ftood to fee the exhibition; from which circumftance they are called by our author groundlings, and by Ben Jonson "the understanding gentlemen of the ground."

The galleries, or jcaffolds, as they are fometimes called, and that part of the house 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 fix-pence, while in some meaner play

and prefs as near to the fairest as they can." Plays Confuted in Five Jeveral Actions, by Stephen Goflon, 1580. Again, in Decker's Guls Hornebooke, 1609: The ftage, like time, will bring you to most 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 bas bis Pearl, 1614:

"We may be pelted off for what we know,

With apples, eggs, or ftones, from those below." See alfo the prologue to The Doubtful Heir, ante, p. 56: and what you most delight in,

"Grave underftanders,."

6 The pit, Dr. Percy fuppofes to have received its name from one of the playhoufes 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 playhouse to be applied to a church. A pit is a place low in its relative fituation, and fuch is the middle part of a theatre.

Shakspeare himself ufes cock-pit to exprefs a small confined fituation, 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?"

7 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 up 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."

So, in the induction to The Magnetick Lady, by Ben Jonson, 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.”

Sec

playhoufes it was only a penny, in others two-pence?. The price of admiffion into the best rooms or boxes',

was

See below, Verfes addreffed to Fletcher on his Faithful Shepherdess. That there were fixpenny places at the Blackfriars playhouse, appears 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:

"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 geoat, and crack nuts with the fcholars 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 may exceeding well used for bis Sixpence, no date :

be very merrie and

"Will you ftand fpending your invention's treasure "To teach stage-parrots fpeak for penny pleasure?" 9 Pay thy two-pence to a player, in this gallery you may fit by a harlot." Bell-mans Night-walk, by Decker, 1616.

Again, in the prologue to the Woman-bater, by Beaumont and Fletcher, 1607: "to the utter difcomature 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 playhouse: "One of them is Nip; I took him once at the two-penny gallery at the Fortune." See alfo above, p. 55, n. 5.

The boxes in the theatre at Blackfriars were probably fmall, and appear to have been enclosed 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

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

He

was, I believe, in our author's time, a fhilling; though afterwards it appears to have rifen to two fhillings3, and half a crown 4. At the Blackfriars theatre the price of the boxes was, I imagine, higher than at the Globe. From

He feems to be here defcribing his antagonist B. Jonfon, whofe plays were generally performed to a thin audience. See Verfes on our author, by Leonard Digges, Vol. I. Part I. p. 213.

2 If he have but twelvepence in his purfe, he will give it for the beft room in a playhouse.” Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, 1614So, in the prologue to our author's King Henry VIII:

66

Thofe that come to fee

"Only a fhew or two, and fo agree

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

"In two fhort hours."

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

Reader, if you have disburs'd a filling

"To fee this worthy ftory,-.”

Again, in the Guls Hornebooke, 1609: "At a new play you také 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 fcenes 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.

3 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 Mayne'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 speak not ill o' the poet, doubt

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

4 See Wit without Money, a comedy, acted at The Phoenix in Drurylane before 1620:

露

"And who extoll'd you into the balf-crown boxes,
"Where you might fit and mufter all the beauties."

In

From feveral paffages in our old plays we learn, that fpectators were admitted on the ftages, and that the criticks and wits of the time ufually fat there". Some were placed on the ground'; others fat on tools, of which the price was either fixpence 3, or a fhilling, according,

In the play-houfe called the Hope on the Bankfide, different-priced feats, from fixpence to half a crown. tion to Bartholomew Fair, by Ben Jonfon, 1614.

there were five

See the induc

5 So, in A Mad World by Mafters, by Middleton, 1608: « The actors have been found in a morning in lefs compafs than their ftage, though it were ne'er fo full of gentlemen." See alfo p. 64, n. 3. 6. " -to fair attire the flage

"Helps much; for if our other audience fee
"You on the flage depart, before we end,

"Our wits go with you all, and we are fools."

Prologue to All Fools, a comedy, acted at Blackfriars, 1605. "By fitting on the ftage, 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 steer the paffage of fcenes." Guls Hornebooke, 1609.

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

7" Being on your feet, fneake not away like a coward, but falute all your gentle acquaintance that are spred either on the rushes or on ftooles about you; and draw what troope you can from the stage 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 masques.”

From a paffage in King Henry IV. P. I. it may be prefumed that this was no uncommon practice in private affemblies alfo :

"She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down,

"And reft your gentle head upon her lap,

"And he will fing the fong that pleafeth you."

This accounts for Hamlet's fitting on the ground at Ophelia's feet, during the representation of the play before the king and court of Denmark. Our author has only placed the young prince in the same fituation in which probably his patrons Effex and Southampton were often feen at the feet of fome celebrated beauty. What fome chofe from economy, gallantry might have recommended to others.

8" By fitting on the ftage, you may with fmall coft purchase the

deere

cording, I fuppofe, to the commodiousness of the fituation. And they were attended by pages, who furnished them with pipes and tobacco, which was fmoked here as well as in other parts of the house'. Yet it should feem that perfons were fuffered to fit on the ftage only in the private playhouses, (fuch as Blackfriars, &c.) where the audience was more felect, and of a higher class; and that in the Globe and the other publick theatres, no fuch licence was permitted 2.

The

deere acquaintance of the boyes, have a good fool for fixpence‚—‚” Guls Hornebooke.

Again, ibidem: Prefent not your felfe on the stage, (especially at a new play,) untill the quaking prologue-is ready to enter; for them it is time, as though you were one of the properties, or that you dropt of [i. e. off] the hangings, to creep from behind the arras, with your tripos, or three-legged ftoole, in one hand, and a teflon mounted between a fore-finger and a thumbe, in the other."

9 Thefe are moft worne and moft in fashion

"Amongst the bever gallants, the stone-riders,

"The private fiage's audience, the twelvepenny-foole gentlemen." The Roaring Girl, a comedy by Middleton and Decker, 1611. So, in the Induction to Marston's Malcontent, 1604: "By God's flid if you had, I would have given you but fixpence for your stool." This therefore was the lowest rate; and the price of the most commos dious ftools on the stage was a filling.

"When young Rogero goes to fee a play,

"His pleasure is, you place bim on the frage,
"The better to demonftrate his array,
"And how he fits attended by bis page,

"That only ferves to fill thofe pipes with smoke,

"For which he pawned hath his riding-cloak."

Springes for Woodcocks, by Henry Parrot, 1613.

Again, in Skialetheia, a collection of Epigrams and Satires, 1598: "See you him yonder who fits o'er the stage,

"With the tobacco-pipe now at his mouth ?"

This, however, was accounted "a custom more honoured in the breach than the obfervance;" as appears from a fatirical epigram by Sir John Davies, 1598:

"Who dares affirm that Sylla dares not fight?

"He that dares take tobacco on the ftage;

"Dares man a whoore at noon-day through the street;
"Dares dance in Pauls;" &c.

See the induction to Marston's Malecontent, 1604, which was act ed by his majesty's fervants at Blackfriars:

« Tyreman¡