author of it: Courteous Reader, you shall find ' in this book more than was presented upon the stage, ' and left out of the presentation for superfluous length (as some of the players pretended): I thought good it should be inserted according to the allowed original, and as it was at first intended for the Cockpit stage, in the right of my most deserving friend, Mr. William Beeston, unto whom it properly appertained; and so I leave it to thy perusal, as it was generally applauded and well acted at Salisbury Court. Fare? well. RI. BROME.' It will be seen in the Annals of the Stage, that it was precisely at this date that William Beeston collected, what Sir H. Herbert calls a company of boys, and began to play with them at the Cockpit.' He mentions having at the same time disposed of Per'kins, Sumner, Sherlock and Turner to Salisbury 'Court,' and no doubt some or all of them assisted in the performance of Brome's Antipodes. We learn from Wright* and several other authorities, that the Cockpit was standing after the Restoration, and Sir W. Davenant's company, called the Duke's players, acted there until they removed to the new theatre in Portugal Row in the spring of 1662. * Historia Histrionica, 1699. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE THEATRES. OUR old Theatres were either public or private: 'what (says Malone *) were the distinguishing marks of a 'private playhouse it is not easy to ascertain. We know only that it was smaller than those which were called 'public theatres, and that in the private theatres, plays 'were usually presented by candle-light.' From various authorities, I find that there were seven 'distinguishing marks of a private playhouse.' 1. Private theatres were of smaller dimensions than public theatres. 2. They were entirely roofed in from the weather, while public theatres were open to the sky, excepting over the stage and boxes, or rooms. 3. The performances at private theatres were by candle or torch light. 4. They had pits, furnished with seats; and not yards, as they were called in public theatres, where the spectators stood to behold the play. 5. The audiences at private theatres usually consisted of a superior class of persons. 6. The visiters there had a right to sit upon the stage during the performances. 7. The boxes or rooms of private theatres were inclosed and locked. Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 61. The first distinction depends rather upon inference than upon positive testimony. Wright, in his Historia Histrionica, 1699, mentions that the three private houses, the Blackfriars, the Cockpit in Drury Lane, and the theatre in Salisbury Court, were built almost exactly alike, for form and bigness.' Nabbes's Comedy of Tottenham Court (printed in 1638) was acted at Salisbury Court, in 1633, and from the epilogue we find that, compared with others, it was a small theatre: the author says: If I win Your kind commands, 'twill bring more custom in: 'When others' fill'd rooms with neglect disdain ye, My little house (with thanks) shall entertain ye.' Wright informs us, in the same paragraph from which I have above quoted, that the large public theatres, the Globe, Fortune, and Bull, 'lay partly open to the weather.' Had the private theatres been exposed in the same manner, it would have been almost impossible to have carried on the performances by means of candles or torches. It does not follow, because the plays at private theatres were acted by candle or torch light, that the performances took place at night. On the contrary, according to the remedies' proposed by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, about the period when the Blackfriars theatre was built, it was recommended that the performance of plays should conclude at such an hour that the audience might return home before sun-set, or, at least, before it be dark.' It is true that this order then principally applied to the exhibitions in inn-yards; but we may conclude, from a passage in Dekker's Seven Deadly Sins of London, 1606, that the windows of private play-houses were put down, when it was intended that the stage should |