"tobacco, wine, and beer5," were in those days the usual accommodations in the theatre.

With regard to the players themselves, the several companies were (as hath been already shown6) retainers, or menial servants to particular noblemen?, who protected them in the exercise of their profession: and many of them were occasionally strollers, that travelled from one gentleman's house to another. Yet so much were they encouraged, that notwithstanding their multitude, some of them acquired large fortunes. Edward Allen, master of the play-house

Ludgate-hill, which are not among the seventeen enumerated in the Preface to Dodsley's Old Plays. Nay, it appears from Rymer's MSS. that twenty-three Play-houses had been at different periods open in London; and even six of them at one time. See Malone's Shakspeare, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 48.

5 So, I think we may infer from the following passage, viz. "How many are there, who, according to their several qualities, spend 2d. 3d. 4d. 6d. 12d. 18d. 2s. and sometimes 4s. or 5s. at a play-house, day by day, if coachhire, boat-hire, tobacco, wine, beere, and such like vaine expenses, which playes doe usually occasion, be cast into the reckoning?"-Prynne's Histriomastix, p. 322.

But that tobacco was smoked in the play-houses, appears from Taylor the Water-poet, in his Proclamation for Tobacco's Propagation. "Let Playhouses, drinking-schools, taverns, &c. be continually haunted with the contaminous vapours of it; nay (if it be possible), bring it into the CHURCHES, and there choak up their preachers." (Works, p. 253.) And this was really the case at Cambridge: James I. sent a letter in 1607, against "taking tobacco" in St. Mary's. So I learn from my friend Mr. Farmer.

A gentleman has informed me, that once going into a church in Holland, he saw the male part of the audience sitting with their hats on, smoking tobacco, while the preacher was holding forth in his morning-gown.

6 See the extracts above in p. 112, from the E. of Northumb. HousholdBook.

7 See the Preface to Dodsley's Old Plays. The author of an old invective against the Stage, called A third Blast of Retrait from Plaies, &c. 1580, 12mo. Bays, "Alas! that private affection should so raigne in the nobilitie, that to pleasure their servants, and to upholde them in their vanitye, they should restraine the magistrates from executing their office!... They [the nobility] are thought to be covetous by permitting their servants..... to live at the devotion or almes of other men, passing from countrie to countrie, from one gentleman's house to another, offering their service, which is a kind of beggerie. Who indeede, to speake more trulie, are become beggers for their servants. For commonlie the good-wil men beare to their Lordes, makes them draw the stringes of their purses to extend their liberalitie." Vide p. 75, 76, &c.

called the Globe, who founded Dulwich college, is a known instance. And an old writer speaks of the very inferior actors, whom he calls the Hirelings, as living in a degree of splendour, which was thought enormous in that frugal age 8.

At the same time the ancient prices of admission were often very low. Some houses had penny-benches 9. The "two-penny gallery" is mentioned in the prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Woman-Hater 10. And seats of threepence and a groat seem to be intended in the passage of Prynne above referred to. Yet different houses varied in their prices: that play-house called the HOPE had seats of

8 Stephen Gosson in his Schoole of Abuse, 1579, 12mo. fol. 23, says thus of what he terms in his margin Players-men: "Over lashing in apparel is so common a fault, that the very hyerlings of some of our players, which stand at revirsion of vi s. by the week, jet under gentlemen's noses in sutis of silke, exercising themselves to prating on the stage, and common scoffing when they come abrode, where they look askance over the shoulder at every man of whom the Sunday before they begged an almes. I speake not this, as though everye one that professeth the qualitie so abused himselfe, for it is well knowen, that some of them are sober, discreete, properly learned, honest housholders and citizens, well-thought on among their neighbours at home," [he seems to mean Edward Allen above mentioned,] "though the pryde of their shadowes (I mean those hangbyes, whom they succour with stipend) cause them to be somewhat il-talked of abroad."

In a subsequent period we have the following satirical fling at the showy exterior and supposed profits of the actors of that time. Vide Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, 1625, 4to.

....

"What is your profession?"-"Truly, Sir, I am a Player." "A Player?... I took you rather for a Gentleman of great living; for if by outward habit men should be censured, I tell you, you would be taken for a substantial man.' 99 "So I am where I dwell.... What, though the world once went hard with me, when I was fayne to carry my playing-fardle a foot-backe: Tempora Mutantur.... for my very share in playing apparell will not be sold for two hundred Pounds Nay more, I can serve to make a pretty speech, for I was a country author, passing at a Moral," &c. See Roberto's Tale, Sign. D. 3. b.

....

9 So a MS. of Oldys, from Tom Nash, an old pamphlet-writer. And this is confirmed by Taylor the Water-poet, in his Praise of Beggerie, (p. 99,) "Yet have I seen a begger with his many, [sc. vermin]

Come at a Play-house, all in for one penny.'

10 So in the Belman's Night-walks by Decker, 1616, 4to. "Pay thy twopence to a Player, in this gallery thou mayest sit by a harlot."

five several rates, from six-pence to half-a-crown1. But the general price of what is now called the Pit, seems to have been a shilling2.

The day originally set apart for theatrical exhibition appears to have been Sunday; probably because the first dramatic pieces were of a religious cast. During a great part of Queen Elizabeth's reign the play-houses were only licensed to be opened on that day 3. But before the end of her reign, or soon after, this abuse was probably removed.

The usual time of acting was early in the afternoon 4, plays being generally performed by day-light5. All female

1 Induct. to Ben. Jonson's Bartholomew-fair: an ancient satirical piece, called The Blacke Booke, Lond. 1604, 4to., talks of "the six-penny roomes in Play-houses," and leaves a legacy to one whom he calls "Arch-tobaccotaker of England, in ordinaries, upon stages both common and private."

2 Shaksp. Prol. to Hen. VIII.—Beaum. and Fletch. Prol. to the Captain, and to the Mad-lover. The pit probably had its name from one of the playhouses having been a cock-pit.

3 So Ste. Gosson, in his Schoole of Abuse, 1579, 12mo, speaking of the Players, says, "These, because they are allowed to play every Sunday, make iiii or v Sundayes at least every week," fol. 24. So the Author of A Second and Third Blast of Retrait from Plaies, 1580, 12mo. "Let the magistrate but repel them from the libertie of plaieng on the Sabboth-daie To plaie on the Sabboth is but a priviledge of sufferance, and might with ease be repelled, were it thoroughly followed." p. 61, 62. So again, "Is not the Sabboth of al other daies the most abused? Wherefore abuse not so the Sabboth-daie, my brethren; leave not the temple of the Lord.".... "Those unsaverie morsels of unseemelie sentences passing out of the mouth of a ruffenlie plaier, doth more content the hungrie humors of the rude multitude, and carrieth better rellish in their mouthes, than the bread of the worde," &c. Vide pp. 63, 65, 69, &c. I do not recollect that exclamations of this kind occur in Prynne, whence I conclude that this enormity no longer subsisted in his time.

...

It should also seem, from the author of the Third Blast above quoted, that the churches still continued to be used occasionally for theatres. Thus, in p. 77, he says, that the Players, (who, as hath been observed, were servants of the nobility,) "under the title of their maisters, or as reteiners, are priviledged to roave abroad, and permitted to publish their mametree in everie temple of God, and that throughout England, unto the horrible contempt of praier."

4 "He entertaines us (says Overbury in his Character of an Actor) in the best leisure of our life, that is, betweene meales; the most unfit time either for study, or bodily exercise." Even so late as in the reign of Charles II., plays generally began at three in the afternoon.

5 See Biogr. Brit. i. 117. n. D.

1

parts were performed by men, no English actress being ever seen on the public stage6 before the civil wars.

Lastly, with regard to the play-house furniture and ornaments, a writer of King Charles the Second's time?, who well remembered the preceding age, assures us, that in general "they had no other scenes nor decorations of the stage, but only old tapestry, and the stage strewed with rushes, with habits accordingly 8." Yet Coryate thought our theatrical exhibitions, &c. splendid, when compared with what he saw abroad. Speaking of the Theatre for Comedies at Venice, he says, "The house is very beggarly and base in comparison of our stately play-houses in England: neyther can their actors compare with ours for apparrell, shewes, and musicke. Here I observed certaine things that I never saw before; for, I saw WOMEN ACT, a thing that I never saw before, though I have heard that it hath been sometimes used in London: and they performed it with as good a grace, action, gesture, and whatsoever convenient for a player, as ever I saw any masculine actor 9."

....

6 I say "no English actress on the public stage," because Prynne speaks of it as an unusual enormity, that "they had Frenchwomen actors in a play not long since personated in Blackfriars Play-house." This was in 1629, vid. p. 215. And though female parts were performed by men or boys on the public stage, yet in Masques at court, the queen and her ladies made no scruple to perform the principal parts, especially in the reigns of James I. and Charles I.

Sir William Davenant, after the Restoration, introduced women, scenery, and higher prices. See Cibber's Apology for his own Life.

7 See a short discourse on the English Stage subjoined to Flecknor's Loves Kingdom, 1674, 12mo.

8 It appears from an Epigram of Taylor the Water-poet, that one of the principal theatres in his time, viz. the Globe, on the Bankside, Southwark, (which Ben Jonson calls the "Glory of the Bank, and Fort of the whole Parish,") had been covered with thatch till it was burnt down in 1613. (See Taylor's Sculler, Epig. 22, p. 31. Jonson's Execration on Vulcan.)

Puttenham tells us they used vizards in his time, "partly to supply the want of players, when there were more parts than there were persons, or that it was not thought meet to trouble.... princes chambers with too many folkes." [Art of Eng. Poes. 1589, p. 26.] From the last clause it should seem that they were chiefly used at the Masques at court.

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

It ought, however, to be observed, that amid such a multitude of play-houses as subsisted in the metropolis before the civil wars, there must have been a great difference between their several accommodations, ornaments, and prices: and that some would be much more showy than others, though probably all were much inferior in splendour to the two great theatres after the Restoration.

***The preceding Essay, although some of the materials are new arranged, hath received no alteration deserving notice, from what it was in the second edition, 1767, except in Sect. IV., which, in the present impression, hath been much enlarged.

This is mentioned, because, since it was first published, the History of the English Stage hath been copiously handled by Mr. Thomas Warton in his "History of English Poetry, 1774," &c., 3 vols. 4to. (wherein is inserted whatever in these volumes fell in with his subject); and by Edmond Malone, Esq., who, in his "Historical Account of the English Stage,' (Shaksp. vol. i. pt. ii. 1790.) hath added greatly to our knowledge of the economy and usages of our ancient theatres.

END OF THE ESSAY.