xactly alike for form and bigness."
Since we know that Blackfriars and Salisbury Court were small
rectangular theatres, the former constructed in a hall forty-six feet
broad and sixty-six feet long, the latter erected on a plot of ground
forty-two feet broad and one hundred and forty feet long, we are not
left entirely ignorant of the shape and the approximate size of the
Cockpit.[583] And from Middleton's _Inner Temple Masque_ (1618) we
learn that it was constructed of brick. Its sign, presumably, was that
of a phoenix rising out of flames.

[Footnote 582: Hazlitt's Dodsley, XV, 408.]

[Footnote 583: Fleay and Lawrence are wrong in supposing that the
Cockpit was circular.]

[Illustration: THE SITE OF THE COCKPIT IN DRURY LANE

The site is marked by Cockpit Court. (From Rocque's _Map of London_,
1746.)]

The playhouse was erected and managed by Christopher Beeston,[584] one
of the most important actors and theatrical managers of the
Elizabethan period. We first hear of him as a member of Shakespeare's
troupe. In 1602 he joined Worcester's Company. In 1612 he became the
manager of Queen Anne's Company at the Red Bull. He is described at
that time as "a thriving man, and one that was of ability and
means."[585] He continued as manager of the Queen Anne's Men at the
Red Bull until 1617, when he transferred them to his new playhouse in
Drury Lane.

[Footnote 584: _Alias_ Christopher Hutchinson. Several actors of the
day employed _aliases_: Nicholas Wilkinson, _alias_ Tooley; Theophilus
Bourne, _alias_ Bird; James Dunstan, _alias_ Tunstall, etc. Whether
Beeston admitted other persons to a share in the building I cannot
learn. In a passage quoted by Malone (_Variorum_, III, 121) from the
Herbert Manuscript, dated February 20, 1635, there is a reference to
"housekeepers," indicating that Beeston had then admitted "sharers" in
the proprietorship of the building. And in an order of the Privy
Council, May 12, 1637 (The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 392), we
read: "Command the keepers of the playhouse called the Cockpit in
Drury Lane, who either live in it or have relation to it, not to
permit plays to be acted there till further order."]

[Footnote 585: Wallace, _Three London Theatres_, p. 35.]

The playhouse seems to have been ready to receive the players about
the end of February, 1617. We know that they were still performing at
the Red Bull as late as February 23;[586] but by March 4 they had
certainly moved to