WILLIAM ECCLESTONE. There is little doubt that the family, from which William Ecclestone (or Egglestone) sprang, resided at an early date in Southwark the token-books inform us that a person of that name, perhaps the father of our actor, dwelt in 1583 " on the west side of the Bank :" in 1601 the same individual (his Christian name is given in neither instance) seems to have lived in Swan Alley, which was in the immediate vicinity of the Swan theatre. We have met with no entry of the birth of William Ecclestone, but he was probably married in 1603, as we find by the register of St. Saviour's : 1602, Feb. 20. Married, William Eglestone and Anne Jacob. If a family were the fruit of this union, we have no record of it in the parishes, the registers of which we have examined. with a view to the discovery of such particulars.1 When first we hear of William Ecclestone, in connexion with the stage, he was a member of the association to which Shakespeare still belonged, though he had ceased to act some years before the name of Ecclestone occurs in any list of the company. Ecclestone was one of the actors in Ben Jonson's 1 We noticed the baptisms of two William Ecclestones, but at too modern dates for our purpose, and the name of the father did not correspond: one at St. Mary, Aldermanbury: 66 Baptized, 26 Sept., 1612, William, the sonne of Robert Egleston." The other at St. Anne, Blackfriars :— "William Egglestone, sonne to Edward and Elizabeth, baptized 11 Feb., 1619." There were Ecclestones also in Shoreditch as early as 1578, when Jane Ecclestone was buried at St. Leonard's. "Alchemist," performed in 1610, and in the same author's Catiline," brought out in 1611. He had no part (at least his name is not given by the author) in "Every Man in his Humour," " Every Man out of his Humour," "Sejanus," or Volpone;" so that we may presume he became one of the King's players between 1605 and 1610: in "The Alchemist" and "Catiline" Will. Ecclestone comes last in the author's enumeration of "the principal comedians." 66 However unimportant might be the characters he sustained on those occasions, the appearance of Ecclestone's name among the actors in Catiline" establishes (a point with which Gifford could not be acquainted) that that tragedy was acted before 29th August, 1611; because at that date Ecclestone had quitted the King's company, and had joined the association called the players of Prince Henry, consisting of twelve principal performers or sharers, his name being inserted fourth in the document from which we derive our information. It is a bond entered into with Henslowe, by the actors in his pay, for the performance of certain articles under his management at the Fortune, and it is preserved among Alleyn's papers at Dulwich College. We learn from the same instrument, that Joseph Taylor had also at that date abandoned his quarters and his companions at the Globe and Blackfriars, and his name immediately precedes that of Ecclestone in the enumeration of the company Henslowe had formed: it may be worth while to repeat it here, that the reader may see who were the associates of Taylor and Ecclestone at this period. John Townsend. Will. Barksted. Joseph Taylor. William Ecclestone. Giles Cary. Thomas Hunt. John Rice. Thomas Basse. Joseph Moore. Alexander Foster. See a copy of it, with the names of all the players appended, in "The Memoirs of Edward Alleyn," p. 98. For what reasons Taylor and Ecclestone had consented, in the summer of 1611, to act with a rival company at the Fortune, we have no means of knowing: Taylor perhaps thought he had not room enough for the display of his powers in an association of which Burbadge was the leading member, and Ecclestone may have been dissatisfied with his inferior position, recollecting that his name comes last in Ben Jonson's two lists of the ten performers in his "Alchemist" and "Catiline." Neither of them continued long under the control of Henslowe (who, as we shall see presently, contrived to quarrel with his company), and we meet with their names as performers in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Honest Man's Fortune," which was brought out by the King's players in 1613. It is to be observed, however, that Burbadge had no part in this drama, the principal actors being Nathan Field, Robert Benfield, Emmanuel Read, Joseph Taylor, William Ecclestone, and Thomas Basse. Thomas Basse, therefore, was another actor who had forsaken Henslowe, and followed Taylor and Ecclestone, when they rejoined their old associates of the Globe and Blackfriars. Among "The Alleyn Papers" 2 is a curious document, originally derived from Dulwich College, but not now preserved there, relating to the dispute between Henslowe and the actors, whom he had collected in August, 1611. Hence it appears that, before Taylor quitted the Prince's players, he borrowed £30 of Henslowe, which the old manager ningly" placed in his account as a debit from the whole company on the other hand, Henslowe had obtained £14 from Ecclestone, which, it is charged, he had never brought to the credit of the association. The date of February, 1614-15, is 66 cun 1 In 1624 Sir Henry Herbert called it "an old play," and a MS. of it was in the library of Mr. Heber, thus entitled "The Honest Man's Fortune. Plaide in the yeare 1613." given in this paper, so that it refers to a period two years after Taylor and Ecclestone had ceased to perform at the Fortune. Ecclestone remained one of his Majesty's servants in 1619, because his name is included in the confirmation then granted by James I. of his patent of 1603. He was either dead, had retired from the stage, or had joined some other company in 1625; for when Charles I. renewed the patent of his father, Ecclestone's name is not to be found in it.' If he were dead, we are without any record of his burial: if he had retired from the stage, we have no notice of the fact; and if he had joined some other company, we do not meet with his name anywhere as a member of it. Had he continued one of the King's players in 1625, he could hardly have been omitted in the patent of Charles I. 66 "The The latest date at which he can be traced on the stage is about 1622, for he was a performer in some of Fletcher's plays, brought out at that period. His name is inserted in the lists, under the dramatis persona of "The Little French Lawyer," "The Custom of the Country,' Bonduca," "The Laws of Candy," "The Loyal Subject," "The Mad Lover," Humorous Lieutenant," "Women Pleased," "The Island Princess," "The Sea Voyage," "The Spanish Curate," &c. Some of these were produced, as we have said, in 1622; but if William Ecclestone were the author of the lines subscribed W. E., before Taylor and Lowin's edition of "The Wild Goose Chase" in 1652, he must have lived to an advanced time of life: supposing him to have been married in 1603, according to the register at St. Saviour's, he could scarcely have been less than seventy in 1652. No will by any William Ecclestone of that period has been discovered. "History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage," ii., 2. JOSEPH TAYLOR. Among the baptisms at St. Andrew's in the Wardrobe, close by the Blackfriars theatre, we meet with that of a Joseph Taylor, which, from the correspondence of dates, we may very reasonably consider the registration of our actor. It runs thus, without any mention of parents, or place of residence : Joseph Taylor, baptized 6 Feb., 1585. In no other register have we seen the baptism of a Joseph Taylor, that in point of date would so well answer our purpose, and in the course of the following memoir we shall assume that our quotation applies to the subject of it. We shall see pre 1 Joseph Taylor, the actor, is not to be confounded with John Taylor, the water-poet, who was much concerned with players, and whose initials being the same as those of Joseph Taylor, may occasion mistakes in the old parish records. John Taylor at one time lived in Southwark, and he is now and then spoken of as J. Taylor, but the actor is uniformly called Joseph Taylor. We may here introduce an epitaph upon John Taylor, which has never been reprinted, that we recollect, and which corrects Anthony Wood's conjecture (Ath., Oxon., iii., 765, edit. Bliss), as to the birth and death of the water-poet. It is from a work called "Sportive Wit: the Muses Merriment." 8vo., 1656. "An Epitaph on John Taylor, who was born in the City of Glocester, died in Phoenix Alley in the 75 yeare of his age: you may finde him, if the worms have not devoured him, in Covent Garden churchyard: "Here lies John Taylor, without rime or reason, www |