of the house is but half full, your apparell is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and the proportion of your body in more danger to be devoured then if it were served up in the Counter amongst the Powltry: avoid that as you would the Bastome. It shall crown you with rich commendation to laugh aloud in the middest of the most serious and saddest scene of the terriblest Tragedy: and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost so high, that all the house may ring of it.

As first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the Players, and onely follow you: the simplest dolt in the house snatches up your name, and when he meets you in the streets, or that you fall into his hands in the middle of a Watch, his word shall be taken for you: heele cry Hees such a gallant, and

you passe.

"Before the play begins, fall to cardes: you may win or lose (as Fencers do in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet share the money when you meet at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the Ragga-muffins that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards (having first torn four or five of them) round about the Stage, just upon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skills not if the four knaves ly on their backs, and outface the Audience; theres none such fools 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 epigrammd you, or hath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather, or your red beard, or your little legs, &c. on the stage, you shall disgrace him worse than by tossing him in a blancket, or giving him the bastinado in a Tavern, if, in the middle of his play (bee it Pastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedie), you rise with a screwd and discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the Scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distaste them: and, being on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spread either on the rushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troupe you can from the stage after you: the Mimicks are beholden to you, for allowing them elbow roome: their Poet cries, perhaps, a pox go with you, care not for that, theres no music without frets.

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but

'Mary, if either the company, or the indisposition of the weather binde you to sit it out, my counsel is then that you turne plain Ape, take up a rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to make other fooles fall a laughing: mewe at passionate speeches, blare at merrie, find fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action,

whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers.

Though the Gull's Hornbook is a comical satire, Dekker truly represents the time. bethan audience was not all bad.

Yet the Eliza

Their rudeness

was, in the main, the good-natured rudeness of the age, not a rudeness due to malice. Furthermore, they knew a good play when they saw it. Many a poor comedy that satisfies the popular taste to-day would never have got safely through the first night three hundred years ago. This fact has much to do with the general excellence of the Elizabethan drama. After all, there was manifested in the audience of that day the genuine spirit of true sport, of every fellow for himself, and give the Devil his due, that has always characterised the English, whether of the time of the Armada or of Waterloo.

CHAPTER XV

THE TAVERNS AND TAVERN LIFE

THE

66

Elizabethan tavern is

To be sure, the ale

HE poets' view of the not altogether correct. house was the place of good fellowship and joviality par excellence, the place for combats of merry wit," where met the numerous clubs of the Apollo type. Yet, on the other hand, the tavern was something different. It was constantly haunted by the most disreputable characters of London, it was the scene of frequent brawls, and the nursery of all sorts of deceit and cozenage. Officers of the crown, in their search for a criminal, usually began to gather information at the alehouses and ordinaries of London. It was a regular practice of mine host to entice unfledged country youths into his tavern, to lend them a guiding hand through the push of boisterous London, to obtain their confidence by a thousand acts of trivial kindness, and then to persuade them to excessive extravagance. To further the success of this practice the host would advance money, and, when the gull was deeply in debt, put on the screws and collect with usury, often ruining the would-be gallant altogether and lodging him in a

debtor's prison. "I tell you," says the First Officer in Middleton's Phoenix, IV. i., "our safest way will be to arrest him when he comes out a' th' tavern, for then he will be half drunk and will not stand upon his weapon."

The host of a tavern was responsible to his guests for the safety of their property while under his care-hence the long, narrow entrances, easily closed and defended, which gave upon the galleried courtyards. Not only were plays performed in many of these tavern courts, but they were also the scene of all sorts of business transactions. It was not uncommon for the inn-keeper to perform the office of a money lender and banker. In Middleton's Michmaelmus Term, II. iii., after a bond is taken, occurs the following line, "Come, let's all to the next tavern to see the money paid." As in later times, the Elizabethan tavern was a rendezvous for duellists, and also a place as popular as the streets with courtesans.

The most characteristic external indication of a tavern is referred to in the line, "I am not as well known by my wit as an ale-house by a red lattice." (Marston, Ant. and Mel., I. iv. 1); and the bush the most frequent of tavern signs, is familiar to all readers of As You Like It (Epilogue). Though much ingenuity was exercised in choosing a variety of tavern signs, the same were duplicated