Mary, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest: or rather, like a country-serving man, some five yards before them. Present not your felfe on the stage (especially at a new play) untill the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got cullor into his cheekes, and is ready to give the trumpets their cue that hees upon point to enter : for then it is time, as though you were one of the properties, or that you dropt of the hangings, to creep behind the arras, with your tripos or threelegged stoole in one hand, and a teston mounted betweene a fore-finger and a thumbe, in the other : for if you should bestow your perfon upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but halfe full, your apparell is quite eaten up, the fashion loft, and the proportion of your body in more danger to be devoured, then if it were served up in the Counter amongst the Poultry: avoid that as you would the bastome. It shall crowne you with rich commendation, to laugh alowd in the middest of the most serious and saddest scene of the terribleft tragedy and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost so high that all the house may ring of it: your lords use it; your knights are apes to the lords, and do fo too: your inne-a-court-man is zany to the knights, and (many very scurvily) comes likewife limping after it: bee thou a beagle to them all, and never lin snuffing till you have scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a ploughman in a morris) you heape Pelion upon Offa, glory upon glory: as first all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the players, and onely follow you: the fimplest dolt in the house snatches up your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, or that you fall into his hands in the middle of a watch, his word shall be taken for

you: heele cry, Hees fuch a gallant, and you paffe. Secondly you publish your temperance to the world, in that you feeme not to resort thither to taste vaine pleasures with a hungrie appetite; but onely as a gentleman, to spend a foolish houre or two, because you can doe nothing else. Thirdly you mightily disrelish the audience, and disgrace the author: marry, you take up (though it be at the worst hand) a strong opinion of your owne judgement, and inforce the poet to take pity of your weakenesse, and by fome dedicated sonnet to bring you into a better paradice, onely to stop your mouth.

"If you can (either for love or money) provide your felfe a lodging by the water fide: for above the conveniencie it brings to shun shoulder-clapping, and to ship away your cockatrice betimes in the morning, it addes a kind of state unto you, to be carried from thence to the staires of your playhouse: hate a sculler (remember that) worse then to be acquainted with one ath' scullery. No, your oares are your onely fea-crabs, boord them, and take heed you never go twice together with one paire: often shifting is a great credit to gentlemen: and that dividing of your fare wil make the poore watersnaks be ready to pul you in peeces to enjoy your custome. No matter whether upon landing you have money or no; you may swim in twentie of their boates over the river upon ticket; mary, when filver comes in, remember to pay trebble their fare, and it will make your floundercatchers to fend more thankes after you, when you doe not draw, then when you doe: for they know, it will be their owne another daie.

"Before the play begins, fall to cardes; you may win or loose (as fencers doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet share the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the raggamuffins that stand a loofe gaping at you, throw the cards (having first torne four or five of them) round about the stage, just upon the third found, as though you had loft: it skils not if the four knaves ly on their backs, and outface the audience, there's none such fooles as dare take exceptions at them, because ere the play go off, better knaves than they, will fall into the company.

"Now, Sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigram'd you, or hath had a flirt at your miftris, or hath brought either your feather, or your red beard, or your little legs, &c. on the stage, you shall disgrace him worse then by toffing him in a blanket, or giving him the bastinado in a taverne, if in the middle of his play (bee it paftorall or comedy, morall or tragedie) you rife with a skreud and discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the scenes be good or no; the better they are, the worse doe you distast them: and beeing on your feete, sneake not away like a coward, but falute all your gentle acquaintance that are spred either on the rushes or on stooles about you, and draw what troope you can from the stage after you: the mimichs are beholden to you, for allowing them elbow roome: their poet cries perhaps, a pox go with you, but care not you for that; there's no musick without frets.

"Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde you to fit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plaine ape: take up a rush and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to make other fooles fall a laughing: mewe at the paffionate speeches, blare at merrie, finde fault with

the musicke, whewe at the children's action, whistle at the fongs; and above all, curse the sharers, that whereas the fame day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embroidered felt and feather (Scotch fashion) for your mistres in the court, or your punck in the cittie, within two houres after, you encounter with the very fame block on the stage, when the haberdasher swore to you the impreffion was extant but that morning.

"To conclude, hoord up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your leane wit may most favourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when the Arcadian and Euphuis'd gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon you: that qualitie (next to your fhittlecocke) is the only furniture to a courtier that's but a new beginner, and is but in his ABC of complement. The next places that are fil'd after the play-houses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) tavernes: into a taverne then let us next march, where the braines of one hogshead must be beaten out to make up another."4

• The following pretty picture of THE STAGE is given in Gayton's Notes on Don Quixote, 1654, p. 271:

"Men come not to study at a play-house, but love such expreffions and passages, which with ease infinuate themselves into their capacities. Lingua, that learned comedy of the contention betwixt the five senses for fuperiority, is not to be proftituted to the common ftage, but is only proper for an Academy; to them bring Jack Drum's Entertainment, Green's Tu Quoque, the Devil of Edmonton, and the like; or, if it be on holy dayes, when faylers, water-men, fhoo-makers, butchers, and apprentices, are at leifare, then it is good policy to amaze those violent spirits with fome tearing Tragedy full of fights and skirmishes: as the Guelphs and Guillins, Greeks and Trojans, or the three London Apprentices; which commonly ends in fix acts, the spectators frequently mounting the stage, and making a more bloody cataftrophe amongst themselves, than the players did. I have known upon one of these festivals, but especially at Shrove-tide, where

I should have attempted on the present occafioni to enumerate all other pamphlets, &c. from whence particulars relative to the conduct of our early theatres might be collected, but that Dr. Percy, in his first volume of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, (third edit. p. 128, &c.) has extracted fuch passages from them as tend to the illustration of this fubject; to which he has added more accurate remarks than my experience in these matters would have enabled me to fupply. STEEVENS.