crown.

friars, apparently, sixpence more, and the price was subsequently raised even as high as half-aSuch were the ordinary terms of admission to the theatres; but on the first night of a new play the prices were doubled, and, occasionally, trebled. Dramatic poets were admitted gratis. Nine or ten pounds was the average, and double that sum a very extraordinary receipt at either the Globe or Blackfriars theatres.*

It was customary in the theatres denominated private, to admit that class of spectators who frequented the boxes, on the stage, where they were accommodated with stools, for which they paid, according to the comparative eligibility of their situation, either sixpence or a shilling. Here the fastidious critic was usually to be met with, the wit ambitious of distinction, and the gallant studious of the display of his apparel, or his person. Either seated, or else reclining on the rushes on the floor, they regaled themselves with the pipes and tobacco which their attendant pages furnished. The felicity of their situations excited envy, or their affectation and impertinence disgust, among the less polished part of

The Globe was much the largest theatre, but its prices being less, its receipts did not exceed those of the Blackfriars house.

the audience, who frequently vented their spleen in hissing, hooting, and throwing dirt at the intruders on the stage: it was the cue of these gallants to display their high breeding by an entire disregard of the proceedings of the illmannered rabble.

Numerous methods were devised to wile away the tedious hour previous to the commencement of the performance: books and cards, nuts and apples, bottled ale and pipes, were placed in requisition by the varying tastes of the motley assemblage. A band, composed of trumpets, cornets, hautboys, lutes, recorders, viols, and organs, attended in the theatre, and by flourishes or soundings, at short intervals, announced the near approach of the commencement of the en.. tertainment: the third sounding was the signal for the entrance of "the Prologue," invariably dressed in a long black velvet cloak: his humble demeanour, and supplicatory aspect and address, confessed the entire submission of the managers and actors to the public will. Only one dramatic piece was exhibited, but relief and variety were given to the entertainment by the feats of dancers, tumblers, and conjurers, and the introduction of music between the acts. To what further extent the orchestra was made use of is uncertain. Many old plays furnish instances of

"enter music with a song," without the preservation of the song itself, and we are left to conjecture whether the songs were characteristic, or popular airs adopted for the occasion. Perhaps the earliest regular vocal character was that of Valerius, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1608: emboldened by success, the author continually augmented the number of the songs. Sir William Davenant appears to have been the first introducer of operatic pieces.

In

If the magnitude of his preparation was justly indicative of the importance of his occupation, the business of the critic was momentous. aid of his natural acumen, he armed himself with a table-book, in which he maliciously noted down during the performance, passages for criticism; not forgetting, at the same time, to preserve such jests and crumbs of wit as would bear retailing in coffee-houses, and at the tables of the great, as appropriate opportunities occurred for their display. It was in vogue among these witlings to affect disgust at the performance by significant signs, and indecent indications of contempt:

"How monstrous and detested is't to see
A fellow that has neither art nor brain,
Sit like an Aristarchus, or stark ass,
Taking men's lines, with a tobacco face,
In snuff, still spitting, using his wry'd looks,

In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn

The good aspect of those that shall sit near him,
From what they do behold!"*

They commonly also laughed aloud in the most serious scene of a tragedy, or rose, and quitted the theatre in scorn. The boisterous manifestations of dislike, hisses, howls, whistles, and imitations of the mewing of a cat, were more effectual in the condemnation of a new play, which then, as now, had final sentence passed on it the first time of its performance.

An epilogue was a usual, but not an invariable, appendage to a play. Sometimes, as in several of Shakspeare's dramas, it was spoken by one of the performers, and adapted to the character he had personated. In representations at noblemen's houses, a prayer for the patron of the company, and at the public theatres, for the king and queen, closed the performance. The prayer was sometimes interwoven in the epilogue. The actors paid this ostentatious piece of flattery on their knees before the audience, whose edification was, doubtless, commensurate with the piety that dictated the action.

The transition of the drama from sacred to profane subjects effected a gradual change in the performers of theatrical pieces, as well as in

* Jonson's Every Man Out of his Humour.

As the clergy re

the place of performance. ceded from, the scholars and choir-boys advanced upon, the stage, and under the designation of "children" became, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, proficient and popular performers. Their establishments were regarded as important, for it is no less true than extraordinary, that the masters of the schools and chapels were not only authorised by patent to educate children as comedians, but empowered to take up, and retain by force, such children as they deemed suitable to their purpose.

The earliest mention of appears to be that of the " time of Edward the Fourth. had a company of players.

professional players City Actors," in the Henry the Seventh Henry the Eighth,

and his successors, Edward and Mary, granted licences to comedians for the performance of all kinds of stage plays; and during those reigns, and indeed until the time of James, it was a common practice of the nobility to retain a few comedians for their occasional private recreation. The badge and livery of the noblemen whose servants these players were, protected them from the penalties of Elizabeth's act for the suppression of vagrancy in their strollings through the country,and, when theatres were erected in the metropolis, the same signs of noble service were their protection.