" Mr. Brande was further of opinion that the
Master of the Revels should have been called to account for permitting
such performances. Failing at Blackfriars, the French company
subsequently appeared at the Fortune and Red Bull Theatres, but with a
similar result, insomuch that the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry
Herbert, who had duly sanctioned their performance, records in his
accounts that, "in respect of their ill luck," he had returned some
portion of the fees they had paid him for permission to play.
Whether these French "women-actors" failed because of their sex or
because of their nationality, cannot now be shown. They were the first
actresses that had ever been seen in this country. But then they were
not of English origin, and they appeared, of course, in a foreign
drama. Still, of English actresses antecedent to the Desdemona of the
Vere Street Theatre, certain traces have been discovered. In Brome's
comedy of "The Court Beggar," acted at the Cockpit Theatre, in 1632,
one of the characters observed: "If you have a short speech or two,
the boy's a pretty actor, and his mother can play her part;
women-actors now grow in request.
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