er
of Sir Walter Cope, and a stout-hearted lady, who doubtless took pride
in encouraging the entertainments her late lord's foes had tried so
hard to suppress. Alexander Goffe, "the woman-actor at Blackfriars,"
acted as "Jackal" on the occasion of these furtive performances. He
had made himself known to the persons of quality who patronised plays,
and gave them notice of the time when and the place where the next
representation would "come off." A stage-play, indeed, in those days
was much what a prize-fight has been in later times--absolutely
illegal, and yet assured of many persistent supporters. Goffe was
probably a slim, innocent-looking youth, who was enabled to baffle the
vigilance of the Puritan functionaries, and to pass freely and
unsuspected between the players and their patrons. At Christmas-time
and during the few days devoted to Bartholomew Fair, the actors, by
dint of bribing the officer in command of the guard at Whitehall, and
securing in such wise his connivance, were enabled to present
performances at the Red Bull in St. John Street. Sometimes the Puritan
troopers were mean enough to accept the hard-earned money of these
poor players, and, nevertheless, to interrupt their performance,
carrying them off to be imprisoned and punished for their breach of
the law. But their great trouble arose from the frequent seizure of
their wardrobe by the covetous soldiers. The clothes worn by the
players upon the stage were of superior quality--fine dresses were of
especial value in times prior to the introduction of scenery--and the
loss was hard to bear. The public, it was feared, would be loath to
believe in the merits of an actor who was no better attired than
themselves. But at length it became too hazardous, as Kirkman relates,
in the preface to "The Wits, or Sport upon Sport," 1672, "to act
anything that required any good cloaths; instead of which painted
cloath many times served the turn to represent rich habits." Kirkman's
book is a collection of certain "scenes or parts of plays ... the
fittest for the actors to represent at this period, there being little
cost in the cloaths, which often then were in great danger to be
seized by the soldiers." These "select pieces of drollery, digested
into scenes by way of dialogue, together with variety of humours of
several nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons,
either in court, city, county, or camp," were first printed in 1662,
by H. Marsh, and w