‘ 
124 CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
goddesses, kings, queens, dukes, countesses, noble bridal festivi- : 
ties, courtly entertainments, &c., show some of the accessory re- 
quirements for an elaborate theatrical wardrobe. Most of the 
plays represented some court, and all are comedies in high life. — 
Presented before courtiers, lords, and ladies, and the fastidious 
fashionables of London, the dresses of necessity must meet the 
demands of the time. A representative example may stand for 
all. Since the Duke of Stettin was struck by the costuming in 
The Widow’s Tears, I select from it. In I, ii, there is the follow- 
ing entrance of a courtly train in state:—Two gentlemen ushers 
in court-livery, heads bared, march in dignified pomp across the 
stage, followed by two Spartan lords. These in their turn serve 
but as ushers to their more splendid viceregal master, who walks 
after in single state. The Countess Eudora follows in flowing 
silks, with her daughter at her side. A waiting-gentlewoman 
bears the Countess’s train. Another waiting-woman closes the 
procession in single dignity. 
So rich and abundant is the apparel in this representative play 
that the German visitors remark upon it as excessive. Spectacu- 
lar effect, however, was one of the novelties of the Beerbohm 
Tree sort that drew large audiences,—even more perhaps than 
the plots and sayings of the plays. 
In contrast to the public theatres where plays were presented 
by daylight, the enclosed privacy and spectacular elegance at 
Blackfriars must have been altogether as attractive as the testi- 
mony of the time declares it. With an aristocratic audience filling 
the house from the seats in pit and galleries to the lords’ rooms, 
the fashionable “‘smart set” sitting at right and left on the stage, 
and the shimmer of candlelight over the royal costumes of the 
boy-actors in the midst of music, dramatic movement, and phan- 
tastic masque, it is little wonder that the spectacular effect was 
enough “to ravish a man”! with delight, and to attract from the 
public theatres the most desirable part of their audience.? 
Whether the requirement to present one play a week as men- 
tioned by Gerschow in the Diary was elastic enough to allow that 
as the minimum, not the maximum, is not certain. Suggestive 
*See infra, Children of the *Supra, 96, 112; infra, 128, 164- 
Queen’s Revels at Blackfriars. 66, 174, 176-77. 
238 
