weather, comes but unto 47. 15s." This agreement subsisted for five years and a half, during which time Sir Henry had ten benefits, the most profitable of which produced 177. 10s. net, at the Blackfriars; and the least of which, at the Globe, amounted to no more than 17. 5s. after deducting the nightly charge above-mentioned. In 1633, a new agreement was entered into, by which the King's company bound themselves to pay him the fixed sum of 101. at Midsummer, and the same at Christmas, annually, in lieu of his two benefits, and this agreement continued in force till the breaking out of the Civil Wars. The customary sum paid to Heminge and his company, for the performance of a play before James the First, was twenty nobles, or 67. 13s. 4d.; and it appears, from a passage in Alleyn's Diary, that the whole receipts of The Fortune, on one occasion, amounted only to 31. and some odd shillings.

THEOPHILUS CIBBER.

WHEN Theophilus Cibber was requested to contribute to the relief of Mrs. Willis, once an excellent actress, but then old and poor, he urged he had too large a family. "Dear, sir! How can that be? you have neither wife nor child."

VOL. III.

"That may be,” replied he ; " but I have a large family of vices."

BETTERTON.

An extravagant manner of praising actors is by no means of modern date: Betterton was compared to a "stately spreading oak, which stands fixed, environed round with brave, young, growing, flourishing plants;" and Dryden, alluding to him when old, in a prologue, says,

“ He, like the setting sun, still shoots a glimmʼring ray, Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay."

CROWNE AND KING CHARLES II.

JOHN Crowne, the dramatist, was patronised by King Charles II.; and becoming tired with the fatigue of writing, and suddenly alarmed at the uncertainty of theatrical success, he requested the King to give him some office; and Charles, who loved Comedy above all other amusements, said he should be provided for, but he must first see another of his comedies. Crowne endeavoured to excuse himself, by telling the King that he plotted slowly and awkwardly; his Majesty replied, that he would help him to a plot, and put into his hand the Spanish comedy "Non Poder Esser." Crowne, thus stimulated, worked

with new energies. The play was now ready to appear; every one present at the rehearsal was quite pleased with it, and Crowne was buoyed up by the flattering hope of independence for the remainder of his life. But on the last day of the rehearsal, he met Underhill coming from the play-house, as he was going to it, on which Crowne reprimanded the player for neglecting so important a part as he had in the piece, especially on a day of so much consequence, as the last of rehearsal. "Oh!" replied Underhill, 66 we are all undone.". "How!" cried Crowne, precipitately," Is the play-house on fire?""The whole nation," replied the player, "will quickly be so; for the King is dead." The comedy writer, on hearing such dismal tidings, was driven almost to distraction; for he, who but the moment before had exulted in the thought of the pleasure which the performance of his play would afford the King, and the favours he was afterwards to receive from him, now found, to his unspeakable sorrow, that his royal patron was gone for ever, and, with him, vanished all his hopes. Coxeter says, that Crowne was living in 1703, but, as he was then very old, it is probable that he died soon after.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

PREFIXED to the edition of this play, printed in 1609, is a preface by the Bookseller, shewing that the first impression was before the play had been acted, and that it was published without Shakspeare's knowledge, from a copy that had fallen into the Bookseller's hands. From this preface, we learn that the original proprietors of Shakspeare's plays thought it their interest to keep them unprinted. The author of it adds, at the conclusion, these words; "Thank fortune for the 'scape it hath made among you, since, by the grand possessors' wills, I believe you should rather have prayed for them than have been prayed," &c. By the grand professors were probably meant Heming and Condell, the managers.

It appears, that the rival houses at that time, made frequent depredations on one another's copies. In the induction to the "Malcontent," written by Webster, and enlarged by Marston, 1606, is the following passage:

"I wonder you would play it, another company having interest in it."

"Why not "Malevole," in folio, with us, as "Jeronimo," in decimo sexto with them? They taught us a name for our play; we call it " One for Another."

And Thomas Heywood, an exceedingly voluminous and very excellent dramatic and miscellaneous author, in his preface to "The English Traveller," 1633, says, "Others of them (speaking of his plays) are still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in print."

It appears, however, that frauds were practised by writers as well as actors, for it stands on record against Robert Greene, the author of "Friar Bacon," and "Friar Bungay," and of "Orlando Furioso," and who was, perhaps, the most popular author of his day, that he sold the last of these pieces to two different Theatres. This charge is brought against him in the "Defence of Coneycatching," 1592, in the following terms: "Master R. G. would it not make you blush, &c. if you sold not "Orlando Furioso," to the Queen's players, for twenty nobles, and, when they were in the country, sold the same play to the Lord Admiral's men for as much more? Was not this plain coneycatching, M. G?"

MADAME LINGUET.

THIS lady was a celebrated actress at the