cupied the Rose under Henslowe's
management.]

The next company that we can definitely associate with the Theatre was
the famous Lord Chamberlain's Men. On April 16, 1594, Lord Strange,
the Earl of Derby, died, and the chief members of his troupe--William
Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, John Heminges, William Kempe, Thomas
Pope, George Bryan, and Augustine Phillips--organized a new company
under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain. For ten days, in June,
1594, they acted at Newington Butts under the management of Philip
Henslowe, then went, probably at once, to the Theatre, which they made
their home until the Burbage lease of the property expired in the
spring of 1597. Here, among other famous plays, they produced the
original _Hamlet_, thus referred to by Lodge in _Wit's Miserie_, 1596:

He looks as pale as the visard of the ghost which cries so
miserably at the Theatre, like an oyster-wife, "Hamlet,
revenge!"

And here, too, they presented all of Shakespeare's early masterpieces.

Their connection with the building ceased in 1597 at the expiration of
the Burbage lease; but their association with the proprietors of the
Theatre was permanent. Their subsequent history, as also the history
of the Burbage brothers, will be found in the chapters dealing with
the Globe and the Second Blackfriars.[105]

[Footnote 105: For other but unimportant references to the Theatre see
The Malone Society's _Collections_, vol. I: disorder at, October,
1577, p. 153; disorder at, on Sunday, April, 1580, p. 46; fencing
allowed at, July, 1582, p. 57; fencing forbidden at, May, 1583, p. 62;
to be closed during infection, May, 1583, p. 63; complaint against, by
the Lord Mayor, September, 1594, p. 76. And see Halliwell-Phillipps,
_Outlines_, I, 363, for a special performance there by a "virgin,"
February 22, 1582.]

CHAPTER IV

THE CURTAIN

Although James Burbage was, as his son asserted, "the first builder of
playhouses," a second public playhouse followed hard on the Theatre,
probably within twelve months. It was erected a short distance to the
south of the Theatre,--that is, nearer the city,--and, like that
building, it adjoined Finsbury Field.[106] To the two playhouses the
audiences came trooping over the meadows, in "great multidudes," the
Lord Mayor tells us; and the author of _Tarlton's Newes out of
Purgatory_ (_c._ 1589) describes their return to London thus: "With
that I waked, and saw such concourse o