49'2 



ANNUAL REGISTER, I817. 



field?"* Inigo Jones appears to 

 be the fiist who invented minted 

 cloths for moveable scenes, which 

 were used at Oxford in 1605. 



It is very true that stage players 

 are not held in great respect by 

 the Chinese ; and Cibot had pro- 

 bably read the statute f against 

 civil or military officers of govern- 

 ment, or the sons of those who 

 possess hereditary rank, frequent- 

 ing the company of prostitutes and 

 actresses, which led him into the 

 mistake of the juxta- position of 

 their trading concerns, a mistake, 

 the more likely to be committed, 

 as he frankly owns he knows very 

 little of the matter, and takes no 

 interest in the subject. We must 

 be cautious, however, in estimat- 

 ing the conduct of the Chinese 

 from their moral maxims or legal 

 precepts : there is no people on 

 earth whose practice is so much at 

 variance with their professed prin- 

 ciples ; as a striking instance of 

 this remark, it may be observed, 

 that the late emperor Kien-lung, 

 in the teeth of the above mentioned 

 statute, took an actress for one of 

 his inferior wives or concubines ; 

 since which, it is said, females 

 have been j)rohibited from appear- 

 ing on the stage, and their places 

 supplied by boys, and those crea- 

 tures who are of neither sex. No 

 women ever appealed on the 

 Greek and the Roman theatres ; 

 but the characters in the dramas 

 of the latter, as in those of China, 

 Avtre sometimes played by eunuchs. 

 The soft and delicate female cha- 

 racters of Shakespeare had not the 

 advantage of being played by a 

 female during his life ; Mrs. liet- 



• Rlalone's Shakespeare, vol. ii. p, 57. 

 t Ta-tsing-lfu-lee, p. 410, 



terton, about 1660, being the first, 

 or al)out the first, female who 

 played Juliet and Ophelia. It is 

 observed in the prologue to the 

 Moor of \'enice, in introducing 

 the first female who played Des- 

 deinona, — 



" 'Tis possible a virtuous woman may 

 Abhor all sorts of looseness, and yet play." • 



No prohibition, however, of fe- 

 males acting on the Chinese stage, 

 appears in the code of laws ; but 

 it is enacted, that " all strolling 

 players, who shall be guilty of 

 purchasing the sons or daughters 

 oi free persons, in order to educate 

 them as actors or actresses ; or 

 who shall be guilty of marrying 

 or adopting as children such free 

 persons, shall, in each case, be 

 punished with a hundred blows of 

 the bamboo}"t — and thesame pu- 

 nishment is extended to the seller 

 of free persons, and to females born 

 of free parents voluntarily inter- 

 marrying with strolling players. 



It has been said, that in Pekin 

 alone there are several hundred 

 companies of comedians, when the 

 court is there, and that at other 

 times they travel about from one 

 city to another. A company ge- 

 nerally consists of eight or ten 

 persons, who are literally the ser- 

 vants or slaves of the master or 

 manager. They travel about from 

 place to place in a covered barge, 

 on canals or rivers near to which 

 most great cities are situated ; 

 these barges are their habitations, 

 and in these they are instructed in 

 their parts by the master. VA'hen 

 called on to perform before a party, 

 a list of the^plays tliey are prepared 



• Malonc's Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 93. 

 t 'IVtsing-leu-lec, p. 410. 



\Q 



