The theater is your Poets Royal Exchange, upon which their Muses, (yt
are now turnd to Merchants,) meeting, barter away that light commodity
of words for a lighter ware then words, _Plaudites_, and the _breath_
of the great _Beast_; which (like the threatnings of two Cowards)
vanish all into air. _Plaiers_ and their _Factors_, who put away the
stuffe, and make the best of it they possibly can (as indeed tis their
parts so to doe) your Gallant, your Courtier, and your Capten had wont
to be the soundest paymaisters; and I thinke are still the surest
chapmen: and these, by meanes that their heades are well stockt, deale
upon this comical freight by the grosse: when your _Groundling_, and
_gallery-Commoner_ buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a _Hagler_,
is glad to utter it againe by retailing.
Sithence then the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stoole
as well to the Farmers sonne as to your Templer: that your Stinkard
has the selfe-same libertie to be there in his Tobacco-Fumes, which
your sweet Courtier hath: and that your Car-man and Tinker claime as
strong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to give judgment on the
plaies life and death, as well as the prowdest _Momus_ among the
tribe[s] of _Critick_: It is fit that hee, whom the most tailors bils
do make roome for, when he comes, should not be basely (like a vyoll)
casd up in a corner.
Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or private Play-house
stand to receive the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (having paid
it) presently advance himselfe up to the Throne of the Stage. I meane
not into the Lords roome (which is now but the Stages Suburbs): No,
those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-women
and Gentlemen-Ushers, that there sweat together, and the covetousnes
of Sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new
Satten is there dambd, by being smothred to death in darknesse. But on
the very Rushes where the Comedy is to daunce, yea, and under the
state of _Cambises_ himselfe must our fethered _Estridge_, like a
piece of Ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently) beating
downe the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality.
For do but cast up a reckoning, what large cummings-in are pursd up by
sitting on the Stage. First a conspicuous _Eminence_ is gotten; by
which meanes, the best and most essenciall parts of a Gallant (good
cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and a
tollerable beard) are perfectly revealed.
By sitting on the stage, you have a signd patent to engrosse the whole
commodity of Censure; may lawfully presume to be a Girder; and stand
at the helme to steere the passage of _scaenes_; yet / no man shall
once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent,
overweening Coxcombe.
By sitting on the stage, you may (without travelling for it) at the
very next doore aske whose play it is: and, by that _Quest_ of
_Inquiry_, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you know
not ye author, you may raile against him: and peradventure so behave
your selfe, that you may enforce the Author to know you.
By sitting on the stage, if you be a Knight, you may happily get you a
Mistress: if a mere _Fleet-street_ Gentleman, a wife: but assure
yourselfe, by continuall residence, you are the first and principall
man in election to begin the number of _We three_.
By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a Justice in
examining of plaies, you shall put your selfe into such true
_scaenical_ authority, that some Poet shall not dare to present his
Muse rudely upon your eyes, without having first unmaskt her at a
taverne, when you most knightly shal, for his paines, pay for both
their suppers.
By sitting on the stage, you may (with small cost) purchase the deere
acquaintance of the boys: have a good stoole for sixpence: at any time
know what particular part any of the infants present: get your match
lighted, examine the play-suits lace, and perhaps win wagers upon
laying 'tis copper, &c. And to conclude, whether you be a foole or a
Justice of peace, or a Capten, a Lord-Mayors sonne, or a dawcocke, a
knave, or an under-Sherife; of what stamp soever you be, currant, or
counterfet, the Stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light
and lay you open: neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the
Scarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hisse at you, spit at you, yea,
throw durt even in your teeth: 'tis most Gentlemanlike patience to
endure all this, and to laugh at the silly Animals: but if the
_Rabble_, with a full throat, crie, away with the foole, you were
worse then a madman to tarry by it: for the Gentleman, and the foole
should never sit on the Stage together.
Mary, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest: or rather,
like a country-serving-man, some five yards before them. Present / not
your selfe on the Stage (especially at a new play) untill the quaking
prologue hath (by rubbing) got culor into his cheekes, and is ready to
give the trumpets their Cue, that hees upon point to enter: for then
it is time, as though you were one of the _properties_, or that you
dropt out of ye _Hangings_, to creepe from behind the Arras, with your
_Tripos_ or three-footed stoole in one hand, and a teston mounted
betweene a forefinger and a thumbe in the other: for if you should
bestow your person upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but
halfe 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 crowne you with rich commendation, to laugh
alowd 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: your Lords use it; your
Knights are Apes to the Lords, and do so too: your Inne-a-court-man is
Zany to the Knights, and (mary very scurvily) comes likewise limping
after it: bee thou a beagle to them all, and never lin snuffing, till
you have scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a Plough-man
in a Morris) you heap _Pelion_ upon _Ossa_, glory upon glory: 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 meetes you in the streetes, 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. Secondly, you
publish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resort
thither to taste vaine pleasures with a hungrie appetite: but onely as
a Gentleman to spend a foolish houre or two, because you can doe
nothing else: Thirdly, you mightily disrelish the Audience, and
disgrace the Author: marry, you take up (though it be at the worst
hand) a strong opinion of your owne judgement, and inforce the Poet to
take pity of your weakenesse, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring
you into a better paradice, onely to stop your mouth.
If you can (either for love or money) provide your selfe a lodging by
the water-side: for, above the convenience it brings to / shun
Shoulder-clapping, and to ship away your Cockatrice betimes in the
morning, it addes a kind of-state unto you, to be carried from thence
to the staires of your Play-house: hate a Sculler (remember that)
worse then to be acquainted with one o' th' Scullery. No, your Oares
are your onely Sea-crabs, boord them, and take heed you never go twice
together with one paire: often shifting is a great credit to
Gentlemen; and that dividing of your fare wil make the poore
watersnaks be ready to pul you in peeces to enjoy your custome: No
matter whether upon landing, you have money or no: you may swim in
twentie of their boates over the river upon _Ticket_: marry, when
silver comes in, remember to pay treble their fare, and it will make
your Flounder-catchers to send more thankes after you, when you doe
not draw, then when you doe; for they know, It will be their owne
another daie.
Before the Play begins, fall to cardes: you may win or loose (as
_Fencers_ doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet
share the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the
_Raggamuffins_ that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards
(having first torne foure or five of them) round about the Stage, just
upon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skils not if the
foure knaves ly on their backs, and outface the Audience; theres none
such fooles 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 epigrammed 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 then by tossing him in a blancket, or giving him
the bastinado in a Taverne, if, in the middle of his play, (bee it
Pastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedic) 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 distast
them: and, beeing on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but
salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on the
rushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troope 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, but care
not for that, theres no musick without frets.
Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde you
to sit it out, my counsell 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, finde fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action,
whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers, that whereas
the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embrodered Felt
and Feather, (Scotch-fashion) for your mistres in the Court, within
two houres after, you encounter with the very same block on the stage,
when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that
morning.
To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which
your leane wit may most favourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when
the _Arcadian_ and _Euphuized_ gentlewomen have their tongues
sharpened to set upon you: that qualitie (next to your shuttlecocke)
is the onely furniture to a Courtier thats but a new beginner, and is
but in his A B C of complement. The next places that are filled, after
the Play-houses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) Tavernes: into a
Taverne then let us next march, where the braines of one Hogshead must
be beaten out to make up another.
_Thomas Dekker._