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Mayne, and alluding to his Volpone or the Fox, acted in 1605, it is allowable to infer, that the prices of admission were, on the first representation of a new play, doubled, and even sometimes trebled. *

There is every reason to suppose, that while Shakspeare wrote for the stage, the Number of Plays performed in One Day, seldom, if ever, exceeded one tragedy, comedy, or history, and that the entertainment was varied and protracted, either by the extempore humour and tricks of the Clown after the play was over, or by singing, dancing, or ludicrous recitation, between the acts.

The house appears to have been pretty well supplied with Lights ; the stage being illuminated by two large branches; the body of the house by cresset lights, formed of ropes wreathed and pitched, and placed in open iron lanterns, and these were occasionally assisted by the interspersion of wax tapers among the boxes.

The Amusements of the Audience before the Play commenced seem to have been amply supplied by themselves, the only recreation provided by the theatre, during this tedious interval, being the music of the band, which struck up thrice, playing three flourishes, or, as they were then called, three soundings, before the performance began; but these were of course short, being principally intended as announcements, similar to those which we now receive from the prompter's bell. To kill time, therefore, reading and playing cards were the resources of the genteeler part of the audience : "Before the play begins," says Decker to his gallant, "fall to cards; you may lose, as fencers do in a prize, and beat one another by confederacy, yet share the money when you meet at supper: notwithstanding, to gull the ragamuffins that stand aloof gaping at you, throw the cards, having first torn four or five of them, round about the stage, just upon the third sound, as though you had lost.” †

win or

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Of the less refined amusements of these gaping ragamuffins, "the youths that thunder at a play-house, and fight for bitter apples *," we find numerous traces in Decker, Jonson, and their contemporaries, which enable us to assert, that they chiefly consisted in smoking tobacco, drinking ale, cracking nuts, and eating fruit, which were regularly supplied by men attending in the theatre, and whose vociferation and clamour, or, as a writer of that time expresses it, "to be made adder-deaf with pippin-cry †," were justly considered as grievous nuisances; more especially the use of tobacco, which must have been intolerable to those unaccustomed to its odour, and, indeed, occasionally drew forth the execration of individuals: thus in a work entitled, "Dyets Dry Dinner," we find the author commencing an epigram on the wanton and excessive use of tobacco, in the following

terms:

-

"It chaunc'd me gazing at the Theater,
To spie a Dock-Tabacco-Chevalier,
Clouding the loathing ayr with foggie fume
Of Dock-Tabacco;

I wisht the Roman lawes severity:

Who smoke selleth, with smoke be done to dy." +

The most rational of the amusements which occupied the impatient audience, was certainly that of reading, and this appears to have been supplied by a custom of hawking about new publications at the

Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 205. Henry VIII. act v. sc. 3. + Notes from Black-fryers, by H. Fitz-Jeoffery, 1617.

"Dyets Dry Dinner: consisting of eight several courses. 1. Fruites. 2. Hearbes. 3. Flesh. 4. Fish. 5. Whitmeats. 6. Spice. 7. Sauce. 8. Tabacco. All served in after the order of time universall. By Henry Buttes, Maister of Artes, and Fellowe of

C. C. C. in C.

Qui miscuit utile dulci.
Cicero.

Non nobis solum nati sumus, sed

Ortus nostri sibi vendicant.

Printed in London by Tho. Creede, for William Wood, and are to be sold at the West end of Powles, at the signe of Tyme, 1599." Small 8vo.

theatre; at least this may be inferred from the opening of an address to the public, prefixed by William Fennor, to a production of his, entitled " Descriptions," and published in 1616. " To the Gentlemen readers, worthy gentlemen, of what degree soever, I suppose this pamphlet will hap into your hands, before a play begin, with the importunate clamour of BUY A NEW BOOKE, by some needy companion, that will be glad to furnish you with worke for a turn'd teaster." *

As soon as the third sounding had finished, it was usual for the person whose province it was to speak the Prologue, immediately to enter. As a diffident and supplicatory manner were thought essential to this character, who is termed by Decker, "the quaking Prologue," it was the custom to clothe him in a long black velvet cloak, to which Shirley adds, a little beard, a starch'd face, and a supple leg.†

On withdrawing the curtain, the stage was generally found strewed with rushes, which, in Shakspeare's time, as hath been remarked in our first volume, formed the common covering of floors, from the palace to the cottage; but, on very splendid occasions, it was matted entirely over; thus, Sir Henry Wotton, in a letter which describes the conflagration of the Globe Theatre, in 1613, says, that on the night of the accident, "the King's Players had a new play, called All is true, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage." S

* "Fennors Descriptions, or a true relation of certaine and divers speeches, spoken before the King and Queene's most excellent Majestic, the Prince his highnesse, and the Lady Elizabeth's Grace. By William Fennor, his Majestie's Servant. London, Printed by Edvard Griffin, for George Gibbs, and are to bee sold at his shop in Paul's Churchyard, at the signe of the Flower-De-luce, 1616." 4to.

+ Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 120. note. Vide Decker's Gull's Horn-book, reprint, p. 135. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 68. note.

The performance of tragedy appears to have been attended with some peculiar preparations; one of which was hanging the stage with black, a practice which dwelt on Shakspeare's recollection when, in writing his Rape of Lucrece, he speaks of

"Black stage for tragedies, and murthers fell;" *

and is put out of dispute by a passage in the Induction to an anonymous tragedy, entitled, A Warning for fair Women, 1599, where History, addressing Comedy, says :

"Look, Comedie, I mark'd it not till now,
The stage is hung with blacke, and I perceive
The auditors prepar'd for tragedie:"

to which Comedy replies :

"Nay then, I see she shall be entertain❜d;

These ornaments beseem not thee and me." +

If the decorations of the stage itself could boast but little splendour, the wardrobe, even of The Globe and Blackfriars, could not be supposed either richly or amply furnished; in fact, even Jonson, in 1625, nine years after Shakspeare's death, betrays the poverty of the stage-dresses, when he exclaims in the Induction to his Staple of News, "O curiosity, you come to see who wears the new suit to-day; whose clothes are best pen'd, &c.—what king plays without cuffs, and his queen without gloves: who rides post in stockings, and dances in boots." It is evident, therefore, that the dramas of our great poet could derive little attraction from magnificence of attire, though it

* Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 517.-" The hanging however was," remarks the editor, "I suppose, no more than one piece of black baize placed at the back of the stage, in the room of the tapestry which was the common decoration when comedies were acted."

+ Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 111. note.

+ Whalley's Works of Ben Jonson; Prologue in Induction.

appears, from a passage in Jonson, that not only was there a prompter, or book-holder, but likewise a property, or tire-man, belonging to each theatre, in 1601.* Periwigs, which came into fashion about 1596, were often worn on the stage by male characters, whence Hamlet is represented calling a ranting player, "a robustious periwig-pated fellow †;" masks or vizards were also sometimes used by those who personated female characters; thus Quince tells Flute, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, on his objecting to perform a woman's part, that he "shall play it in a mask." ‡

Female characters indeed, were on the old English stage, as they had been on the Grecian and Roman, always personated by men or boys, a practice which continued with us until near the period of the Restoration. Italy and France long preceded us in the introduction of women on the theatric boards; for Coryate writing from Venice in 1608, and describing one of the theatres of that city, says, "the house is very beggarly and base, in comparison of our stately playhouses in England ;" and he then adds, what must give us a wretched idea of the state of the stage at that time in Italy, "neither can their actors compare with us for apparell, shewes, and musicke. Here," he continues, "I observed certaine things that I never saw before; for I saw women act, a thing that I never saw before." §

The mode of expressing dislike of, or censuring a play, was as decided in the days of Shakspeare as in the present age, and sometimes effected by the same means. Decker gives us two methods of expressing disapprobation; one, by leaving the house with as many your train as you can collect, the other, by staying, in order to interrupt the performance: you shall disgrace him (the poet) worse," he observes, “than by tossing him in a blanket, or giving him the bastinado in a tavern, if, in the middle of his play, be it

in

66

* Whalley's Jonson; Cynthia's Revels, Induction.
+ Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 181. Act iii. sc. 2.
Ibid. vol. iv. p. 338. Act i. sc. 2.

§ Coryate's Crudities, 4to. 1611, p. 247.

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