beast, and standing the one on the one side and the other on the other, the patrico bids them to live together till death them part; and, so shaking hands, the wedding is ended.'"*

On the southern side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the back of Portugal Row, is Portugal Street, formerly containing a theatre, as celebrated as Covent Garden or Drury Lane is now. This was the Duke's Theatre, so called from the Duke of York, afterwards James II., who, at the Restoration, patronised one of the principal companies of players, as his brother Charles did the other. The latter was the Drury Lane company. Readers of theatrical history are generally led to conclude that there was only one theatre in the Lincoln's Inn quarter; but this is a mistake. There were at least two successive houses in two different places, though usually confounded under the title of "the Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields." The first was in Gibbon's tennis-court, in Vere Street, Clare Market, where the actors who had played at the Red Bull opened their performances in the year of the Restoration, under the direction of Killigrew, and with the title of King's Company. These in 1663 removed to Drury Lane. The Duke's, or Sir William Davenant's company, removed in 1662 from Salisbury Court (see Fleet Street) to a new theatre "in Portugal Row," says Malone, "near Lincoln's Inn Fields."† Malone is a correct inquirer: so that he makes us doubt whether the name of Portugal Row did not formerly belong to Portugal Street. The latter is certainly meant, or he would describe it as in and not near the Fields. Davenant's company performed here till 1671, when they quitted it to return to the renovated theatre in Salisbury Court, under the management of his son, Charles Davenant (the father being dead), and the famous Betterton, who had been Sir William's first actor.

* Manners and Customs, vol. i. p. 332.

Historical Account of the English Stage, p. 320.

The

two companies afterwards came together at Drury Lane ; but again fell apart, and in 1695 the Duke's company (if its altered composition could still warrant the name), with Betterton remaining at its head, and Congreve for a partner, again opened "the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields," which was rebuilt for the purpose, and is described as being in "the Tennis-court." Was this the tennis-court theatre in Vere Street? or were there two tennis-courts, one in Vere Street, and one in Lincoln's Inn Fields? We confess ourselves, after a diligent examination, unable to determine. At all events, the latest theatre of which we hear in Lincoln's Inn Fields, was not in Vere Street. It stood in Portugal Street, on the east end of the present burial ground, just at the back of Surgeons' College, and was subsequently the china warehouse of Messrs. Spode

and Copeland.* This theatre, which was built of red brick, and had a front facing the market, is the one generally

*It has recently been pulled down to make room for the enlargement of the museum of the College of Surgeons.

meant by the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It finally became celebrated for the harlequinades of Rich; but, on his removal to Covent Garden, was deserted, and, after a short re-opening by Gifford from Goodman's Fields, finally ceased to be a theatre about the year 1737. Since that period Covent Garden and Drury Lane playhouses have had this part of the town to themselves.

It is conjectured, that the first appearance of an actress on the English stage, to the scandal of the Puritans, and with many apologies for the "indecorum" of giving up the performances of female characters by boys, took place in the theatre in Vere Street, on Saturday, Dec. 8. 1660. The part first performed was certainly that of Desdemona ; a very fit one to introduce the claims of the sex.

*

Mr. Malone has given us the prologue written for this occasion by Thomas Jordan; which, as it shows the "sensation" that was made, sets us in a lively manner in the situation of the spectators, and gives a curious account of some of the male actors of gentle womanhood, we shall here repeat. It is entitled "A Prologue, to introduce the first Woman that came to act on the Stage, in the Tragedy called the Moor of Venice:"

"I came unknown to any of the rest,
To tell the news; I saw the lady drest:
The woman plays to-day; mistake me not,
No man in gown, or page in petticoat:
A woman to my knowledge, yet I can't,
If I should die, make affidavit on't.
Do you not twitter, gentlemen? I know
You will be censuring: do it fairly, though;
'Tis possible a virtuous woman may

Abhor all sorts of looseness, and yet play;

Play on the stage-where all eyes are upon her:

Shall we count that a crime France counts an honour?

In other kingdoms husbands safely trust 'em ;

The difference lies only in the custom.

* See Malone, pp. 135, 136.

And let it be our custom, I advise ;

I'm sure this custom's better than th' excise,
And may procure us custom : hearts of flirt
Will melt in passion, when a woman's in't.
But, gentlemen, you that as judges sit
In the Star-chamber of the house—the pit,
Have modest thoughts of her; pray, do not run
To give her visits when the play is done,

be;

With damn me, your most humble servant, lady;'
She knows these things as well as you, it may
Not a bit there, dear gallants, she doth know
Her own deserts,—and your temptations too.
But to the point :-in this reforming age
We have intents to civilize the stage.

Our women are defective, and so sized,

You'd think they were some of the guard disguised;
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;

With bone so large, and nerve so incompliant,
When you call Desdemona, enter giant.
We shall purge every thing that is unclean,
Lascivious, scurrilous, impious or obscene;
And when we've put all things in this fair way,
Barebones himself may come to see a play."*

The epilogue, "which consists of but twelve lines, is in the same strain of apology."

"And how do you like her? Come, what is't ye

She's the same thing in public as in private,
As far from being what you call a whore,
As Desdemona injured by the Moor;
Then he that censures her in such a case,
Hath a soul blacker than Othello's face.
But, ladies, what think you? for if you tax
Her freedom with dishonour to your sex,
She means to act no more, and this' shall be
No other play, but her own tragedy.

drive at ?

She will submit to none but your commands, And take commission only from your hands." * From the nature of this epilogue, and the permission accorded by the ladies, the women actors appear to have met with all the success they could wish; yet a prologue to the second part of Davenant's "Siege of Rhodes, " acted in April, 1662, shows us that the matter was still considered a delicate one upwards of a year afterwards.

66

'Hope little from our poet's withered wit,

From infant players scarce grown puppets yet;
Hope from our women less, whose bashful fear
Wondered to see me dare to enter here:
Each took her leave, and wished my danger past,
And though I come back safe and undisgraced,
Yet when they spy the wits here, then I doubt
No amazon can make them venture out,

Though I advised them not to fear you much,
For I presume not half of you are such."†

It was in the Theatre at Vere Street that Pepys first saw a woman on the stage. One of the earliest female performers mentioned by him, was an actress, whose name is not ascertained, but who attained an unfortunate celebrity in the part of Roxana in the "Siege of Rhodes." She was seduced by Aubery de Vere, the last Earl of Oxford of that name, under the guise of a private marriage,

a species of villany which made a great figure in works of fiction up to a late period. The story is "got up" in detail by Madame Dunois, in her "History of the Court of Charles II. ;"§ but it is told with more brevity in Grammont; and as the latter, though apocryphal enough, pretends to say nothing on the subject, in which he is not borne out by other writers, his lively account may be laid before the reader.

* Malone, p. 136.

Memoirs, ut supra, vol. i. p. 167.

† Id. p. 136.

§ Memoirs of the English Court in the Reign of Charles II., &c., by the Countess of Dunois, part ii. p. 71.