Polonius, in Hamlet, commends the actors, as the best in the world "either for Tragedie, Comedie, "HISTORIE, Pastorall," &c. And Shakspere's friends, Heminge and Condell, in the first folio edition of his plays, in 1623, have not only entitled their book, "Mr. William Shakspere's Comedies, "HISTORIES, and Tragedies:" but, in their Table of Contents, have arranged them under those three several heads; placing in the class of HISTORIES, King John, Richard II. Henry IV. 2 parts, Hen-. ry V. Henry VI. 3 parts, Richard III. and Henry " VIII."

This distinction deserves the attention of the cri-' ticks for if it be the first canon of sound criticism, to examine any work by those rules the author prescribed for his observance, then we ought not to try Shakspere's HISTORLES by the general laws of Tra gedy or Comedy. Whether the rule itself be vicious. or not, is another inquiry: but certainly we ought to examine a work only by those principles, according to which it was composed. This would save a deal of impertinent criticism..

III. We have now brought the inquiry as low as was intended, but cannot quit it, without entering into a short description of what one may call the œconomy of the ancient English stage.

Such was the fondness of our forefathers for dramatick entertainments, that not fewer than NINETEEN Playhouses had been opened before the year 1633,

when

From

when Prynne published his Histriomastix *. this writer it should seem that "tobacco, wine, and "beer" were in those days the usual accommodations in the theatre, as now at Sadler's Wells.

*He speaks in page 492, of the playhouses in Bishopsgate-Street, and on Ludgate-Hill, which are not among the SEVENTEEN enumerated in the Preface to Dodsley's Old Plays.

+ So, I think, we may infer from the following passage, viz. How many are there, who according to their seve

ral qualities, spend 2d. 3d. 4d. 6d. 12d. 18d. 2s. and "sometimes 4s. or 5s. at a playhouse, day by day, if "coach-hire, boat-hire, tobacco, wine, beere, and such

like vaine expences, which playes doe usually occasion, "be cast into the reckoning?" Prynne's Histriomastix, p. 322.

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But that Tobacco was smoked in the play-houses, appears from Taylor, the Water-Poet, in his Proclamation for Tobacco's Propagation. "Let PLAY-HOUSES, drinking-schools, taverns, &c. be continually haunted with "the contaminous vapours of it; nay (if it be possible) bring it into the CHURCHES, and there choak up their "preachers." (Works, p. 253.) And this was really the case at Cambridge: James I. sent a letter in 1607, against "taking Tobacco" in St. Mary's. So I learn from my friend, Mr. FARMER.

A gentleman has informed me, that once going into a church in Holland, he saw the male part of the audience sitting with their hats on, smoking tobacco, while the preacher was holding forth in his morning-gown.

With regard to the players themselves, the several companies were retainers, or menial servants to par, ticular noblemen*, who protected them in the exercise of their profession: and many of them were occasionally strollers, that travelled from one gentleman's house to another. Yet so much were they encouraged, that, notwithstanding their multitude, some of them acquired large fortunes. Edward Allen, master of the playhouse called the globe, who founded Dulwich College, is a known instance. And an old writer + speaks of the very inferior actors, whom he calls the Hirelings,

* See the Preface to Dodsley's Old Plays.-The author of an old Invective against the Stage, called, A third Blast of Retrait from Plaies, &c. 1580. 12mo. says, "Alas! "that private affection should so raigne in the nobilitie, "that to pleasure their servants, and to upholde them in "their vanitye, they should restraine the magistrates from "executing their office!,... They [the nobility] are "thought to be covetous, by permitting their servants... "to live at the devotion or almes of other men, passing "from countrie to countric, from one gentleman's house "to another, offering their service, which is a kind of "beggerie. Who indeede, to speake more trulie, are be86 come beggers for their servants, For, comonlie, the "good-wil men beare to their Lordes, make them draw "the stringes of their purses to extend their liberalitie." Vide page 75, 76, &c,

Stephen Gosson, in his Schoole of Abuse, 1579. 12mo. folio 23, says thus of what he terms in his margin,

PLAYERS

Hirelings, as living in a degree of splendour, which was thought enormous in that frugal age.

At the same time, the ancient prices of admission were often very low. Some houses had penny-benches, * The "two-penny gallery" is mentioned in the prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Woman-Hater. And seats of three-pence and groat seem to be intended in the passage of Prynne above referred to. Yet different houses varied in their prices: That play

1

PLAYERS-MEN:

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Over-lashing in apparel is so common a fault, that the very hyerlings of some of our Players, "which stand at revirsion of vi. s. by the week, jet under gentlemen's noses in sutis of silke, exercising themselves to prating on the stage, and common scoffing when they "come abrode, where they look askance over the shoulder "at every man, of whom, the Sunday before, they begged an almes. I speake not this, as though everye one that "professeth the qualitie, so abused himselfe, for it is well "knowen, that some of them are sober, discrecte, pro

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perly learned, honest housholders and citizens, well "thought on among their neighbours at home." [he seems to mean EDWARD ALLEN, above mentioned] "though

the pryde of their shadowes (I meane those hangbycs, "whom they succour with stipend) cause them to be "somewhat ill-talked of abroad,"

* So a MS. of Oldys, from Tom Nash, an old pamphlet, writer. And this is confirmed by Taylor, the Water-Poet, in his Praise of Beggerie, (page 99.)

"Yet have I seen a begger with his many, [sc. vermin] Come at a Play-house, all in for one penny."

house, called the HOPE, had five several priced seats from sixpence to half a crown*. But the general price of what is now called the PIT, seems to have been a shilling t.

The day originally set apart for theatrical exhibition, appears to have been Sunday; probably because the first dramatick pieces were of a religious cast. During a great part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the playhouses were only licensed to be opened on that day‡: but, before the end of her reign, or soon after, this abuse was probably removed.

The

* Induction to Ben Jonson's Bartholomew-Fair.

+ Shakspere's Prologue to Henry VIII.-Beaumont and Fletcher's Prologue to the Captain, and to the Mad-Lover, The PIT, probably, had its name from one of the Playhouses having been a Cock-Pit.

So Stephen Gosson, in his Schoole of Abuse, 1579, 12mo. speaking of the Players, says, "These, because "they are allowed to play every Sunday, make iiij. or v、 "Sundayes, at least, every week." fol, 24.- -So the Author of A Second and Third Blast of Retrait from Plaies, "Let the magistrate but repel them from the

libertie of plaieing on the Sabboth-daie, ..... Ta "plaie on the Sabboth is but a privilege of sufferance,

and might with ease be repelled, were it thoroughly "followed." page 61, 62. So again, "Is not the Sabboth "of al other daies the most abused?... Wherefore, abuse

not so the Sabboth-daie, my brethren; leave not the "temple of the Lord."..... "Those unsaverie morsels