THE HE drama before the time of Shakspeare was fo little cultivated, or fo ill understood, that to many it may appear unneceffary to carry our theatrical researches higher than that period. Dryden has truly obferved, that he found not, but created firft the stage;" of which no one can doubt, who confiders, that of all the plays iffued from the prefs antecedent to the year 1592, when there is reason to believe he commenced a dramatick writer, the titles are fcarcely known, except to antiquaries; nor is there one of them that will bear a fecond perufal. Yet thefe, contemptible and few as they are, we may suppose to have been the most popular productions of the time, and the best that had been exhibited before the appearance of Shakspeare. I There are but thirty-eight plays, (exclufive of myfteries, moralities, interludes, and tranflated pieces,) now extant, written antecedent to, or in, the year 1592. Their titles are as follows: 1540 | Appius and Virginiaeedle} 1375 1561 Gammer Gurten's 1562 Promos and Caffandra Cambyfes, no date, but probably written before 1570 VOL. I. Part II. Misfortunes of Aribur, 1578 1584 1587 A minute A minute investigation, therefore, of the origin and progrefs of the drama in England, will scarcely repay the labour of the inquiry. However, as the best introduction to an account of the internal economy and usages of the Englith theatres in the time of Shakspeare, (the princin object of this differtation,) I fhall take a curfory view of our most ancient dramatick exhibitions, though I car 1 can add but little to the researches which have already been made on that fubject. Between the years 1592 and 1600, the following plays were printed or exhibited; the greater part of which, probably, were written before our author commenced play-wright. Mr. Warton in his elegant and ingenious Hiftory of English Poetry has given fo accurate an account of our earliest dramatick performances, that I fhall make no apology for extracting from various parts of his valuable work, fuch particulars as fuit my prefent pur pofe. The earliest dramatick entertainments exhibited in England, as well as every other part of Europe, were of a religious kind. So early as in the beginning of the twelfth century, it was customary in England on holy festivals to reprefent, in or near the churches, either the lives and miracles of faints, or the most important stories of Scripture. From the fubject of thefe fpectacles, which, as has been observed, were either the miracles of faints, or the more myfterious parts of holy writ, fuch as the incarnation, paffion, and refurrection of Christ, thefe fcriptural plays were denominated Miracles, or Myfteries. At what period of time they were first exhibited in this country, I am unable to afcertain. Undoubtedly, however, they are of very great antiquity; and Riccoboni, who has contended that the Italian theatre is the most ancient in Europe, has claimed for his country an honour to which it is not entitled. The era of the earliest representation in Italy, founded on holy writ, he has placed in the year 1264, when the fraternity del Gonfalone was eftablished; but we had fimilar exhibitions in England above 150 years before that time. In the year 1110, as Dr. Percy and Mr. Warton have observed, the Miracle-play of Saint Catharine, written by Geoffrey, a learned Norman, (afterwards Abbot of St. Alban's,) was acted, probably by his fcholars, in the abbey of Dunftable; perhaps the first fpectacle of this kind exhibited in England 3. William Fitz-Stephen, a monk of Canterbury, who according 2 The French theatre cannot be traced higher than the year 1398, when the Mystery of the Paffion was reprefented at St. Maur. 3" Apud Duneftapliam quendam ludum de fancta Katerina (quem MIRACULA vulgariter appellamus) fecit. Ad quæ decoranda, petiit a facrista sancti Albani, ut fibi capæ chorales accommodarentur, et obtinuit." Vite Abbat, ad calc. Hift. Mat. Paris, folio, 1639. p. 56. * B 2 to to the best accounts compofed his very curious work in 1174, about four years after the murder of his patron Archbishop Becket, and in the twenty-first year of the reign of King Henry the fecond, mentions, that " London, for its theatrical exhibitions, has religious plays, either the reprefentations of miracles wrought by holy confessors, or the fufferings of martyrs *.' Mr. Warton has remarked, that "in the time of Chaucer Plays of Miracles appear to have been the common refort of idle goffips in Lent:" 4" Lundonia pro fpectaculis theatralibus, pro ludis fcenicis, ludos habit fan&tiores, repræfentationes miraculorum quæ fan&ti confeffores operati funt, feu repræfentationes paffionum, quibus claruit conftantia martyrum." Defcriptio nobiliffimæ civitatis Lundoniæ. Fitz-Stephen's very curious defcription of London is a portion of a larger work, entitled Vita fan&i Thomæ, Archiepifcopi et Martyris, i. e. Thomas a Becket. It is afcertained to have been written after the murder of Becket in the year 1170, of which Fitz-Stephen was an ocular witnefs, and while King Henry II. was yet living. A modern writer with great probability supposes it to have been compofed in 1174, the author in one paffage mentioning that the church of Saint Paul's was formerly metropolitical, and that it was thought it would become fo again, fhould the citizens return into the inland." In 1174 King Henry II. and his fons had carried over with them a confiderable number of citizens to France, and many English had in that year alfo gone to Ireland. See Differtation prefixed to FitzStephen's Defcription of London, newly tranflated, &c. 4to. 1772, p. 16.-Near the end of his Defcription is a paffage which ascertains it to have been written before the year 1182: "Lundonia et modernis temporibus reges illuftros magnificofque peperit; imperatricem Matildam, Henricum regem tertium, et beatum Thomam" [Thomas Becket]. Some have supposed that instead of tertium we ought to read fecundum, but the text is undoubtedly right; and by tertium, FitzStephen must have meant Henry, the second son of Henry the Second, who was born in London in 1156-7, and being heir apparent, after the death of his elder brother William, was crowned king of England in his father's life-time, on the 15th of July, 1170. He was frequently ftyled rex filius, rex juvenis, and fometimes he and his father were denominated Reges Anglia. The young king, who occafionally exercised all the rights and prerogatives of royalty, died in 1182. Had he not been living when Fitz-Stephen wrote, he would probably have added nuper defuntium. Neither Henry II. nor Henry III. were born in London. See the Differtation above cited, p. 12. "Therefore |