Early London Theatres. By T. Fairman Ordish. (Elliot Stock.). —This
is a book full of curious learning which no critic of ordinary attainments can pretend to estimate. The information given about the places of amusement which existed before the theatres is especially curious. The first theatre was built in 1576, but long before this there were amphitheatres on the south side of the Thames, where bull and bear baiting was carried on. It is interesting to read of the resemblances between the early Drama in England and that of Greece and Rome. The Old Comedy of Attica and the Feseennina licentia of Italy had their analogues in London. The Privy Council addressed to the Middlesex Justices of the Peace a letter (dated May 10th, 1601), in which they complained that " certaine players, that use to recyte their playes at the Curtaine in Moorefeildes [the Curtain was the second theatre erected in London], do represent upon the stage in their interludes the persons of some gent. of good desert and quality that are yet alive, under obscure manner, but yet in such sorte as all the hearers may take notice both of the matter and the persons that are meant thereby." A very interesting book this.
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