may contain original elements, imperfectly adapted to later conditions.
Counting in The Wars of Cyrus then, and counting out The Old Wive's Tale and David and Bethsabe, there are about seventy-four plays which may reasonably be taken to have been presented upon common stages, between the establishment of the Queen's men in 1583 and the building of the Globe for the Chamberlain's men in 1599 and of the Fortune for the Admiral's men in 1600. With a few exceptions they were also published during the same period, and the scenic arrangements implied by their texts and stage-directions may therefore be looked upon as those of the sixteenth-century theatres. These form the next group for our consideration. Of the seventy-four plays, the original production of nine may with certainty or fair probability be assigned to the Queen's men, of two to Sussex's, five to Pembroke's, fourteen to Strange's or the Admiral's or the two in combination, thirteen to the Admiral's after the combination broke up, seventeen to the Chamberlain's, three to Derby's, one to Oxford's, and one to the Chapel; nine must remained unassigned.[1] It is far less easy to make a guess at the individual theatre whose staging each play represents. The migrations of the companies before 1594 in the main elude us. Thereafter the Admiral's were settled at the Rose until 1600. The Chamberlain's may have passed from the Theatre to the Curtain about 1597. The habitations of the other later companies are very conjectural. Moreover, plays were carried
- ↑ Queen's, Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, 1, 2 Troublesome Reign of King John, Selimus, Looking-Glass for London and England, Famous Victories of Henry V, James IV, King Leir, True Tragedy of Richard III; Sussex's, George a Greene, Titus Andronicus; Pembroke's, Edward II, Taming of a Shrew, 2, 3 Henry VI, Richard III; Strange's or Admiral's, 1, 2 Tamburlaine, Spanish Tragedy, Orlando Furioso, Fair Em, Battle of Alcazar, Knack to Know a Knave, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1 Henry VI, Comedy of Errors, Jew of Malta, Wounds of Civil War, Dr. Faustus, Four Prentices of London; Admiral's, Knack to Know an Honest Man, Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Humorous Day's Mirth, Two Angry Women of Abingdon, Look About You, Shoemaker's Holiday, Old Fortunatus, Patient Grissell, 1 Sir John Oldcastle, Captain Thomas Stukeley, 1, 2 Robert Earl of Huntingdon, Englishmen for my Money; Chamberlain's, Edward III, 1 Richard II, Sir Thomas More, Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer-Night's Dream, Richard II, King John, Merchant of Venice, 1, 2 Henry IV, Every Man in his Humour, Warning for Fair Women, A Larum for London, Thomas Lord Cromwell (the last two possibly Globe plays); Derby's, 1, 2 Edward IV, Trial of Chivalry; Oxford's, Weakest Goeth to the Wall; Chapel, Wars of Cyrus; Unknown, Arden of Feversham, Soliman and Perseda, Edward I, Jack Straw, Locrine, Mucedorus, Alphonsus, 1, 2 Contention of York and Lancaster.
