"
Howes, in his additions to "Stowe's Chronicle," thus describes the
event: "Also upon St. Peter's Day, 1613, the playhouse or theatre
called the Globe, upon the Bankside, near London, by negligent
discharging of a peal of ordnance, close to the south side thereof,
the theatre took fire, and the wind suddenly dispersed the flame round
about, and in a very short space the whole building was quite consumed
and no man hurt; the house being filled with people to behold the
play, namely, of 'Henry VIII.;' and the next spring it was new builded
in a far fairer manner than before."
The paucity of Shakespeare's stage armies has sometimes found its
reflex in the limited means of country theatres of more modern date.
The ambition of strolling managers is apt to be far in advance of
their appliances; they are rarely stayed by the difficulties of
representation, or troubled with doubts as to the adequacy of their
troupe, in the words of a famous commander, to "go anywhere and do
anything." We have heard of a provincial Rolla who at the last moment
discovered that the army, wherewith he proposed to repulse the forces
of Pizarro, consisted of one supernumerary only.
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