English nation with unparalleled rapidity. So far as literature is concerned, this remarkable development focused in the drama. No law was able to stop it. So, after the temporary check produced by requiring all actors to obtain a license, we find that the increased number of players provoked still further opposition.

During the years just previous to 1575 the London players produced their plays in the court-yards of city taverns. The English tavern of those days contained a central quadrangular court-yard, entered through a door at one end. About this court were galleries, one above the other, at the level of each story. When a play was to be performed, the actors would build a temporary platform upon trestles at the end of the court and beneath the floor of the lowest gallery. From this floor they would hang drapery so as to convert the back part of the platform and court into a dressing room. tators of the play stood about in the courtyard, or sat upon stools placed in the galleries.

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Out of this manner of performing plays grew the further opposition to the actors. Puritanism had already taken root in England. The men who later put a stop to bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the beholder, could not abide the growing interest that the nation took in the stage. To them the drama was an abomination and a snare. Great was the lamentation of the Puritans concerning the brawls, the licentious conduct, the gambling, and numerous other evils that possessed the audiences which collected about these inn-yard scaffolds. But the Puritans were not yet masters of England. To entrench their position they coupled morality with expediency. They enlarged on the danger of spreading the plague which would result from such frequent gatherings of people. This was a real danger. The corporation of London took up the cry. For a while the agitation was bit

ter.

On one side stood the queen, the noblemen, the actors; on the other, the Puritans and the city authorities. The contest ended in a compromise. The companies of actors were not disbanded, but they were compelled to give their performances outside the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor; that is, the limits of the city proper. They were prohibited from playing on Sunday, on holy days, and in Lent; but this part of the law

was constantly violated. Furthermore, the plays must receive the approval of the queen's Master of the Revels before they could be put upon the stage.

A year or two later-December 24, 1578 -an order from the Privi-Council limited the number of companies to six; namely, (1) The Children of the Royal Chapel; (2) The Children of St. Paul's; (3) The Servants of the Lord Chamberlain; (4) Of the Earl of Warwick; (5) Of the Earl of Leicester; (6) Of the Earl of Essex. From this time on, the nobleman who figured as the patron of a company did little more than attend to the procuring of licenses for the members of his company. The company derived certain prestige from his name, and frequently acted privately in his mansion, for which service, however, they were paid extra. In later times there were other companies, the most famous of which was the King's players, as Shakespeare's company was called after the accession of James.

The contest between the city and the players resulted in the establishment of permanent theatres on the out-skirts of London. The first to be built was The Theatre (1576); The Curtain (so called from the plot of ground on which it was built) followed about a year later. These two were north of the city in a district called Shoreditch. The Rose was opened in Bankside (the south bank of the river) in 1592; The Swan, near it, in 1593. In 1599 The Theatre was torn down, and the material used to build Shakespeare's play-house, The Globe, also in Bankside. North of the Thames was The Blackfriars, opened in 1596. In later years Shakespeare also possessed an interest in this theatre. Other theatres were soon established, but those already named are the most notable. The following description applies to them all rather than any particular one.

The Thames river was then the southern boundary of the city. Though there was but one bridge across the river, the numerous ferryboats and private barges prevented it from being much of a barrier between the city and Bankside. The neighborhood of St. Paul's Cathedral was the center of the social activity in the city. There appointments were made, bargains struck, and duels arranged. There, too, were many of the book-stalls where the quarto editions of Shakespeare's plays were sold for sixpence. Play-bills to advertise a play were frequently

like. The better sort of quietly disposed people sat in the rooms; the gallants sat upon the stage itself. Respectable women sometimes accompanied their husbands to the rooms; on such occasions, however, the women always wore masks.

The stage, which projected out into the circular area of the pit, was square and occupied about one-fourth the area of the ground space. The stage was merely a platform upon trestles three feet high, and open to the audience in front and from each side. At the rear of the stage were two doors through which the actors came and went. The stage, however, was not wholly given up to the actors. The young gallants were allowed to sit on either side upon low threelegged stools called "tripods" which could be rented for sixpence the afternoon. These stage seats were the most expensive and aristocratic in the house. With a sixpence to pay at the outer door, another sixpence for a tripod, and still another fee for permission to sit on the stage-an afternoon at the theatre was frequently an expensive luxury. The diaries of the time tell us that a good seat on a state occasion cost half a crown; that is, four or five dollars in our money.

To return, however, to the description of the theatre; it was, as I said, circular on the inside with tiers of galleries. These galleries extended like a horse-shoe completely round the theatre to the outer edges of the back part of the stage. The space directly behind the stage and between the ends of the galleries was occupied by a three-story structure.

The first story was the dressing-room. The doors at the rear of the stage opened directly into this room. The second story was a room open to the audience, called the stage-balcony. It could be entered from the dressing-room and also from the stage. It was used for all parts of the play distinctly separated from what was happening on the stage proper. In the famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, Romeo stood on the stage, and Juliet in the stage-balcony. The play before the king in Hamlet was acted in the stage-balcony, while Claudius, Hamlet, Ophelia, and the rest were on the stage proper. In the chronicle-histories the defenders of a city appeared in the stage-balcony and the besiegers on the stage.

The third story of this rear structure was the tower that projected above the surrounding walls of the theatre. It contained a lit

tle room for the buglers, and its roof bore the flag that was the sign of a performance. The stage had one other permanent acces

sory. From above the stage-balcony a canopy projected forward far enough to cover a little more than one-third of the stage. The pit, you will remember, was open to the sky. The apparently unfinished roof of thatch protected only the upper circle of rooms. This stage-roof was to protect the players when it rained. It was called the "heaven" and was painted blue.

It was so dangerous to walk in London at night that plays were given in the day-time. The performance usually began at three o'clock in the afternoon and lasted two or three hours. Shortly before the play was to begin a bugler blew his trumpet. This was to call in the people who lingered outside or at the Falcon. At short intervals the bugle-call was repeated a second, and a third time. Then the play was ready to begin. The prologue, generally the author of the play, entered first. He wore a black velvet cloak, and frequently a garland of bay leaves. The superstitious Elizabethans believed that bay leaves were a sure protection against thunder and lightning. haps it was by design that the prologue wore this symbolic ornament; for the author of an unsatisfactory play was often the object of boisterous discontent from the pit.

Per

When the prologue had finished his speech, which generally contained an apology for the poverty of stage effects, and a forecast of the whole play or, at least, the first act, he retired and the play began. If it was Twelfth Night, a placard was hung out just under one corner of the heaven. This sign bore the inscription in black letters, "This is Duke Orsino's palace." If the play was Macbeth, the stage would be hung with black drapery, and the signboard would read in red letters, "A desert place." This was all the scenery the Elizabethans had, except a few properties such as tables, chairs, beds, boxes, etc. (The lack of scenery on the public stage should not be confused with the magnificent and costly scenery that accompanied the private presentation of masques at the court of King James I.)

Returning to Twelfth Night, the duke, the musicians, etc., would follow the signboard. Valentine would soon arrive, and, a few lines before the end of the scene, the characters would begin to depart through the doors into the tiring-room. When the duke

leaves, the stage is cleared. The signboard is taken down and a new one hung up bearing "The sea-coast," and Viola appears.

All this seems very primitive; and, indeed, it is. But Shakespeare's audience was an imaginative set of persons whose fancy was often helped considerably by the masterly bits of description contained in the text. That couplet in Hamlet:

"But, look; the morn in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill;"

is worth a score of stage sunrises.

Though there was in use almost no scenery, the actors were gorgeously dressed; but costume, as we understand the word, was unknown. Cæsar appeared first in an Elizabethan doublet, and later in armor perfectly familiar to Shakespeare's audience. The representation of horses was naive. Macbeth and Banquo rode across the heath upon their legs. Their horses were made of basket work; the head and fore legs stuck out in front; the back legs and tail dangled behind. It was for convenience that Banquo and Fleance sent their horses round, while they took the short cut across the stage to be killed.

There was an intermission between acts during which the orchestra played in the stage-balcony; or, if that was full of distinguished visitors, such as the queen and her attendants, the band came down into the pit and played by the side of the stage.

When the play was over, the actors knelt and recited a prayer for the queen; and, after that, the clown sang a song and danced a jig in order to put the audience in a pleasant frame of mind. This was the invariable ending of a play, whether comedy or tragedy. The song at the end of Twelfth Night is an example of such a jig.

Both public and private theatres have been mentioned above; they differed only in minor details. The private theatres were considered a little more select; the price of admission was a little higher; they were smaller and covered, which necessitated torches during a performance; and the pit of private theatres was usually furnished with rude benches. In other respects, the description above applies to both public and private theatres during Shakespeare's time.

Such was the outward aspect. To complete the view we must take into consideration the kind of people who composed the audience. That was a cruel, boisterous,

half-savage age. The people were superstitious; they believed in witchcraft; many of the sports both of boys and men were cruel to a degree we have no sympathy with. The laws were no less cruel. Branding on the face, slitting the nose, clipping the ears, even hanging, were penalties inflicted for petty crimes. Men wore swords and were accustomed to take the law into their own hands. From such a people we must expect noisy behavior in the play-house, though they were, in many respects, much more appreciative than we are.

The people in the rooms were generally well enough inclined. The characteristic. scenes happened on the stage and in the pit. The latter, having no seats, tempted people to move about during the performance. Doubtless a person bent on crossing the pit used his elbows freely and trod on people's toes. If the audience was in a good humor this would provoke a general laugh; but likely as not there would be angry words, blows, sometimes a general row.

During the play, venders of apples, cakes, ale, tobacco, etc., hawked their goods about the pit. Sometimes a deeply tragic part was interrupted by the cry, "Pickpocket! Caught!" The play would be stopped while the luckless cut-purse was hustled forward and bound to one of the pillars that supported the stage heaven. Throughout the rest of the play he was the butt of all sorts of jokes, the mark for apple-cores and paperwads.

The gentlemen on the stage were little better. It was thought a clever trick to come in late enough to interrupt the prologue with a lot of noise in placing one's tripod. We are told that sometimes the prologue was sent sprawling by a blow behind the knees. Once in their seats, the gallants did not scruple to bandy words with people in the pit, flirt with women in the stalls, or interrupt the players during their speech. We are told that these persons on the stage sometimes crowded so close upon the stage that the players came forward and appealed to the audience whether they should not be allowed more room to act in. If the play was not liked, the actors were hooted or pelted off the stage.

But the Elizabethan audience was not all bad. Their rudeness was the good natured rudeness of the age, not malice. And they knew a good play when they saw it. Many a poor comedy that satisfies the popular taste