which circumstance they are called by our author groundlings, and by Ben Jonson "the understanding gentlemen of the ground."

5

The galleries, or scaffolds, as they are sometimes called, and that part of the house which in private theatres was named the pit, seem to have been at the same price; and probably in houses of reputation, such as the Globe, and that in Blackfriars, the price of admission into those parts of the theatre was sixpence, while in some meaner playhouses it

5 The pit Dr. Percy supposed to have received its name from one of the playhouses having been formerly a cock-pit. This account of the term, however, seems to be somewhat questionable. The place where the seats are ranged in St. Mary's at Cambridge, is still called the pit; and no one can suspect that venerable fabrick of having ever been a cock-pit, or that the phrase was borrowed from a playhouse to be applied to a church. A pit is a place low in its relative situation, and such is the middle part of a theatre.

Shakspeare himself uses cock-pit to express a small confined situation, without any particular reference:

Can this cock-pit hold "The vasty fields of France,

-or may we cram,

"Within this wooden O, the very casques
"That did affright the air at Agincourt?"

See an old collection of tales, entitled, Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 4to. 1595: "When the great man had read the actors letter, he presently, in answere to it, took a sheet of paper, and folding sixpence in it, sealed it, subscribed it, and sent it to his brother; intimating thereby, that though his brother had vowed not in seven years to see him, yet he for his sixpence could come and see him upon the stage at his pleasure."

So, in the Induction to The Magnetick Lady, by Ben Jonson, which was first represented in October, 1632: "Not the faces or grounds of your people, that sit in the oblique caves and wedges of your house, your sinful sixpenny mechanicks."

See below, Verses addressed to Fletcher on his Faithful Shepherdess.

That there were sixpenny places at the Blackfriars playhouse, appears from the epilogue to Mayne's City Match, which was

8

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

acted at that theatre in 1637, being licensed on the 17th of November, in that year:

"Not that he fears his name can suffer wrack

"From them, who sixpence pay, and sixpence crack; "To such he wrote not, though some parts have been "So like here, that they to themselves came in."

7 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 sport by the penny.” Again, in Humours Ordinarie, where a man may merrie and exceeding well used for his Sixpence, no date:

be very

"Will you stand spending your invention's treasure "To teach stage-parrots speak for penny pleasure?" "Pay thy two-pence to a player, in this gallery you may sit 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 discomfiture of all two-penny gallery men."

It appears from a passage 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 also above, p. 69, n. 3.

sent.

The boxes in the theatre at Blackfriars were probably small, and appear to have been enclosed in the same manner as at preSee 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, some heat or perhaps other inconvenience might have happened."

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

66

Give me that man,

"Who, when the plague of an imposthum❜d brains,
"Breaking out, infects a theatre, and hotly reigns,

believe, in our author's time, a shilling; though afterwards it appears to have risen to two shillings,2

66 Killing the hearers' hearts, that the vast rooms
"Stand empty, like so many dead men's tombs,
"Can call the banish'd auditor home," &c.

He seems to be here describing his antagonist Ben Jonson, whose plays were generally performed to a thin audience. See Verses on our author, by Leonard Digges, Vol. II.

"If he have but twelvepence in his purse, he will give it for the best room in a playhouse." Sir Thomas Overbury's Cha racters, 1614.

So, in the prologue to our author's King Henry VIII:
Those that come to see

"Only a shew or two, and so agree

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

"In two short hours."

Again, in a copy of Verses prefixed to Massinger's Bondman, 1624:

"Reader, if you have disburs'd a shilling

"To see this worthy story,

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 seem 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 necessary to scenes and other ornaments, in this entertainment, there is good provision made of places for a shilling, and it shall certainly begin at three in the after

noon."

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

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 shillings and his time, the author sent
"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:

and half a crown.3 At the Blackfriars theatre the price of the boxes was, I imagine, higher than at the Globe.

4

From several passages in our old plays we learn, that spectators were admitted on the stage, and that the criticks and wits of the time usually sat there. Some were placed on the ground; others

6

"To them who call't reproof, to make a face,
"Who think they judge, when they frown i'the wrong
place,

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

66

They loose by the play, nor have their two shillings out,

"He says," &c.

3 See Wit without Money, a comedy, acted at The Phoenix in Drury Lane, before 1620:

"And who extoll'd you into the half-crown boxe,

"Where you might sit and muster all the beauties." In the playhouse called The Hope on the Bankside, there were five different-priced seats, from sixpence to half a crown. See the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, by Ben Jonson, 1614.

So, in A Mad World my Masters, by Middleton, 1608: "The actors have been found in a morning in less compass than their stage, though it were ne'er so full of gentlemen.' also, p. 80. n. 2.

5

66

to fair attire the stage

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

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

See

Prologue to All Fools, a comedy, acted at Blackfriars, 1605. "By sitting on the stage, you have a sign'd patent to engrosse the whole commoditie of censure; may lawfully presume to be a girder, and stand at the helm to steer the passage of scenes." Guls Hornebooke, 1609.

See also the preface to the first folio edition of our author's works: "And though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriars to arraigne plays dailie,-."

"Being on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but salute all your gentle acquaintance that are spred either on the rushes or on stooles about you; and draw what troope you can

8

sat on stools, of which the price was either sixpence,' or a shilling, shilling, according, I suppose, to the commodiousness of the situation. And they were attended by pages, who furnished them with pipes

from the stage after you." Decker's Guls Hornebooke, 1609. So also, 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 stories, dissolves riddles,
"Ushers her to her coach, lies at her feet
"At solemn masques."

From a passage in King Henry IV. Part I. it may be presumed that this was no uncommon practice in private assemblies also: "She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down, "And rest your gentle head upon her lap,

"And she will sing the song that pleaseth you." This accounts for Hamlet's sitting 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 situation in which probably his patrons Essex and Southampton were often seen at the feet of some celebrated beauty. What some chose from economy, gallantry might have recommended to others.

7" By sitting on the stage, you may with small cost purchase the deere acquaintance of the boyes, have a good stool for sixpence,-." Guls Hornebooke.

Again, ibidem: "Present not your selfe on the stage, (especially at a new play,) untill the quaking prologue-is ready to enter; for then 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 stoole in one hand, and a teston mounted between a fore-finger and a thumbe, in the other."

"These are the most worne and most in fashion

"Amongst the bever gallants, the stone-riders,

"The private stage's audience, the twelvepenny-stoole gentlemen."

The Roaring Girl, a comedy, by Middleton and Decker, 1611. So, in the Induction to Marston's Malcontent, 1604: "By God's slid if you had, I would have given you but sixpence for your stool." This, therefore, was the lowest rate; and the price of the most commodious stools on the stage was a shilling.