leries of the Belle Sauvage were always dancing before his eyes, and he could not get out of his head the chamber at Whitehall, where two years before he played in the presence of the Queen.
James Bur badge had the love of the stage at heart, dim, and crude, and undeveloped as it was. He was proud, of course, of being an actor; much prouder than he was of being a carpenter. But in this argument with himself, he did not forget that he was both. Having once struck upon that chord, he was carried away into a new train of ruminations. By the association of ideas he was led to the consideration of how he could make his two trades help each other. The relations between them were not very palpable at first; but a sudden light broke in upon him, and he saw, as if it were revealed in a luminous picture before him, how the player might exalt the carpenter, and the carpenter contribute to the glory of the player. He went direct into London, for he lived a little way out of the jurisdiction, and straight to the house of Mr. Brayne, his father-in-law.
The light that broke in upon him was this. James Burbadge resided in the suburb of Shoreditch, in an irregular quarter sometimes called Holywell, sometimes Holywell Street, in the parish of St. Leonard’s. Close in his neighbourhood there lived one Giles Allen, who was the possessor of certain tenements in Shoreditch, besides property at Hasleigh, in Essex; and who, being of no occupation, but living at ease upon his means, was entitled to write “gentleman” after his name. This Giles Allen had certain houses and empty ground to let upon lease in this street, which at that time might be more properly described as an open road, for there were few buildings in it, and they had great spaces between them. Allen had altogether three houses, one of them known as the Hill House, which was let off in flats to three or four industrious families, and a great bam, with appurtenances, also occupied by tenants, and a wide space of gardens and idle ground beside. The annual rent for the whole of this, to be taken on lease, was 14 1. While casting about for a shelter for himself and his fellows, James Burbadge bethought him of this property of his neighbour, Goodman Giles Allen, but could see no way to turn it to account, until he called to mind the craft to which he had been apprenticed in his youth. A carpenter assuredly was not a builder; but then there was Nonsuch House on London Bridge, which had not a single nail, or scrap of iron of any kind in it, nor a brick, nor a stone, nor a particle of cement, being built entirely of timber, and clamped so skilfully with the same material, that not a breath of air, or drop of rain could find entrance anywhere. That was no bricklayer’s work. It was a joiner’s house from the floor to the roof. Now this was the errand that took James Burbadge in hot haste to the house of his father-in-law.
Brayne was a shrewd man, and saw an opening for doing a little business which might be as beneficial to himself as to the players, without giving a thought to posterity, upon whom he was about to confer a greater benefit than upon either. The matter was speedily concluded. Goodman Allen’s property was taken by James Burbadge for a term of twenty-one years, Burbadge stipulating that it should be lawful for him within the first ten years to take down any of the buildings for the purpose of erecting in their room a theatre, or place for performing stage-plays; and Allen agreeing, on the other hand, that if such theatre was erected, Burbadge should be thereby entitled to a renewal of his lease. In order to enable Burbadge to carry out this design, Brayne advanced him the sum of 600l., the repayment of which was secured by the assignment of a moiety of the theatre and other new buildings.
James Burbadge set about his undertaking with energy. Never had he in his life so much cause to exult in his knowledge of carpentry. The pile ran up rapidly day by day, and you may be sure that Lord Leicester’s servants watched its progress with glowing anticipations of the applause they were to win within its wooden walls. At length the last board was struck, the last ladder was removed, and a flag was run up on a pole on the summit to announce that the anxious work was finished. Crowds are collected below round the base of the building. As the flag springs aloft, huzzas rend the air, and the general enthusiasm finds a still more triumphant expression in a burst, or roar, of trumpets, recorders, and comets, the future orchestra of the theatre, that may be heard at Bedlam Gate.
This was the founding of The First Play-house.
It was called “The Theatre,” no further distinction being necessary, as it was the only building of the kind in existence. But not many months elapsed before its success absorbed its monopoly. Burbadge found the speculation so profitable that, rather than let strangers come in to set up a rivalry against him in his own district, he resolved to be his own opposition; and, accordingly, still in conjunction with his wealthy father-in-lawT, he built a second play-house, very near at hand, which he called “The Curtain,” some say because it was decorated with a curtain, others because it was built on the site of a house called the Curtain, and some again because there had formerly been a curtain wall on Borne fortifications there.
“The Curtain“ was more commodious than its predecessor, and divided with “The Theatre” the honour of becoming the Nursery for the future stage. Here our earliest dramatists imped their wings. Here Marlowe made his first appearance as actor and poet; and, if a ribald scandal- monger is to be credited, broke his leg on the stage while he was playing some licentious part, which, Heaven help us! made it look like a judgment. Here, too, Ben Jonson obtained his first employment as writer and vamper of plays, and, some say, as actor also, on coming back from the wars, when, destitute of friends and employment, he turned his face to Shoreditch, and took to the vagrant stage for a living. In some connection, also, with one of these houses, is a melancholy incident of which just enough is known to show that it was not all mock tragedy with the players. Amongst them there was one Gabriel
Spenser, an obscure actor, but yet held in