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Updated: July 9, 2025
He was, for a short time, Manager of one the play-houses, and conceived the extraordinary and almost incredible project of composing a play extempore, which he was to recite in the Green-room to the actors, who were immediately to come on the stage and perform it.
The city of London, in 1580, had obtained from the Queen the suppression of plays on Sundays; and not long after, 'considering that play- houses and dicing-houses were traps for young gentlemen and others, obtained leave from the Queen and Privy Council to thrust the players out of the city, and to pull down the play-houses, five in number; and, paradoxical as it may seem, there is little doubt that, by the letter of the law, 'stage plays and enterludes' were, even to the end of Charles the First's reign, 'unlawful pastime, being forbidden by 14 Eliz., 39 Eliz., 1 Jacobi, 3 Jacobi, and 1 Caroli, and the players subject to severe punishment as 'rogues and vagabonds. The Act of 1 Jacobi seems even to have gone so far as to repeal the clauses which, in Elizabeth's reign, had allowed companies of players the protection of a 'baron or honourable person of greater degree, who might 'authorise them to play under his hand and seal of arms. So that the Puritans were only demanding of the sovereigns that they should enforce the very laws which they themselves had made, and which they and their nobles were setting at defiance.
The unusual exercise may have tired me, or perhaps it was some lingering remnant of the old farm superstition against the theatre that made me slacken my steps as I neared the office. I remembered my father's tremulous voice cautioning me against play-houses before I started for the city. "Now don't ye go near them places," he said, wiping his nose and dodging about the corners of his eyes.
But the use of scenery was not the only innovation that carried the Restoration theatre far beyond its Elizabethan prototype. Play-houses were now regularly roofed; and the stage was artificially lighted by lamps.
And that was Shakespeare! The whole Bankside, with its taverns, play-houses, and worse, its bear pits and gardens, was the scene of roystering and coarse amusement. And it is surprising that plays of such sustained moral greatness as Shakespeare's should have been welcome.
At last, tired and disappointed, as I was returning home, Mowbray said he thought he could console me for the loss of my chance of seeing my Spanish Jew, by introducing me to the most celebrated Jew that ever appeared in England. Then turning into a street near one of the play-houses, he knocked at the door of a house where Macklin the actor lodged.
By the goddess Facundia, what volumes of words issued from that little mouth! and on all subjects too! church, state, law, politics, play-houses, lampoons, lace, liveries, kings, queens, /roturiers/, beggars, you would have thought, had you heard her, so vast was her confusion of all things, that chaos had come again. Our royal host did not escape her.
I am come, like Wolsey, girls, to lay my old bones among you. Art thou ready, Angela? Hast thou had enough of London, and play-houses, and parks; and wilt thou share thy father's solitude in Buckinghamshire?" "With all my heart, sir." "What! never a sigh for London pleasures? Thou hast the great lady's air and carriage in that brave blue taffety. The nun I knew three years ago has vanished.
When, after the first act, in answer to hearty rounds of applause, varied with whistles and shouts from the gallery, the characters stepped forward, not in the unnatural string usual in more genteel play-houses, where victor and vanquished join hands and bow, but one by one, each being greeted by cheers, hisses, or groans, according to the part, and when the villain appeared I found myself groaning with the rest, and though Evan laughed, I know he understood.
He haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit; the avenues to the play-houses are thick with panting recollections, and Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his description of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination for Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands.
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