[Illustration: The Fortune Playhouse.]
The Engraving represents one of the playhouses of Shakspeare's time,
as the premises appeared a few years since. This theatre was in Golden
Lane, Barbican, and was built by that celebrated and benevolent actor
Edward Alleyn, the pious founder of Dulwich College, in 1599. It was
burnt in 1624, but rebuilt in 1629. A story is told of a large treasure
being found in digging for the foundation, and it is probable that the
whole sum fell to Alleyn. Upon equal probability, is the derivation of
the name "The Fortune." The theatre was a spacious brick building, and
exhibited the royal arms in plaster on its front. These are retained in
the Engraving; where the disposal of the lower part on the building into
shops, &c. is a sorry picture of the "base purposes" to which a temple
of the Drama has been converted.
According to the testimony of Ben Jonson and others, Alleyn was the
first actor of his time, and of course played leading characters in the
plays of Shakspeare and Jonson. He was probably the Kemble of his day,
for his biographers tell us such was his celebrity, that he drew crowds
of spectators after him wherever he performed; so that possessing some
private patrimony, with a careful and provident disposition, he soon
became master of an establishment of his own--and this was the
_Fortune_. Although Alleyn left behind him a large sum, it is hardly
probable that he made it here; for in his diary, which, we believe is
extant, he records that he once had so slender an audience, that the
whole receipts of the house amounted to no more than three pounds and a
few odd shillings--a sum which would not pay the expenses; for it
appears by the MS. of Lord Stanhope, treasurer to James I. that the
customary sum paid for the performance of a play at court, was 20
nobles, or 6l. 12s. 4d.[1] Alleyn was likewise proprietor of the
Blackfriars' Theatre, near what is still called Playhouse Yard. However
he might have gathered laurels on the stage, he must have gained his
fortune by other means. He was keeper of the King's Bear Garden and
Menagerie, which were frequented by thousands, and produced Alleyn, the
then great sum of 500_l_. per annum. He was also thrice married, and
received portions with his two first wives; and we need not insist upon
the turn which matrimony gives to a man's fortune.
[1] The nightly expenses of Drury Lane and Covent Garden Theatres
in these days, are upwards of 200_l_.
Among the theatrico-antiquarian gossip of _The Fortune_ is, that it was
once the nursery for Henry VIII.'s children--but "no scandal about
the"--we hope.
* * * * *