136 CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
From the stage-requirements of the Globe and Fortune, we are 
warranted in concluding, at least tentatively, that such references 
as these last three do not relate to those theatres. Nearer ap- 
proach to identification seems not now possible. 
How late this practice of sitting above the stage at the public 
theatres or at any one of them was still maintained I do not know. 
Just when, if ever, the Blackfriars fashion was taken up ia — 
emulation by any one of the public theatres cannot be said. Their 
stages were not all alike, nor all adaptable to similar conditions. 
There is doubt whether the custom spread widely amongst them. 
The evidence of its existence there at all is most slender. It was 
not allowed at the Globe in 1604, when The Malcontent was 
played.t I question whether it was ever tolerated there. The 
introductory address To the great Variety of Readers, signed by 
John Heminge and Henrie Condell, prefixed to the 1623 folio 
edition of Shakespeare’s plays, singles out the Blackfriars and 
the Cockpit, the two private theatres then in existence, the first 
of which their company owned, and does not name the company’s 
other house, the Globe, as the place of this practice.2 Moreover, 
the physical conditions of the Globe building and stage, with the 
choicest seats in the gentlemen’s rooms at right and left, could 
not have allowed the presence of an intervening audience of gal- 
lants any better at a later date than in 1604. There is, however, 
one direct evidence apparently on the other side, which may here 
be subjoined.* But as it is merely a hypothetical case, in a satire 
friend: doe you not thinke that yon- Black-Friers, or the Palace-garden 
der flesh will stincke anon, hauing Beare, 
so many flyes blowing vpon it?’— Are subiects fittest to content your 
Thomas Dekker, op. cit., II, 292. care. 
Supra, 134°. 
*“Censure will not driue a Trade, 
or make the Iacke go. And though 
you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit 
on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the 
Cock-pit, to arraigne Playes dailie, 
know, these Playes haue had their 
triall alreadie, and stood out all Ap- 
peales.” 
®Yong Gallants glories soone will 
Ladies charm 
S’foot walke the streets, in cringing 
vse your wits, 
Suruey your Loue, which in her 
window sits. 
An amorous discourse, a Poets wit, 
Doth humor best your melancholy fit. 
The Globe to morrow acts a pleas- 
ant play, 
In pears it consume the irkesome 
ay. 
Goe take a pipe of To. the crowded 
stage 
Must needs be graced with you and 
your page. 
Sweare for a place with each con- 
trolling foole, 
And send your hackney seruant for 
a stoole. 
—Henry Hutton, Follie’s Anatomie, 
250 
—— es ee 
