and all other things needefull and necessary' are to be deducted in due proportions from each day's takings, so that the company may not run into debt. No sharer is to take away any apparel or other common property, or print any play-book, on pain of losing his interest.
The boys played in what were called 'private' houses, and it is not quite clear how far they were amenable to the usual principles of stage regulation; an order by the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor to suppress plays during the Lent of 1601 was obviously intended to be enforced against them. Their performances, especially while they were novel, proved a serious menace to the prosperity of the adult companies. The classical allusions on the subject are that of Jonson in The Poetaster to the winter of 1600-1, which made the players poorer than so many starved snakes,[1] and the elaborate apology for the travelling of the company in Hamlet, which is so germane to the matter now under discussion that it must, however familiar, be given in full:[2]
Hamlet. . . . What players are they?
Rosin. Euen those you were wont to take delight in the Tragedians of the City.
Ham. How chances it they trauaile? their residence both in reputation and profit was better both wayes.
Rosin. I thinke their Inhibition comes by the meanes of the late Innouation?
Ham. Doe they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the City? Are they so follow'd?
Rosin. No indeed, they are not.
Ham. How comes it? doe they grow rusty?
Rosin. Nay, their indeauour keepes in the wonted pace; But there is Sir an ayrie of Children, little Yases, that crye out on the top of question; and are most tyrannically clap't for't: these are now the fashion, and so be-ratled the common Stages (so they call them) that
- ↑ Poetaster, III. iv. 344, 'O, it will get vs a huge deale of money, Captaine, and wee haue need on't; for this winter ha's made vs all poorer, then so many staru'd snakes: No bodie comes at vs; not a gentleman, nor a .'
- ↑ Hamlet, II. ii. 339. This is the Folio text. The Second Quarto omits
all but the first ten lines, but that there was some reference to the children
in the original version of the play, the date of which may be 1601, is shown
by the First Quarto text:
Hamlet. How comes it that they trauell? Do they grow restie?
Gilderstone. No my lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.
Hamlet. How then?
Gilderstone. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away,
For the principali publike audience that
Came to them, are turned to private playes,
And to the humour of children.
