or, in mediaeval phrase, making a 'gatheryng'.[1] Fixed prices must certainly have been the rule by the time of Kiechel's visit in 1585, for he tells us that, on the occasion of a new play, double prices were charged. This practice helps to explain the fluctuating receipts in Henslowe's diary, and was still in force in the seventeenth century.[2] Spenser and his friends could have their laugh at a play for 1d. or 2d. in 1579, and ten years later Martin Marprelate could be seen for 2d. at the Theatre and 4d. at Paul's.[3] Higher prices are already characteristic of the private houses. In 1596 Lambarde informs us of a regular scale, apparently applicable to all public entertainments. None, he says, who 'goe to Paris Gardein, the Bell Savage or Theatre, to beholde beare baiting, enterludes or fence play, can account of any pleasant spectacle unlesse they first pay one pennie at the gate, another at the entrie of the scaffolde and the thirde for a quiet standing'. Platter, in 1599, reports the same scale and adds a distinction, not made by Lambarde, between standings and seats. You paid 1d. to stand on the level, 1d. at an inner door to sit, and 1d. at a third door for one of the best places with a cushion.[4] The twopenny galleries or rooms long continued to be the resort of the ordinary playgoer, if he was not satisfied to stand in the yard for a penny.[5] He sat close,*
- ↑ L. Wager's Mary Magdalene (1566) has a prologue which says that the actors will take 'halfpence or pence' from the audience, but this was probably used by strolling actors and continues the miracle-play tradition. At almost the same date, a jest in Merry Tales, Wittie Questions and Quick Answers (1567, Hazlitt, Jest Books, i. 145) tells how men stood at the gate of a play at Northumberland Place, 'with a boxe (as the facion is) who toke of euery persone that came in a peny or an half peny at the least'.
- ↑ J. Mayne in Jonsonus Virbius (1638):
So when thy Fox had ten times acted been,
Each day was first, but that 'twas cheaper seen;
And so thy Alchemist played o'er and o'er,
Was new o' the stage, when 'twas not at the door. - ↑ G. Harvey (p. 530, supra); Lyly, Pappe with an Hatchet (Works, iii. 408); cf. Martin's Month's Mind (1589, App. C, No. xl). Lodge, Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589), will not 'tie my pen to Pennie-knaves delight', and S. Rowlands, Letting of Humour's Blood in the Head Vein (1600), bids poets not 'To teach stage parrots speak for penny pleasure'; cf. Case is Altered, I. i. 104, 'Tut, giue me the penny, giue me the peny, I care not for the Gentlemen, I, let me haue a good ground'.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xvi, introd. Field says in 1583 (App. C, No. xxxi), 'Euery dore hath a payment, & euery gallerie maketh a yearely stipend'.
- ↑ E. M. O. (1599), ind. 425, 'Let me neuer liue to looke as highe as the two-pennie roome, againe'; T. Garzoni, Hospitall of Incurable Fooles (tr. 1600), epist., 'a Player that in speaking an Epilogue makes loue to the two pennie roume for a plaudite'; Satiromastix (1602), epil. 2690, 'Are you pleas'd? . . . if you be not, by'th Lord Ile see you all—heere
