others, by the said Thomas Greene
elected, _or by him hereafter to be built_."[489] Whether or no Greene
and his fellows had some understanding with Holland, we cannot say.
But in 1605 we find Holland disposing of one share in the new
playhouse to Thomas Swynnerton, a member of Queen Anne's Troupe; and
he may at the same time have disposed of other shares to other
members, for his transaction with Swynnerton comes to our notice only
through a subsequent lawsuit. The words used in the documents
connected with the suit clearly suggest that the playhouse was
completed at the time of the purchase. From the fact that Holland
granted "a seventh part of the said playhouse and galleries, with a
gatherer's place thereto belonging or appertaining, unto the said
Thomas Swynnerton for diverse years,"[490] it appears that the
ownership of the playhouse had been divided into seven shares, some of
which, according to custom, may have been subdivided into half-shares.

[Footnote 486: Sir Sidney Lee (_A Life of William Shakespeare_, p. 60)
says that the Red Bull was "built about 1600." He gives no evidence,
and the statement seems to be merely a repetition from earlier and
unauthoritative writers.]

[Footnote 487: The original warrant is preserved at Dulwich, and
printed by Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 61. Cf. also Dasent, _Acts of
the Privy Council_, XXXII, 511.]

[Footnote 488: _Raven's Almanack_ (1609); Dekker's _Works_ (ed.
Grosart), IV, 210.]

[Footnote 489: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 265.]

[Footnote 490: Wallace, _Three London Theatres_, p. 18.]

The name of the playhouse, as in the case of the Rose and the Curtain,
was taken from the name of the estate on which it was erected. Of the
building we have no pictorial representation; the picture in Kirkman's
_The Wits_ (1672), so often reproduced by scholars as "The Interior
of the Red Bull," has nothing whatever to do with that building. The
Kirkman picture shows a small enclosed room, with a narrow stage
illuminated by chandeliers and footlights; the Red Bull, on the
contrary, was a large, open-air building, with its stage illuminated
by the sun. It is thus described in Wright's _Historia Histrionica_
(1699): "The Globe, Fortune, and Bull were large houses, and lay
partly open to the weather."[491] Before its door was displayed a sign
on which was painted a red bull; hence the playhouse is sometimes
referred to simply as "at the sign of the Red Bull."

[Footnote