgot to draw a line through the word for which grandfather was to be fubftituted. He evidently was in doubt which of the two expreffions he should retain; but we may prefume he meant to reject the words " -whose parents and late anteceffors," and to fubftitute instead of them, "whole grandfather for his," &c. In the grant of 1599, we have feen, the words originally ftood," whole parent and anteceffor was," and the words great grandfather and late are interlineations. The |