472 



NOTES ANt) QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 76., June 13. '57. 



Among the "professional" ladies who obtained 

 early celebrity on the boards, soon after the 

 Restoration, we find the names of Corey, Ann 

 Marsliall, Rebecca Marshall, Eastland, Weaver, 

 Uphill, Knep, Hujjhes, Rutter, Davenport, Saun- 

 derson, Davies, Long, Gibbs, Norris, Holden, 

 Jennings, &c. The first nine belonged to Killi- 

 grew's company, the remaining eight to D'Ave- 

 nant's company. 



It appears from that invaluable record of pass- 

 ing events, Pepyss Diary, that Kynaston continued 

 to act female parts till Jan. 7, 16G1, and perhaps 

 longer. Pepys saw the Beggars Bush on Nov. 

 20, 1660, at which time the play was acted en- 

 tirely by "male" performers. He witnessed it 

 again on Jan. 3, 1661, and then for the first time 

 he saw " women come upon the stage." D'Ave- 

 nant's actresses have generally been considered as 

 the first English female performers ; but it now 

 appears from Pepys, that Killigrew had female 

 performers some months before D'Avenant opened 

 his theatre. 



Thomas Jordan wrote a prologue expressly " to 

 introduce the first woman that came to act on the 

 stage." It appears from this, that the lady, who 

 performed Desdemona, was an unmarried woman ; 

 and as Ann Marshall was the principal unmarried 

 actress in Killigrew's company at the time Othello 

 was performed, she is perhaps entitled to this 

 distinction. 



It is said in Curll's History of the Stage, a book 

 of little authority, and has been repeated in vari- 

 ous other compilations, that Mrs. Norris, the 

 mother of the celebrated comedian well known by 

 the name of " Jubilee Dicky," was the first actress 

 who appeared upon the English stage ; but this, 

 from various circumstances, is highly improbable. 



Scenery does not appear to have been entirely 

 unknown in the early days of the English drama. 

 The original "hangings" probably soon gave way 

 to figured tapestry ; and when this decayed, its 

 defects were supplied by paint. In the Induc- 

 tion to Cynthia's Revels, Ben Jonson makes one 

 of the children of the chapel say : " I am none of 

 your fresh pictures that use to beautify the de- 

 cayed old arras." 



•• In the performances at Court," remarks Mr. Collier, 

 "at a very early date, we meet with accounts which 

 prove that painted scenes, though perliaps not moveable, 

 were employed; and they are noticed with great par- 

 ticularity in the privy seal, for the payment of the ex- 

 penses of the Revels in 1568." 



At a later date, we meet with many curious 

 entries relative to scenery in the accounts of the 

 Revels. In 1576, we read of "a painted cloth 

 and two frames," which seems to imply that the 

 frames were used for stretching the canvass. 



Malone thought, and probably he was right, 

 that — 

 •* The first notice of anything like moveable scenes 



being used in England is in the narrative of the enter- 

 tainment given to King James at Oxford, in August, 

 1605, when three plays were performed in the Hall of 

 Christ Church." — See Boswell's Shakspeare, iii. 81. 



Lord Bacon, in his essay Of Masques and 

 Triumphs (added after the edition of 1612), speaks 

 clearly of moveable scenery : — 



" It is true," he observes, " the alteration of scenes, so 

 it be quietly, and without noise, are things of great 

 beauty and pleasure, for they feed and relieve the eye 

 before it be full of the same object." 



And he adds — 



" Let the scenes abound with light, specially coloured 

 and varied." 



The moveable scenery of the court masques of 

 the reign of James I., of which Inigo Jones was 

 the chief contriver, formed as perfect a scenical 

 illusion as any that our own age can boast, not 

 forgetting the magical displays at the Lyceum in 

 the days of Vestris. For example : in the Lord's 

 Masque, at the marriage of the Palatine, the scene 

 was divided into two parts from the roof to the 

 floor : — 



" The lower part being first discovered, there appeared a 

 wood in perspective ; the innermost part being of releave 

 or whole round, the rest painted. On the left a cave, and 

 on the right a thicket, from M-liich issued Orpheus. At 

 the back part of the scene, at the sudden fall of a curtain, 

 the upper part broke upon the spectators, a heaven of 

 clouds of all hues ; the stars suddenly vanished, the clouds 

 dispersed ; an clement of artificial fire played about the 

 house of Prometheus — a bright and transparent cloud, 

 reaching from the heavens to the earth, whence the eight 

 maskers descended with the music of a full .song; and at 

 the end of their descent the cloud broke in twain, and one 

 part of it, as with a wind, was blown athwart the scene. 

 While this cloud was vanishing, the wood, being the 

 under part of the scene, was insensibly changing; a per- 

 spective view opened, with porticoes on each side, and 

 female statues of silver, accompanied with ornaments of 

 architecture, filling the end of the house of Prometheus, 

 and seemed all of goldsmiths' work. The women of Pro- 

 metheus descended from their niches, till the anger of 

 Jupiter turned them again into statues." 



The beautiful Masque of Comus was first ex- 

 hibited with all the aid that could be afforded by 

 painted scenes, dresses, and machinery, to render 

 the spectacle as illusive as art could make it. 



Cartwright's Royal Slave was presented before 

 the King and Queen at Oxford in August, 1636 ; 

 and the changes of the scenes, produced by Inigo 

 Jones, were called "appearances:" they were 

 eight in number, one to each act ; and three of 

 thism were repeated in the three last scenes of the 

 play. 



Your correspondents have not consulted the 

 original edition of The Siege of Rhodes, or they 

 would have learnt the fact that scenes were used 

 at its first representation in 1656. The full title- 

 page is as follows : — 



" The Siegk of Rhodes made a Representation by 

 the Art of Prospective in Scenes, and the Story sung in 

 Recitative Musick. At the back part of Rutland-llo\x%Q 



