1890.] on the London Stage in Elizabeth's Beign. 33 



number of watermen with their families between Windsor and 

 Gravesend amounted to something like 20,000 persons, and that 

 when they were moved back again to the north they drew every day 

 from 3000 to 4000 persons who used to go by water. Eeckoning a 

 waterman's family at five persons, the number of watermen between 

 Windsor and Gravesend at the height of this traffic would be 8000. 

 This statement as to numbers is very remarkable, and shows that 

 the sightseers of London in Elizabeth's reign were a considerable 

 body.* 



It is worthy of notice that changes in the habits of the English 

 took place very rapidly even in the time of Queen Elizabeth. When 

 the theatres were first established the visitors went to them on 

 horseback, later on they took boat to Southwark, and in the last 

 years of the reign, when Blackfriars theatre was fashionable, coaches 

 had become numerous. 



As to the exterior, De Witt distinctly says that it was cased 

 with flint, and this assertion has been doubted chiefly because 

 Hentzner said that the theatres on the Bankside were all of wood. 

 I don't think that we can reject the testimony of one who was 

 apparently a careful observer, on the strength of a general statement 

 such as that of Hentzner. [Enlarged representations of the Swan, 

 the Bear Garden, and the Globe, taken from views of the Bankside, 

 were shown in diagrams on the wall]. These views of the theatres 

 on the Bankside are but small in the originals, and too much stress 

 must not be laid upon their appearance, but I think a difference 

 between the look of the Swan and the Bear Garden on the one side, 

 and of the Globe on the other may be noted. We know that the 

 first Globe theatre was made of wood, but the other two look as if 

 they might have been cased with stone or built up with brick. 



[H. B. W.] 



* In order to have some basis of comparison, my friend Mr. Danby P. Fry 

 drew out a theoretical section which makes the arrangement of the seats easier to 

 understand. This drawing was enlarged in a diagram on the wall. He has cal- 

 culated that the height of the building would be about 50 feet, and this number 

 is arrived at thus : — The uppermost gallery of seats is taken as 8 feet in height 

 and the other two as 10 feet, the two rows of porticus at 7 feet each, and the 

 orchestra as 7 feet. To estimate the size of the round is more difficult ; but sup- 

 posing there to have been eleven rows of seats, that is, three rows in the upper- 

 most gallery and four rows in each of the iower galleries, in order to seat 

 3000 persons, 273 must have been seated in each row, and this would necessitate 

 a round of more than two-thirds the size of Drury Lane theatre. If we suppose 

 De Witt to mean auditors generally, and not merely those seated, a much smaller 

 circle would supply the need, because we could then count in all those standing 

 in the portions and the arena. If the building was arranged to hold 3000 persons 

 when used as an amphitheatre, it would not probably accommodate more than 

 2000 when the stage was placed in its position, and a portion of the round was 

 thereby made useless for spectators. 



Vol. XIII. (No. 84.) ' - d 



