erformed, the Queen should yet
endeavour to preserve sacred melody in a high state of perfection;
since, according to Burney, she was herself greatly skilled in musical
learning. "If her Majesty," says that eminent author, "was ever able
to execute any of the pieces that are preserved in a MS. which goes
under the name of Queen Elizabeth's Virginal-book, she must have been
a very great player, as some of the pieces which were composed by
Tallis, Bird, Giles, Farnaby, Dr. Bull, and others, are so difficult
that it would be hardly possible to find a master in Europe who would
undertake to play any of them at the end of a month's practice."[56]
But the children of the chapel were also employed in the theatrical
exhibitions represented at Court, for which their musical education
had peculiarly qualified them. Richard Edwards, an eminent poet and
musician of the sixteenth century, had written two comedies; Damon and
Pythias, and Palemon and Arcite, which, according to Wood, were often
acted before the Queen, both at Court and at Oxford.

[Illustration: THE ACTING OF ONE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS IN THE TIME OF
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
(_By permission, from Messrs Cassell & Co's "Illustrated History of
England_")]

With the latter of these Queen Elizabeth was so much delighted that
she promised Edwards a reward, which she subsequently gave him by
making him first Gentleman of her Chapel, and in 1561 Master of the
Children on the death of Richard Bowyer. As the Queen was particularly
attached to dramatic entertainments, about 1569 she formed the
children of the Royal Chapel into a company of theatrical performers,
and placed them under the superintendence of Edwards. Not long after
she formed a second society of players under the title of the
"Children of the Revels," and by these two companies all Lyly's plays,
and many of Shakespeare's and Jonson's, were first performed. Jonson
has celebrated one of the chapel children, named Salathiel Pavy, who
was famous for his performance of old men, but who died about 1601,
under the age of thirteen. In his beautiful epitaph of Pavy, Jonson
says:--

"'Twas a child that did so thrive
In grace and feature,
As heaven and nature seem'd to strive
Which own'd the creature.
Years he number'd scarce thirteen
When fates turn'd cruel,
Yet three fill'd Zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;
And did act, what now we moan.
Old men so duly,
That the Parcoe thought him on