Giles supplemented
the Children of the Chapel proper with actors. In a short time they
brought together at Blackfriars a remarkable troupe of boy-players,
who, with Jonson and Chapman as their poets, began to astonish London.
For, in spite of certain limitations, "the children" could act with a
charm and a grace that often made them more attractive than their
grown-up rivals. Middleton advises the London gallant "to call in at
the Blackfriars, where he should see a nest of boys able to ravish a
man."[321] Jonson gives eloquent testimony to the power of little
Salathiel Pavy to portray the character of old age:

Years he numbered scarce thirteen
When Fates turned cruel,
Yet three filled zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;
And did act, what now we moan,
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one,
He played so truly.[322]

[Footnote 321: _Father Hubbard's Tales_ (ed. Bullen, VIII, 77).]

[Footnote 322: Jonson, _Epigrams_, CXX, _An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy,
a Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel_.]

And Samuel Pepys records the effectiveness of a child-actor in the
role of women: "One Kinaston, a boy, acted the Duke's sister, but made
the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life."[323]

[Footnote 323: _Diary_, August 18, 1660.]

Moreover, to expert acting these Boys of the Chapel Royal added the
charms of vocal and instrumental music, for which many of them had
been specially trained. The Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, who upon his
grand tour of the European countries in 1602 attended a play at
Blackfriars, bears eloquent testimony to the musical powers of the
children: "For a whole hour before the play begins, one listens to
charming [_koestliche_] instrumental music played on organs, lutes,
pandorins, mandolins, violins, and flutes; as, indeed, on this
occasion, a boy sang _cum voce tremula_ to the accompaniment of a
bass-viol, so delightfully [_lieblich_] that, if the Nuns at Milan did
not excel him, we had not heard his equal in our travels."[324] In
addition, the Children were provided with splendid apparel--though not
at the cost of the Queen, as Mr. Wallace contends.[325] Naturally they
became popular. On January 6, 1601, they were summoned to Court to
entertain Her Majesty--the first recorded performance of the Children
of the Chapel at Court since the year 1584, when Sir William More
closed the first Blackfriars.

[Footnote 324: _The Diary of th