the preface prefixed by Hemings and Condell to the first folio edition of our author's works: "And though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriers, or the Cockpit, to arraigne plays dailie, know these plays have had their trial already, and stood out all appeales." A writer already quoted informs us that one of these theatres was a winter, and the other a summer, house. As the Globe was partly exposed to the weather, and they acted there usually by day-light, it appeared to me probable (when this Essay was originally published) that this was the summer theatre; and I have lately found my conjecture confirmed by Sir Henry Herbert's Manuscript. The king's company usually began to play at the Globe in the month of May. The exhibitions here seem to have been more frequent than at Blackfriars, 8 7 His account is confirmed by a passage in an old pamphlet, entitled Holland's Leaguer, 4to. 1632: "She was most taken with the report of three famous amphytheators, which stood so neere situated, that her eye might take view of them from her lowest turret. One was the Continent of the World, because halfe the yeere a world of beauties and brave spirits resorted unto it. The other was a building of excellent Hope; and though wild beasts and gladiators did most possesse it," &c. • King Lear, in the title-page of the original edition, printed in 1668, is said to have been performed by his majesties servants, playing usually at the Globe on the Bankside.-See also the licence granted by King James in 1603: "—and the said comedies, tragedies, &c.-to shew-as well within their now usual house called the Globe,-." No mention is made of their theatre in Blackfriars; from which circumstance I suspect that antecedent to that time our poet's company played only at the Globe, and purchased the Blackfriars theatre afterwards. In the licence granted by King Charles the First to John Heminge and his associates in the year 1625, they are authorized to exhibit plays, &c. "as well within these two their most usual houses called the Globe in the county of Surrey, and their private houses situate within till the year 1604 or 1605, when the Bankside appears to have become less fashionable, and less frequented than it formerly had been." Many of our ancient dramatick pieces (as has been already observed) were performed in the yards of carriers' inns, in which, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the comedians, who then first united themselves in companies, erected an occasional stage.' The form of these temporary playhouses seems to be preserved in our modern theatre. The galleries, in both, are ranged over each other on three sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest of these galleries answer to our present boxes; and it is observable that these, even in theatres which were built in a subsequent period expressly for dramatick exhibitions, still retained their old name, and are frequently called rooms, by our ancient writers." The yard the precinct of the Blackfryers,-as also," &c. Had they possessed the Blackfriars theatre in 1603, it would probably have been mentioned in the former licence. In the following year they certainly had possession of it, for Marston's Malcontent was acted there in 1604. 9 See The Works of Taylor the Water Poet, p. 171, edit. 1630. Fleckno, in his Short Discourse of the English Stage, published in 1664, says, some remains of these ancient theatres were at that day to be seen in the inn-yards of the Cross-keys in Gracechurch Street, and the Bull in Bishopsgate Street. In the seventeen playhouses erected between the years 1570 and 1630, the continuator of Stowe's Chronicle reckons "five innes or common osteries turned into play-houses." * See a prologue to If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, quoted in p. 76, n. 9. These rooms appear to have been sometimes employed, in the infancy of the stage, for the purpose of gallantry. "These plays, (says Strype in his additions to Stowe's Survey,) being commonly acted on sundays and festivals, the churches were forsaken, and the play-houses thronged. Great inns were used for this purpose, which had secret cham bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at pre'sent in use. We may suppose the stage to have been raised in this area, on the fourth side, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for admission 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 Shakspeare, there was an open yard or area, where the common people stood to see the exhibition; from bers and places as well as open stages and galleries. Here maids and good citizens' children were inveigled and allured to private unmeet contracts." He is speaking of the year 1574. The word-room, I believe, had anciently no other signification than place. So, in St.Luke, xiv. 7: "And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, "When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a man more honourable than thou be bidden of him; "And he that bade thee and him, come and say to thee, Give this man place, and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room." STEEVENS. "In the play-houses at London, it is the fashion of youthes to go first into the yarde, and to carry their eye through every gallery; then like unto ravens, when they spy the carion, thither they flye, and press as near to the fairest as they can." Plays confuted in Five several Actions, by Stephen Gosson, 1580. Again, in Decker's Guls Hornebooke, 1609: "The stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light, and lay you open; neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the scar-crowes in the yard hoot at you, hiss at you, spit at you." So, in the prologue to an old comedy called The Hog has lost his Pearl, 1614: "We may be pelted off for what we know, "With apples, eggs, or stones, from those below." See also the prologue to The Doubtful Heir, ante, p. 71: and what you most delight in, "Grave understanders,-," which circumstance they are called by our author groundlings, and by Ben Jonson " the understanding gentlemen of the ground." 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 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: 66 Can this cock-pit hold "The vasty fields of France, -or may we cram, 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 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." 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 667 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, 1616.4 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 gal lery 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. • The boxes in the theatre at Blackfriars were probably small, and appear to have been enclosed in the same manner as at present. 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 bor 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, |