+True.+ 'Tis properly said; we are almost all of us now gone and forgotten.
[80] This is afterwards said to be a large round brick building. Mr Steevens supposes, from the extent of it, that all the actors resided within its precincts. It was pulled down about the time of the Restoration, soon after the appearance of the following advertisement in the _Mercurius Politicus_, Tuesday, Feb. 14, to Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1661. "The Fortune Playhouse, situate between Whitecross Street and Golding Square, in the parish of St Giles, Cripplegate, with the ground thereunto belonging, is to be let to be built upon; where twenty-three tenements may be erected, with gardens; and a street may be cut through for the better accommodation of the buildings." (See edition of Shakespeare, 1778, i. 267.) From the following passage of "The English Traveller," by Heywood, 1633, sig. I 3, we find there was a picture or statue of Fortune before the building.
"I'le rather stand here Like a statue in the forefront of your house For ever; like the picture of Dame Fortune Before the Fortune Play-house."
[81] The Letters Patent under the Great Seal bear date the 21st June 1619.
[82] This is confirmed by Kirkman who, in his preface to "The Wits; or, Sport upon Sport," 1672, says, The small compositions of which his work was made up, being scenes and parts of plays, were at this period "liked and approved by all, and they were the fittest for the actors to represent, there being little cost in cloaths, which often were in great danger to be seized by the then soldiers; who, as the poet sayes, _Enter the red coat, exit hat and cloak_, was very true, not only in the audience but the actors too, who were commonly not only stripp'd, but many times imprisoned, till they paid such ransom as the souldiers would impose upon them: so that it was hazardous to act any thing that required any good cloaths: instead of which painted cloath many times served the turn to represent rich habits."
[83] "When the publique Theatres were shut up, and the actors forbidden to present us with any of their tragedies, because we had enough of that in earnest: and comedies, because the vices of the age were too lively and smartly represented; then all that we could divert ourselves with, were these humours and pieces of plays which, passing under the name of a merry conceited fellow, called "Bottom the Weaver," "Simpleton the Smith," "John Swabber," or some such title, were only allowed us, and that but by stealth too, and under pretence of rope-dancing or the like; and these being all that was permitted us, great was the confluence of the auditors; and these small things were as profitable and as great get-pennies to the actors as any of our late famed plays. I have seen _the Red Bull Playhouse_, which was a large one, so full, that as many went back for want of room as had entered; and as meanly as you may now think of these drols, they were then acted by the best comedians then and now in being; and I may say by some that then exceeded all now living, by name, the incomparable Robert Cox, who was not only the principal actor, but also the contriver and author of most of these farces."--Kirkman's Preface to "The Wits, or Sport upon Sport," 1672.