Fortune by Land and Sea Author:Thomas Heywood Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PHILIP HENSLOW. (under Whose Management Thomas Heywood Acted And Wrote Plays.) Philip Henslow was one of those persons who, dull in themselves, do the grea... more »test service to literature by jotting down trifling details of the life going on about them, thus giving us in a few words a vivid picture of the men and manners of the time. He began life as servant or clerk to the bailiff of Viscount Montague, having charge of the Viscount's town house in Southwark, a parliamentary borough of London situated on the southern bank of the Thames. Henslow's diary tells us that he loaned money to actors or advanced it upon their plays. He also bought the manuscripts of dramas, paying sums like eight and ten pounds for a play. This investment of his savings while bailiff's clerk must have proved a successful venture for Henslow, as at that time the drama was in the height of popularity, patronized by Royalty, whose seal of approval set the fashion of the day. At all events, we read that Henslow " gradually made money and bought property." He owned several inns, one of which, the Boar's Head tavern, was made famous by Shakspeare as the scene of Falstaff's carousals. In 1585, Henslow bought land at Bankside, a small district lying on the south side of the Thames between Blackfriars and Waterloo bridges. Bankside belonged to the manor of Southwark and, not being included in the grant to the City, it virtually enjoyed the privilege of asylum like Blackfriars, its neighbor on the opposite side of the river. Players had been expelled from the city limits, but the Sheriff could not touch them here. In this quaint old quarter, under the shadow of the church of St. Mary Avaries, and not far from the grim walls of the Clink prison, wise Philip Henslow built in 1592 the " Rose Theatre." It is an inter...« less