PREFACE v 
I recognize also that this repository, as all such, must be referred 
to again and again in working out themes but lightly or not at 
all touched upon here. Some may find uses for the materials not 
now anticipated. My narrative, which I hope may never be read 
separately from the notes, is not intended to be simply a pleasing 
tale, but is mainly a series of inevitable conclusions thrust up into 
clear view by the records, data, and events in their own self-es- 
tablished relations. 
No page in this work has any other cause or excuse for exist- 
ence than the presentation of some new fact or conclusion. 
Among the items of new knowledge some rise into prominence 
above the others. 
The clear differences between the private and the public the- 
atres are sharpened in many details. The influence of the chil- 
 dren-theatres, the boy-actors, and their poets on the form and 
spirit of the drama is presented only in part, the fuller view neces- 
sarily awaiting the assembled materials of the complete work. 
Blackfriars, the model of the modern theatre, is for the first time 
presented unromantically, on the basis of fresh historical data, 
with exact dimensions and other details of construction. The 
location and general structure of the stage is also shown. A 
comparative view of all the theatres furnishes new items of fact. 
The accompanying suggestive plats of the Blackfriars and the 
_ Fortune, the first attempts of the kind yet made, are in a measure 
contributive to the same end. While in large part they are 
merely “suggestive” rather than final, they are at the same time 
corrective of certain popular impressions, especially as regards 
the relative positions of stage and audience in-theatres of the 
Elizabethan-Jacobean period. 
Certain new data are given from documents concerning Shake- 
speare, the Globe, and Blackfriars. These documents are there- 
fore now for the first time publicly announced, although they 
came into my hands long ago. They are vastly more valuable 
than the three newly discovered Shakespeare documents which I 
made public in 1905. On the personal side of Shakespeare, they 
are the most important records brought to light since the dis- 
covery of the poet’s will a century and a half ago (1747). Onthe 
side of the Globe and Blackfriars, the origin of London theatre 
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