INTRODUCTION 13 
vie with Jonson and Chapman for place, demonstrated their dra- 
_ matic power through the same means of appeal to the public until 
~- -) - - . 
aiid 
King James terminated the Blackfriars Children in 1608. Still 
five more of their chief plays were presented by the Boys at 
Whitefriars from 1610 to 1612. Only with the beginning of the 
period of dissolution of the children did these poets give their 
plays to the King’s men at Blackfriars and the Globe. 
_ All these are great names. Between these and the numerous 
minor playwrights stand Marston, Middleton, Webster, Dekker, 
and Day, all connected, in their best work, with the private- 
playhouse children. ; 
It would not be true to say that the children’s theatre, with 
Blackfriars as chief representative, was a sort of primary school 
for bringing up play-wrights and developing actors, as the “Nurs- 
_ ery” of 1664 aimed chiefly to be. Nevertheless, it gave to genius 
_ an opportunity to express itself in both fields. No men’s com- 
pany except Shakespeare’s invited or afforded such freedom. 
The men’s plays, with that illustrious exception, were: mainly 
hack-work, many of them collaborations. As a result, they have 
little originality, inspiration, or individuality. Their jeiuneness, 
staleness of invention and expression, and general paucity was 
the butt of Jonson’s ridicule——and justly. Such conditions could 
not inspire great acting. Consequently, not one of these unex- 
cepted men’s companies produced a single renowned actor. 
Quite different were the conditions in. the Burbage-Shake- 
speare company and the children-companies, particularly the one 
at Blackfriars. In both instances the plays were written, not for 
the common pot of a Henslowean dramatic pawn-shop or literary 
bureau, but directly for the actors.1 As a result they were gen- 
erally not collaborations, but the work of individual authors. 
They showed that the way to develop genius is not to yoke it to. 
its fellows, but to free it from the furrow, and let both feet and 
wings aid in the running. Great genius never did nor can col- 
laborate great art. The single Praxitiles, or Giotto, or Raphael, . 
*The proposition that the chil- intended to be serious. See A. Al- 
dren acted such plays, mostly sple- brecht, Das Englische Kinderthea- 
netic, as were rejected by the men- fer (Diss. Halle, 1883), 39. 
companies would be funny if not 
127 
