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 in 1576 taken a step in the direction of professionalism, by transferring their performances to Farrant's newly opened theatre at the Blackfriars. Here, if the rather difficult evidence can be trusted, the Paul's boys appear to have joined them, and to have formed part of a composite company, to which Lord Oxford's boys also contributed, and which produced the Campaspe and Sapho and Phao of the earl's follower John Lyly. Lyly took these plays to Court on 1 January and 3 March 1584, and Henry Evans, who was also associated with the enterprise, took a play called Agamemnon and Ulysses on 27 December. On all three occasions the official patron of the company was the Earl of Oxford. In Agamemnon and Ulysses it must be doubtful whether the Paul's boys had any share, for in the spring of 1584 the Blackfriars theatre ceased to be available, and the combination probably broke up. This, however, was far from being the end of Lyly's connexion with the boys, for the title-pages of no less than five of his later plays acknowledge them as the presenters. They had, indeed, a four years' period of renewed activity at Court, under the mastership of Thomas Giles, who, being already almoner, became Master of the Song School on 22 May 1584, and in the following year received a royal commission to 'take up' boys for the choir, analogous to that ordinarily granted to masters of the Chapel Children. There is no specific mention of plays in*