the Hope had to be available for bear-baiting, which entailed an open arena, and there is no evidence, and very little likelihood, that baiting ever took place at the Swan. Like other theatres, it sometimes accommodated gymnasts and fencers, but these would use the stage.[1] There are no rails round the stage, such as we may infer the existence of at the Globe.[2] The only scenic apparatus visible is a large bench, on which a lady sits, while another stands behind her in an attitude of surprise, at the rapid approach from an outer corner of the stage of a man in an affected attitude, with a hat on his head and a long staff in his hand. You might take him for Malvolio cross-gartered, were there any chance that Twelfth Night could have been written when the drawing was made, or produced at the Swan.[3] Probably he is a returning traveller or a messenger bringing news. The floor of the stage is apparently bare. Sometimes rushes were laid down, at any rate for interior scenes.[4] The Globe produced Henry VIIIare brought to the publicke Theater', and for later periods Henslowe, i. 98 (the Rose, 1598), the fatal contest at the Swan in 1602, and Herbert, 47, 81. For acrobats cf. App. D, No. cxxiii, on the use of the Swan by Peter Bromvill in 1600. Henslowe, i. 98, 106, records loans in connexion with vaulting performances with a horse, perhaps at the Rose, in 1598 and 1599 by John Haslett or Hassett, who was also paid for court performances (App. B) in 1603 and 1608.]*
- ↑ Cf. Graves, 41. The register of the association of Masters of Defence (Sloane MS. 2530; cf. extracts in A. Hutton, The Sword and the Centuries, 259) records many 'prizes' played at theatres and theatrical inns during the sixteenth century; cf. App. D, Nos. lx-lxii, Case is Altered, II. vii. 28, 'First they [maisters of defence
- ↑ T. M. Black Book (1604, Bullen, Middleton, viii. 7) opens with Lucifer
ascending, as Prologue to his own Play:
Now is hell landed here upon the earth,
When Lucifer, in limbs of burning gold.
Ascends the dusty theatre of the world,. . . .
. . . my tortured spleen
Melts into mirthful humour at this fate,
That heaven is hung so high, drawn up so far,
And made so fast, nailed up with many a star;
And hell the very shop-board of the earth,. . . .
. . . And now that I have vaulted up so high
Above the stage-rails of this earthen globe,
I must turn actor and join companies.Rails are shown in the late Roxana and Messallina engravings of indoor stages.
- ↑ Cf. H. Logeman in Anglia, xix. 117.
- ↑ Dekker, G. H. B. (1609), 'on the very Rushes where the Commedy is to daunce . . . must our fethered Estridge . . . be planted' . . . 'Salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on the rushes, or on stooles about you . . . take vp a rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants'; 1 Hen. IV, III. i. 214, 'She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down'. In The Gentleman Usher (c. 1604, Blackfriars),
