cast upon them for their negligence, and in which they are called upon to summon before them the owners of playhouses, excepting the two that were licensed, (the Globe, and Fortune) and not to suffer them to perform in future*.

* The letter, as it appears in the Council Register of the 31st of December, 1601, runs thus.

'It is vaine for us to take knowledge of great abuses & disorders " complaind of, and to give order for redresse, if our directions find no 'better execution & observation then it seemeth they do: and we must 'needes impute the fault & blame thereof to you, or some of you, the 'Justices of the Peace that are put in trust to see them executed & 'performed: whereof we may give you a plaine instance in the great 'abuse contynued, or rather encreased, in the multitude of Plaie 'houses, and Stage Plaies in & about the Cittie of London. For 'whereas about a year & a half since (upon knowledge taken of the 'great enormities, and disorders by the overmuch frequenting of 'Plaies) wee did carefullie set downe & prescribe an order to be observed concerninge the number of Playe Howses, & the use & exercise of 'Stage plaies, with lymytacions of tymes and places for the same (namely that there should be but two howses allowed for that use, one in Middlesex called the Fortune, and one in Surrey called 'the Globe, and the same with observation of certaine daies and 'times, as in the said order is particularly expressed) in such sorte as a moderate practise of them for honest recreation might be con'tynued, and yet the inordinate concourse of dissolute and idle 'people be restrayned: wee do now understande, that our said order 'hath bin so far from taking dew effect, as in steede of restraint and 'redresse of the former disorders, the multitude of play howses is much 'encreased, & that no daie passeth over without many Stage plaies in one place or other, within & about the Cittie publiquelie made. The 'default of perfourmance of which our said order we must, in great 'parte, the rather impute to the justices of the peace, because at the same tyme wee gave earnest directions unto you to see it streightly 'executed, and to certifie us of the execution; & yet wee have neither ' understoode of any redresse made by you, nor receaved any certificate

6

The Lord Mayor was written to on the same occasion, and he seems to have renewed his complaint against the number of players within and about the City of London' at the very moment when he ought to have been in possession of the authority of the Privy Council to suppress them. That authority had, however, been sent to his predecessor in office, who, unwilling that it should be enforced, had perhaps not handed it over to him*.

.

This endeavour on the part of the authorities of the state, not to suppress, but to limit and restrain the performance of plays, was the last act of the government of Elizabeth on the subject. We find nothing in the Privy Council Registers of the company specifically called the Queen's Players' after the 27th of February, 1592-3 †, and subsequent to that date, her Majesty was entertained at Christmas and Shrovetide,

'at all of your proceedings therein; which default or omission wee do " now pray and require you forthwith to amende, & to cause our said 'former order to be put duly in execution; and especiallie to call before 6 you the owners of all the other Play howses (excepting the two howses ' in Middlesex & Surrey aforementioned,) & to take good and sufficient 'bonds of them not to exercise, use, or practise, nor to suffer from hence 'forth to be exercised, used, or practised any Stage playinge in their " howses; and if they shall refuse to enter into such bonds, then to com'mit them to prison untill they shall conforme themselves. And so &c.' * Chalmers (Apology, p. 410) found the letter of the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor, and accordingly inserted it; but he did not meet with that to the Justices of Middlesex and Surrey. They were of the same date.

+ There can be little doubt that the company no longer existed as the " Queens players,' and that they had changed their name to 'the Lord

chiefly by the Lord Chamberlain's players, (of whom we then hear for the first time,) and the Lord Admiral's servants; though the Earl of Pembroke's and the Earl of Derby's players were also called upon to assist in the festivities of Christmas 1592, Christmas 1593, and Shrovetide 1599. It appears from evidence contained in the Moral of The Contention between Liberality and

Chamberlain's servants;' but for what reason is nowhere mentioned. Among the curious matter in Henslowe's Diary from 1591 to 1608, not quoted nor referred to by Malone, is an entry, shewing that before May, 1593, the Queen's players had 'broke, and went into the country,' when they were joined by Francis Henslowe, a player, and some relation, perhaps son, to old Philip Henslowe. The following is the memorandum relating to this fact:

'Lent unto Francis Henslow, the 3 of May 1593, to laye downe for 'his share to the Quenes Players, when they broke & went into the 'contrey to playe, the some of fysten pownd, to be payd unto me at 'his retorne out of the contrey-I saye lent. Wittnes,

'John Towne,
'Hew Daves,
'Richard Alleyn.'

Two years afterwards Francis Henslowe joined a company not named, when Philip Henslowe lent him 97. to pay for half a share. It is difficult to explain in what way Francis Henslowe could have lent money to Lord Burghley, as is asserted in the same entry, which runs thus:

Lent unto Francis Henslow, the 1 of June 1595, in redey mony to 'laye downe for his halfe share with the company which he dothe 'playe with all, to be payd unto me when he doth receive his mony wch 'he lent to my lord Burle, or when my asyenes [assigns] doth demand 'yt. Wittnes,

'Wm. Smyght, player,

'Gorge Attewell, player,

'Robard Nycowlles, player.'

Prodigality (printed in 1602), that it had been performed before the Queen in 1600*. It was possibly one of the three interludes' represented by the servants of the Lord Chamberlain at Christmas 1600, for which John Hemings, who was at the head of the company, received 301. on the 11th of March, 1600-1. At Christmas, of the following year, she was entertained by the Lord Admiral's players †, for, in Henslowe's Diary, I find the subsequent entry, among many others passed over by Malone.

'Rec. of M. E. Alleyn, the 4 of Maye 1601, the ⚫ somme of twenty eight pounds & ten shellings, which he received at the Corte for ther Cort money for playinge ther at Cryssmas, which was dewe unto the 'earlle of Notinghames players, 281. 10s.'

By another item, it appears, that a person, called Nycke, had tumbled before the Queen' on the same occasion, and 14s. are charged for his silk hose. From other entries in the same book, it is clear, that the services of the same company were required at Christ

* It is stated on the title-page that it was 'played before her Majesty;' and in the body of the performance mention is made of the forty-third year of her reign. It was, probably, an older piece revived and altered; perhaps by R. Greene, as is asserted in Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum, 1675. A play, called 'Prodigality,' was, as has been shown, represented before the Queen in 1568.

According to Henslowe, in his diary, under date of the year 1597, the following were then the players forming the company acting under the name of the Earl of Nottingham, Lord Admiral:-Borne (alias Bird), Gabriel, Slater (or Slaughter), Jones, Downton (usually written Dowton), Juby, Towne, Synger, and the two Jeffes.

mas, in the ensuing year. On the 14th of December, 1602, Henslowe paid 5s. to a poet, who is not named, for writing a prologue and epilogue to the play of Bacon' (no doubt Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bongay, first printed in 1594), for the court;' and on the 29th of December, of the same year, Henry Chettle obtained the like sum for a prologue and epilogue to another play at the court,' the title of which is not inserted: from the circumstance of a new prologue and epilogue being wanted, we may conclude that, like 'Bacon,' it was a revival.

A Mask was also exhibited at court in 1602, in all probability at Christmas, and it is noticed in a very valuable and remarkable source of information applicable to the last two years of the reign of Elizabeth. I was fortunate enough to meet with it among the Harleian MSS. in the Museum, and it is in the shape of a Table-book, or Diary, kept by an individual whose name is nowhere given, but who seems to have been a barrister, and consequently a member of one of the Inns of Court*. The dates, which are inserted with much particularity, extend from January 1600-1, to

*He lived at one time in Chambers with Ed. Curle, whose call to the bar he notices, and from whom he heard many of the anecdotes, &c. he inserts in his diary. For others he cites the authority of Sir Thomas Overbury, who, on leaving college after 1598, became a student of the Middle Temple, to which Society it is probable that the author of this diary belonged. He had relations in Kent, whom he often went to visit, a cousin named Cranmer at Canterbury, a cousin named Watts at Sandwich, and a third cousin named Chapman at Godmersham. Another of his relations was named Norton. A surgeon at Maidstone was also related to him.