T H E 



301 



THE 



added to any old interlude, tragedy, comedy, opera, play, 

 1'arce, or other entertainment of the stage, or any new pro- 

 logue or epilogue, unless a true copy thereof be sent to 

 the Lord Chamberlain of the King's household for the 

 time being, fourteen days at the least before the acting, 

 representing, or performing thereof, together with an ac- 

 count of the play-house or place where the same shall be, 

 and the time when the same is first intended to be first 

 acted, represented, or performed, signed by the master or 

 manager.' The 4th section authorizes the Lord Chamber- 

 lain to prohibit the performance of any theatrical enter- 

 tainment, and subjects the persons infringing this prohi- 

 bition to a penalty of 50^. and the forfeiture of their patent 

 or licence. The 5th section provides, that ' no person 

 shall be authorized by patent from the Crown or licence 

 from the Lord Chamberlain to act, represent, or perform 

 for hire or reward any interlude, tragedy, comedy, opera, 

 p'ay, farce, or other entertainment of the stage, in any 

 part of Great Britain, except in the city of Westminster and 

 within the liberties thereof, and in such places where the 

 Kins shall personally reside, and during such residence 

 only.' The 7th section enacts, that ' if any interlude, 

 tragedy, comedy, opera, play, farce, or other entertain- 

 ment of the stage, or any act, scene, or part thereof, shall 

 be acted, represented, or performed in any house or place 

 where wine, ale, beer, or otlier liquors shall be sold or 

 retailed, the same shall be deemed to be acted, repre- 

 sented, and performed for gain, hire, and reward.' Within 

 a few years after the passing of this act of parliament, the 

 clause which restricted the power of granting patents by 

 the Crown to theatres within the city of Westminster and 

 places of royal residence, was found to be productive of 

 inconvenience ; and special acts of parliament were passed 

 exempting several larsre towns, in which such entertain- 

 ments were desired, from the operation of that clause, and 

 authorizing the King to grant letters for establishing thea- 

 tres in such places. Instances of statutes of this kind occur 

 with respect to Bath in stat. 8Geo. III., c. 10 ; with re-pert 

 to Liverpool in the stat. 11 Geo. III., c. 16; and with 

 respect to Bristol in the stat. 18 Geo. HI., c. 8. 



A further relaxation of the rule established by the stat. 

 10 Geo. II., c. 28, for the regulation of theatrical perform- 

 ances, was effected by the statute 28 Geo. III., c. !$0, in 

 favour of places which could not be expected to bear the 

 expense of a special act of parliament. By this latter 

 statute, the justices of the peace at general or quarter 

 'tis are authorized to license the performance of any 

 such tragedies, comedies, interludes, operas, plays, or farces 

 as are represented at the patent or licensed theatres in 

 ninster, or as have been submitted to the Lord Cham- 

 berlain, at any place within their jurisdiction not within 

 20 miles of London. Westminster, or Edinburgh, or 8 miles 

 of any patent or licensed theatre, or 10 miles of the king's 

 nee, or 14 miles of either of the universities of Ox- 

 ford or Cambridge, or 2 miles of the outward limits of any 

 place having peculiar jurisdiction. 



The penalties imposed by the stat. 10 Geo. II., c. 28, 

 being found in practice insufficient to prevent the per- 

 formance of theatrical entertainments without licence, and 

 great evils being experienced from the resort of the lower 

 * in London to such entertainments, the legislature 

 in the year is:;:) save additional powers to the metropoli- 

 tan police for their prevention. By the 46th section of 

 the slat. 2 and 3 Viet., c. 47, ' the Commissioners of police 

 are empowered to authorize a superintendent, with such 

 constables as he may think necessary, to enter into any 

 house or room, kept or used within the metropolitan police 

 district, for stage-plays or dramatic entertainments into 

 vrhich admission is obtained by payment of money, and 

 v.hich is not a licenced theatre, and to take into custody 

 all persons who shall be found therein without lawful 

 excuse.' The same clause enacts that 'every person keep- 

 ing, using, or knowingly letting any house or other tene- 

 ment for the purpose of being used as an unlicenced 

 theatre, shall be liable to a penalty of 20/., or, in the dis- 

 cretion of the magistrate, may be committed to the House 

 of Correction, with or without hard labour, for two calen- 

 dar months; and every person performing or being therein 

 without lawful excuse shall be liable to a penalty of forty 

 shillings.' 



It may be desirable in this article to refer to a statute 

 which v.a , passed in the year IR'i'i for the protection of dra- 

 matic literary property, and which placed such property 



upon the same footing as the copyright of published books. 

 The stat. 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 15, enacts that the author of 

 any tragedy, comedy, play, opera, farce, or any other dra- 

 matic piece or entertainment, shall have as his own pro- 

 perty the sole liberty of representing the same at any place 

 of dramatic entertainment ; and that the author of any 

 such production, published within 10 years before Hie 

 passing of the act, or his assignee, shall, from the time of 

 publication until the end of twenty-eight years, and, if 

 the author be living at the end of that period, during the 

 residue of his natural life, have as liis own property the 

 sole liberty of representing such production. The infringe- 

 ment of this right is forbidden under a penalty of ' forty 

 shillings for every unauthorized representation of such 

 production, or the amount of the benefit derived from 

 such representation, or of the injury sustained by the author 

 therefrom, whichever shall be the greater damages.' 



THEATRE, ENGLISH, FRENCH, &c. [ENGLISH 

 DRAMA.] 



THEATRE, HINDU. [SANSCRIT LANGUAGE AND 

 LITERATURE.] 



THEBAIA. [PARAMORPHIA.] 



THEBAID, orTHEBAIS (Qrfaif, sc. X 6pa, Thebais), sig- 

 nifies the territory or district belonging to Thebes, and is 

 consequently applied to the whole territory subject to the 

 city of Thebes in Boeotia. [THEBES IN BOEOTIA.] In a 

 similar, though a much wider sense, the name was given 

 to the whole of Upper Egypt, the modern Said, of which 

 Thebes was the principal city. This territory extended from 

 Hermopolis Magna southward as far as the first cataracts of 

 the Nile, or to Philae ; or, according to others, as far as Hiera 

 Sicamina. This great province was, according to Straho 

 fxvii., p. 787), originally divided into ten nomes (vo/ioi) ; 

 but Pliny (Hist. Nat., v. 9) enumerates eleven, and others 

 mention fourteen the nomos Lycopolites, Hypseliotis, 

 Aphroditopolites, Tinites, Diospolites, Tentyrites, Phatu- 

 rites, Hermonthites, Apollinopolites, Antaeopolites, Pano- 

 polites, Coptites, Ombites, and the nomos Dodecaschoenus. 

 Respecting the nature of these nomes and the physical 

 features of the Thebaid, see EGYPT. 



THEBES (e/j/3ai, Thebae). Towns and cities of this 

 name occur in several parts of the antient world, but the 

 two which are most renowned in history are the Egyptian 

 and the Boeotian Thebes, of which we shall speak sepa- 

 rately, and subjoin a list of the other places of this name. 



TIIKBES IN EGYPT, in the Bible called No, or No Am- 

 men, was situated in the central part of Upper Egypt, 

 which derived from this city the name of Thebais. [TnE- 

 BAID.] This city consisted of two main parts, which were 

 divided by the Nile, one occupying the eastern, and the 

 other the western hank of the river, and each extending 

 from the river to the foot of the hills which enclose the 

 valley ol' the Nile. This gigantic city, whose ruins still 

 excite astonishment, was believed to be the most antient 

 town of Etrypt, and the original metropolis of Egypt. Its 

 foundation was ascribed by some to Osiris, who named it 

 after his mother (Diodonis Sic., i. 15), and by others to the 

 ,ing of the house of Busiris. (Diodorus Sic., i. 45.) 

 According to other authorities, Thebes was an Ethiopian 

 colony. Its original circumference is stated to have been 

 140 stadia. Its most flourishing period appears to have 

 been about HiOO B.C., when it was the capital of all Egypt, 

 and when, according to Herodotus and Aristotle, the whole 

 country of Egypt bore the name of Thebes (eij/3nt). 

 During that period, which probably comprises several cen- 

 turies, Thebes was the residence of the Egyptian kings, 

 whose tombs are still extant in the rocks on the western 

 side of the city, and extend even to the borders of the 

 desert. (Strabo, xvii., p. 816, ed. C'asaub.) Homer (Iliad, 

 ix. 381, &c.) speaks of the splendour, greatness, and wealth 

 of Thebes, and calls it ' the city with a hundred gates,' 

 each of which sent out two hundred men with horses and 

 chariots. During the invasion of Egypt by the Persians 

 under Cambyses, Thebes, like other towns, suffered very 

 severely, especially the private dwellings, which were for 

 the most part constructed of wood, while the great archi- 

 tectural works defied the flames as much as they have 

 defied the slower influence of time. (Diodorus Sic., i. 4G ; 

 Herodotus, iii., 25 ; Pliny, Hist. Nat., xxxvi. 9.) After 

 this catastrophe the city appears never to have recovered 

 her former greatness. During the time of the Ptolemies, 

 when the seat of government was in the northern extremity 

 of the country, Thebes appears to have been neglected by 



