es, some of which are only a few lines long, and in
consequence the play loses the intense, unified effect which it might
otherwise have produced. Again, the absence of a front curtain made it
impossible to end an act or play with a grand climax or an impressive
tableau. Instead, the scenes gradually die away; the actors leave the
stage one by one, or go off in procession. Whether this was gain or
loss is a debatable question. At any rate, this caused the Elizabethan
plays to leave on the spectator an impression totally different from
that left by ours. Finally, the absence of pictorial scenery forced
the dramatists to use verbal description far more than is customary
to-day. To this fact we owe some passages of poetry which are among
the most beautiful in all dramatic literature.

+Theatrical Companies+.--During Shakespeare's lifetime there were in
existence more or less continuously some twenty theatrical companies,
at least four or five of which, during the greater part of this period,
played contemporaneously in London. We have already seen how great
nobles, before the end of the fifteenth century, maintained small
companies of men as players of Interludes. When not wanted by their
patrons, these men traveled about the country, and their example was
followed by other groups whose legal position was a much less certain
quantity. As a result, a law was passed in 1572 which required that
{48} all companies of actors should be under the definite protection of
some noble. As time went on, this relation became one of merely
nominal patronage, but the companies continued to be known by the name
of their patron. Thus the company to which Shakespeare belonged was
known successively as Lord Strange's, the Earl of Derby's, first and
second Lord Hunsdon's (or, because of the office which the Hunsdons
held, as the Lord Chamberlain's), and as the King's company. At
various times it appeared at the Theater, the Curtain, the Globe, and
the Blackfriars, its greatest triumphs being associated with the Globe.
By 1608, if not before, it was unquestionably the most successful
company in London. It had the patronage of King James, and it
controlled and acted in what were respectively the most popular public
and private theaters, the Globe and the Blackfriars. When not acting
in London, it made tours to other cities. Its number included several
actors of well-known ability, among them Richard Burbage, the greatest
tragic ac