1672 Book Illustration of Red Bull Playhouse

(Original Caption) The Red Bull Playhouse stood on a plot of ground lately called 'Red Bull Yard' near the upper end of St John's St, Clerkenwell and is traditionally said to have been the theatre at which Shakespeare first held 'Gentlemen's Horses'. In the civil wars it became highly celebrated for the representation of Drolls, to a collection of which pieces published by Francis Kirkman in 1672, this view of it form a frontpiece. The figures brought together on stage, are intended as portraits of leading actors in each Droll. The one playing Simpleton, is Robert Cox, then a great favourite, of whom the publisher thus speaks in his preface. 'I have seen the Red Bull Playhouse which was a large one, so full, that as many went back for want of room as had entered: Robert Cox, a principal actor and contriver of these pieces, how have I heard him cried up for his Johgn Swabber, and (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)