Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/271

 the plays: they also furnish suggestions to the interpreter. They have amassed a quantity of collateral information of Shakspeare's epoch which the critic will thankfully acknowledge as he uses it. The minute and laborious research which Judge Holmes has expended upon his volume, the literary, historical, and social parallelisms which he discloses, the philosophy and style of thinking of Elizabeth's age, put the lover of Shakspeare under obligation.

SHAKSPEARE'S WOMEN.

For many years before the time of Shakspeare, it had been customary upon the continent to assign to women the female characters of plays. But we do not find any trace of the employment of women upon the English stage till 1632. It is a mistake of Colley Cibber that no actresses had been seen on the stage previous to the Restoration. A French company that included women appeared in a play at Blackfriars in 1629, and were soundly hissed for this innovation upon British prejudice. In 1641, during the Puritan interdiction of plays, the actors drew up their "Stage-players' Complaint,"—"Our boys, ere we shall have liberty to act again, will be grown out of use, like cracked organ-pipes, and have faces as old as our plays." In 1660, a play was acted entirely by men. In 1661, the same play was acted with the help of female actors. After women had effected a lodgement upon the English stage, they still