Kindled the fire!' But then, did one return,
No fool would his own harvest spoil or burn!
If that were so, thou rather wouldst advance
The place that was thy wife's inheritance.
'Oh no,' cried all, 'Fortune, for being a whore,
Scaped not his justice any jot the more:
He burnt that idol of the Revels too.
Nay, let Whitehall with revels have to do,
Though but in dances, it shall know his power;
There was a judgement shewn too in an hour.'
The Puritans did in fact draw such morals as Jonson satirized. Prynne, for example, finds the hand of God in 'the sudden feareful burning, even to the ground, both of the Globe and Fortune playhouses, no man perceiving how these fires came'.[1]
The Globe was at once rebuilt. It was open again by 30 June 1614, when John Chamberlain wrote to Alice Carleton that he had called upon her sister Williams, and found her 'gone to the new Globe, to a play. Indeed', he says, 'I hear much speech of this new playhouse, which is said to be the fairest that ever was in England, so that if I live but seven years longer, I may chance to take a journey to see it'.[2] The manuscript continuator of Stowe, describing the end of the theatre, says that the rebuilding was 'at the great charge of King Iames, and many Noble men and others'.[3] The law-*suit documents contain no indication that any part of the burden fell upon any one but the 'housekeepers', who being bound under their lease to 'mainteyne and repaire' the house, resolved to 'reedifie the same'. The first estimate of cost seems to have been about £700 to £800, for a levy of '50^{li} or 60^{li}' was called upon each seventh share of the moiety.[4] Witter was unable to meet this demand, and as he was also behindhand with his share of the ground-rent and other payments, Heminges resumed possession of the seventh and gave half of it 'gratis' to Henry Condell. By this time it had been ascertained that the re-edifying would be 'a verie greate charge', and Heminges claims that the re-edifying of Witter's 'parte' had in fact cost himself and Condell 'about the somme of cxx^{li}'.[5] This would mean a total cost of about £1,680.[6] Heminges appears to have taken a sub-**
- ↑ Histriomastix, 556.
- ↑ Birch, James I, i. 329.
- ↑ Cf. p. 374.
- ↑ W. v. H. 320.
- ↑ Ibid. 321.
- ↑ A later statement by Shank in the Sharers Papers puts it at £1,400. Heminges describes Witter's 'parte' by a slip as one-sixth instead of one-seventh of the moiety. If the £120 was one-twelfth of the total cost, his figure (£1,440) would agree with that of Shank. Professor Wallace says in
