The above wood-cut is a correct representation of this theatre, copied from an engraved view of London, made about the year . A very rude wood-cut of this edifice appears in Malone's Shakspeare from the long Antwerp view of London, in the Pepysian library at Cambridge; but from the coarseness of the execution, it gives a very inadequate idea.

The Globe was a public theatre of considerable size, situated on the , the southern side of the Thames, nearly opposite to , ; and the performances always took place in summer, and by day-light. It is not certain when it was built. Hentzner, the German traveller, who gives an amusing description of London in the time of queen Elizabeth, alludes to it as existing in , but it was probably not built long before . It was an hexagonal wooden building, partly open to the weather, and partly thatched with reeds, on which a pole with a flag was erected, to give notice that the entertainments were going on. It was called the Globe from its sign, which was a figure of Hercules, or Atlas, supporting the globe, under which was written: (all the world acts a play). This theatre was burnt down . The above view represents it previously to the conflagration. The following account of this accident is given by sir Henry Wotton, in a letter dated , Reliq. Wotton, p. , edit. :

Now to let matters of state sleepe, I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Banks side. The king's players had a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the

Eighth

, which set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage: the knights of the order with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient, in truth, within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now king Henry making

a masque at the cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff, wherwith

one

of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at

first

but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrick, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only

one

man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with a bottle of ale.

From a letter of Mr. John Chamberlaine's to sir Ralph Winwood, dated , in which this accident is likewise mentioned, we learn that this theatre had only doors.

The burning of the Globe, or playhouse, on the

Bankside

, on

St. Peter's

day, cannot escape you; which fell out by a peal of chambers, (that I know not upon what occasion were to be used in the play) the tampin or stopple of

one

of them lighting in the thatch that cover'd the house, burn'd it down to the ground in less than

two

hours, with a dwelling-house adjoyning; and it was a great marvaile and fair grace of God, that the people had so little harm, having but

two

narrow doors to get out.

In , was entered on the Stationers' books, A doleful ballad of the General Conflagration of the famous Theatre on the , called the Globe.

Taylor, the water poet, commemorates the event in the following lines:

As gold is better that in fire's tried,

So is the Bankside Globe, that late was burn'd;

For where before it had a thatched hide,

Now to a stately theatre 'tis turn'd;

Which is an emblem that great things are won

By those that dare through greatest dangers run.

It is also alluded to in some verses by Ben Jonson, entitled,

An Execration upon Vulcan;

I have heard that the poets had always a mouth measure for their actors, who were terrible tear-throats, and made their lines proportionable to

their compasse, which were

sesquipedales

, a foote and a halfe.

These are the men, in crowded heap that throng

To that adulterate stage, where not a tongue

Of th' untun'd kennel can a litle repeat

Of serious sense.

In , the vestry of the parish of St. Saviour ordered that a petition should be made to the body of the council concerning the play-house in that parish, wherein the enormities should be showed that came thereby of the parish, and that in respect thereof they might be dismissed and put down from playing, and that or of the churchwardens should present the same. Whether this went any further does not appear; if the petition itself had been entered, we might have had some account of the way in which the theatre was then conducted.

The exact site of the Globe theatre is presumed to have been at the north-west angle of Globe-alley, Maid-lane.

[] Winwood's Memorials, vol. iil. p. 469.