he was in great want, and supplicated Henslowe 'not to forsake him in his extremity.' In December, of the same year, we find Daborne entreating 101. for a play, and telling Henslowe that he will be able to get 201. for it from the company,' showing the manner in which Henslowe dealt in these commodities between the actors and authors, both of whom he seems to have long had very much in his power. The competition of other companies, and particularly of the King's men,' who played at the Globe, is frequently alluded to in these documents.

Two, three, four, or even more authors were frequently engaged upon the same production at the same time, often perhaps in order to bring it out with peculiar dispatch; and it is to be concluded that the division of the sum given for it was regulated among themselves. It does not, however, by any means follow that the poets, whose names have come down to us united on the same title-page, or even perhaps in the same entry in Henslowe's Diary, were contemporaneously employed upon the play. It was the constant practice for dramatic authors to make additions to, and alterations in, older plays on their revival, and this duty formed a considerable source of emolument. Ben Jonson's additions to The Spanish Tragedy have been already noticed: 47. was the highest sum ever paid by Henslowe for 'additions,' and 17. the lowest: Dekker, Rowley, Heywood, Chettle, and others were frequently employed in this manner, and they were paid according to the extent and nature of their alterations. On the revival of old pieces, or on their performance at court, Henslowe was in the habit of having new prologues and epilogues written for them; and it will be observed, by the two following quo

tations from his Diary, that 5s. was the sum he usually paid for a prologue and epilogue

14 December, 1602, for a prol. and Epil. for the playe ' of Bacon, for the Corte, 5s.

6

29 December, 1602, paid Henry Chettle for a prol. and 'epil. for the Corte, 58.'

Malone observes :- as it was a general practice in the 'time of Shakespeare to sell the copy of the play to the theatre, I imagine, in such cases, the author derived no ' other advantage from his piece than what arose from the 'sale of it * It is evident, however, that sometimes ulterior advantages were also stipulated for, beyond the sum given in the first instance. Daborne, as we have just seen, bargains with Henslowe for 127. and the overplus of the second day,' which overplus, perhaps, meant what was received at the doors over and above the expenses of the house, including Henslowe's claim, whatever that might be. This might be matter of special agreement, and when such a sum as 20l. was given for a play, the overplus of the second day' might not belong to the author.

That it was the custom of old for dramatists to have an interest in one of the days of performance, may be established by various other authorities. Davenant, in his Play-house to be Let, written about 1673, tells us,

There is an old tradition,

That in the times of mighty Tamburlaine,

Of conjuring Faustus, and the Beauchamps bold, 'You poets used to have a second day.'

The three plays here mentioned were written before 1600, two of them before 1593†, and the office-book of Sir

*Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 157.

By Marlow. The third, The bold Beauchamps, according to the

Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels from 1622 to 1673, agrees with Davenant's tradition' and Daborne's stipulation. Jasper Mayne, in the prologue to The City Match, performed in 1639, gives similar evidence :

He's one whose unbought muse did never fear

'An empty second day, or a thin share.'

But to these authorities are to be opposed some lines in the prologue to Dekker's If it be not good, the Devil is in it, 1612, which is the oldest printed testimony I have discovered on the subject.

It is not praise is sought for now, but pence 'Though dropp'd from greasy apron audience.

Clapp'd may he be with thunder, that plucks bays With such foul hands, and with squint eyes doth gaze 'On Pallas' shield, not caring (so he gains

'A cramm'd third day) what filth drops from his brains.'

The practice might vary according to the popularity of the poet, and the terms he was able to make; and in the dedication of the same play, to his loving and loved friends and fellows, the Queen's Majesty's servants,' Dekker complains that hitherto he had been underpaid: his words are a sign the world hath an ill ear, when no 'music is good unless it strike up for nothing: I have 'sung so, but will no more.' Sir John Denham, in the

author of the false Second part of Hudibras, 12mo. 1663, canto i. was the work of Heywood:—

'The ancient poet, Heywood, draws

'From ancestors of these his laws

'Of drama-to fill up each scene
"With soldiers good, to please plebean;

'And in those famous stories told

'The Grecian wars and Beauchamps bold.'

'The Grecian wars' may allude to the same piece which Gayton, in a quotation on a preceding page, calls Greeks and Trojans, coupling it with The Three London Apprentices, undoubtedly Heywood's play.

prologue to his Sophy, acted at Blackfriars in 1642, speaks of the second or third day, as belonging to the poet; which confirms, in some degree, the conjecture, that whether the one or the other should be given to the author was matter of distinct arrangement, and not of settled custom.

Gentlemen, if you dislike the play,

Pray make no words on't, 'till the second day
Or third be past.'

At one period, writing for the stage seems to have become, in a degree, fashionable; and another description of dramatists are alluded to by some of our old poetsthose who did not receive money for, but who paid money with, their plays, in order to procure them to be acted. R. Brome mentions them in his Court Beggar, both in the prologue and epilogue, as well as in the body of his play, performed in 1632: in the prologue, in these terms:

'Yet you to him your favours may express

'As well as unto those, whose forwardness

Makes them your creatures thought, who in a way
To purchase fame, give money with their play.'

In Act ii., he proposes that a piece of this kind shall, nevertheless, be rejected, unless the author become bound that it shall do 'true and faithful service for a whole term; and in the epilogue, which is in prose, he charges these right worshipful poets' with claiming to have made their interludes' themselves, when, for aught you know, they bought them of university scholars.'

Shirley, in his Witty Fair One, 1633, Act iv., tells us that these university scholars' had tried in vain to get their plays performed, even with the inducement of giving money with them; at least, such seems to be the inference

from the passage. Violetta observes, We have excellent poets in town, they say;' to which Sir Nicholas replies, with some astonishment, 'I'th' town? what makes so 'many scholars, then, come from Oxford and Cambridge, 'with dossers full of lamentable tragedies and ridiculous comedies, which they might here vent to the players, but they will take no money for them.' He seems to mean, either that the players will not consent to take money for acting them, or he speaks ironically, that the scholars will take no money for them,' because they can prevail upon none of the companies to buy them.

ON THE PAYMENT OF ACTORS.

THE performers at our earlier theatres were distinguished into whole sharers, three-quarter sharers, half sharers, and hired men.

*

Into how many shares the receipts at the doors were divided, in any instance, does not appear; and, doubtless, it depended upon the number of persons of which a company consisted, and other circumstances. Malone' suspected that the money taken was separated into forty portions, and that the receipts at the Globe or Blackfriars did not usually amount to more than 91. on each performance he assigns fifteen of the forty shares to the housekeepers or proprietors, and twenty-two shares to the actors, leaving three shares to be applied to the purchase of new plays. His notion of the nightly receipts was founded upon the accounts of Sir Henry Herbert, which, on this point, do not begin earlier than the year 1628. The King's

* Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 170.