till retained their old name, and are frequently called rooms, by our ancient writers. The yard bears a fufficient resemblance to the pit, as at prefent in use. We may suppose We may suppose the stage to have

been raised in this area, on the fourth fide, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for admiffion was taken. Thus, in fine weather, a playhouse not incommodious might have been formed.

Hence, in the middle of the Globe, and I suppose of the other publick theatres, in the time of Shakfpeare, there was an open yard or area, where the common people ftood to fee the exhibition; from which circumstance they are called by our author

7 See a prologue to If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, quoted in p. 183, n. 5. Thefe rooms appear to have been sometimes employed, in the infancy of the ftage, for the purposes of gallantry. "Thefe plays" (fays Strype in his additions to Stowe's Survey) "being commonly acted on fundays and feftivals, the churchest were forfaken, and the play-houfes thronged. Great inns were used for this purpose, which had fecret chambers and places as well as open ftages and galleries. Here maids and good citizens' children were inveigled and allured to private unmeet contracts." He is fpeaking of the year 1574.

8" In the play-houfes at London, it is the fashion of youthes to go firft into the yarde, and to carry their eye through every gallery; then like unto ravens, when they fpy the carion, thither they fye, and prefs as near to the faireft as they can." Plays confuted in Five Jeveral Actions, by Stephen Golon, 1580. Again, in Decker's Guls Hornebooke, 1609: "The ftage, like time, will bring you to moft perfect light, and lay you open; neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the fear-crowes in the yard hoot at you, hifs at you, fpit at you." So, in the prologue to an old comedy called The Hog has left his Pearl, 1614:

"We may be pelted off for what we know,

"With apples, eggs, or tones, from those below.” See alfo the prologue to The Doubtful Heir, ante, p. 178; and what you mott delight in,

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"Grave understanders,—.”

groundlings, and by Ben Jonfon "the understanding gentlemen of the ground."

The galleries, or fcaffolds, as they are fometimes. called, and that part of the houfe which in private theatres was named the pit," feem to have been at the fame price; and probably in houses of reputation, fuch as the Globe, and that in Blackfriars, the price of admiffion into those parts of the theatre was fixpence, while in fome meaner playhouses it

9 The pit Dr. Percy fuppofes to have received its name from one of the play-houfes having been formerly a cock-pit. This account of the term, however, feems to be fomewhat questionable. The place where the feats are ranged in St. Mary's at Cambridge, is ftill called the pit; and no one can fufpect that venerable fabrick of having ever been a cock-pit, or that the phrafe was borrowed from a playhoufe to be applied to a church. A pit is a place low in its relative situation, and fuch is the middle part of a theatre. Shakspeare himself uses cock-pit to exprefs a fmall confined fitua tion, without any particular reference:

Can this cock-pit hold

"The vafty fields of France, or may we cram,
"Within this wooden O, the very cafques
"That did affright the air at Agincourt?"

2 See an old collection of tales, entitled, Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 4to. 1595: "When the great man had read the actors letter, he prefently, in anfwere to it, took a fheet of paper, and folding fixpence in it, fealed it, fubfcribed it, and fent it to his brother; intimating thereby, that though his brother had vowed not in feven years to fee him, yet he for his fixpence could come and fee him upon the stage at his pleasure."

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So, in the Induction to The Magnetick Lady, by Ben Jonfon, which was first reprefented in October, 1632: Not the faces or grounds of your people, that fit in the oblique caves and wedges of your house, your finful fixpenny mechanicks.”

See below, Verfes addreffed to Fletcher on his Faithful Shepberdefs.

That there were fixpenny places at the Blackfriars playhouse, ap. pears from the epilogue to Mayne's City Match, which was acted at that theatre in 1637, being licenfed on the 17th of November, in that year:

was only a penny,' in others twopence. The price of admiffion into the best rooms or boxes,' was, I

"Not that he fears his name can fuffer wrack
"From them, who fixpence pay, and fixpence crack;
"To fuch he wrote not, though fome parts have been
"So like here, that they to themselves came in."

3 So, in Wit without Money, by Fletcher: "break in at plays like prentices for three a groat, and crack nuts with the scholars in penny rooms again."

Again, in Decker's Guls Hornebooke, 1609: "Your groundling and gallery commoner buys his fport by the penny." Again, in Humours Ordinarie, where a Man and exceeding well used for his Sixpence, no date:

may

be

very merrie

"Will you stand spending your invention's treasure "To teach stage-parrots fpeak for penny pleasure?" "Pay thy two-pence to a player, in this gallery you may fit by a harlot." Bell-man's Night-walk, by Decker, 1616. Again, in the prologue to The Woman-hater, by Beaumont and Fletcher, 1607: to the utter difcomfiture of all two-penny

gallery men.

"

It appears from a paffage in The Roaring Girl, a comedy by Middleton and Decker, 1611, that there was a two-penny gallery in the Fortune playhoufe: "One of them is Nip; I took him once at the two-penny gallery at the Fortune.." See also above, p. 177, n. 7.

5 The boxes in the theatre at Blackfriars were probably small, and appear to have been enclafed in the fame manner as at prefent. See a letter from Mr. Garrard, dated January 25, 1635, Straff. Letters, Vol. I. p. 511: "A little pique happened betwixt the duke of Lenox and the lord chamberlain, about a box at a new play in the Blackfriars, of which the duke had got the key; which if it had come to be debated betwixt them, as it was once intended, fome heat or perhaps other inconvenience might have happened."

In the Globe and the other publick theatres, the boxes were of confiderable fize. See the prologue to If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, by Decker, acted at the Red Bull:

Give me that man,

"Who, when the plague of an impofthum'd brains,
Breaking out, infects a theatre, and hotly reigns,
Killing the hearers' hearts, that the vaft rooms
"Stand empty, like fo many dead men's tombs,
"Can call the banish'd auditor home," &c.

He feems to be here defcribing his antagonist Ben Jonson, whofe plays were generally performed to a thin audience. See Verfes on our author, by Leonard Digges, Vol. II.

believe, in our author's time, a fhilling; though afterwards it appears to have rifen to two fhillings,' and half a crown. At the Blackfriars theatre the

8

6" If he have but twelvepence in his purfe, he will give it for the beft room in a playhouse." Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters 1614.

So, in the prologue to our author's King Henry VIII:

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Thofe that come to fee

Only a fhew or two, and fo agree

The play may pafs, if they be ftill and willing, "I'll undertake may fee away their billing

"In two fhort hours."

Again, in a copy of Verfes prefixed to Maffinger's Bondman, 1624:

Reader, if you have disburs'd a shilling

"To fce this worthy ftory,-.”

Again, in the Guls Hornebooke, 1609: "At a new play you take up the twelvepenny room next the stage, because the lords and you may feem to be hail fellow well met.'

So late as in the year 1658, we find the following advertisement at the end of a piece called The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, by Sir William D'Avenant: "Notwithstanding the great expence neceffary to scenes and other ornaments, in this entertainment, there is good provifion made of places for a filling, and it shall certainly begin at three in the afternoon."

In The Scornful Lady, which was acted by the children of the Revels at Blackfriars, and printed in 1616, one-and-fix-penny places are mentioned.

7 See the prologue to The Queen of Arragon, a tragedy by Habington, acted at Blackfriars in May, 1640:

"Ere we begin, that no man may repent

"Two fhillings and his time, the author fent
"The prologue, with the errors of his play,
"That who will may take his money, and away."

Again, in the epilogue to Maine's City Match, acted at Blackfriars, in November, 1637:

"To them who call't reproof, to make a face,

"Who think they judge, when they frown i'the wrong

place,

"Who, if they fpeake not ill o' the poet, doubt

They loose by the play, nor have their two shillings out, "He fays," &c.

See Wit without Money, a comedy, acted at The Phenix in Drury-lane before 1620:

price of the boxes was, I imagine, higher than at the Globe.

From feveral paffages in our old plays we learn, that fpectators were admitted on the ftage, and that the criticks and wits of the time ufually fat there. Some were placed on the ground; others

"And who extoll'd you into the half-crown boxes, "Where you might fit and mufter all the beauties." In the playhoufe called The Hope on the Bankfide, there were five different-priced feats, from fixpence to half a crown. See the induction to Bartholomew Fair, by Ben Jonfon, 1614.

9 So, in A mad World my Mafters, by Middleton, 1608: “The actors have been found in a morning in lefs compafs than their stage, though it were ne'er fo full of gentlemen." See alfo p. 187, n. 8. to fair attire the stage

2

Helps much; for if our other audience fee
"You on the ftage depart, before we end,
"Our wits with you all, and we are fools."

Prologue to All Fools, a comedy, acted at Blackfriars, 1605.

"By fitting on the stage, you have a fign'd patent to engroffe the whole commoditie of cenfure; may lawfully prefume to be a girder, and stand at the helm to fteer the paffage of fcenes." Guls Hornebaske, 1609.

See alfo the preface to the first folio edition of our author's works: "" And though you be a magiftrate of wit, and fit on the ftage at Blackfriars to arraigne plays dailie,-.

3 66 Being on your feet, fneake not away like a coward, but falute all your gentle acquaintance that are pred either on the rushes or on ftooles about you; and draw what troope you can from the ftage after you." Decker's Guls Hornebooke, 1609. So alfo, in Fletcher's Queen of Corinth:

I would not yet be pointed at as he is,
"For the fine courtier, the woman's man,
"That tells my lady ftories, diffolves riddles,
"Ufhers her to her coach, lies at her feet

"At folemn mafques.”

From a paffage in King Henry IV. Part I. it may be prefumed that this was no uncommon practice in private affemblies also: "She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down,

"And reft your gentle head upon her lap,

"And fhe will fing the fong that pleaseth you."

This accounts for Hamlet's fitting on the ground at Ophelia's feet, during the reprefentation of the play before the king and