afternoon, when the performance began. Within, the whole space was open to the elements, except that the stage was covered with a thatched roof. Here the gallants sat on stools among the actors, or lay on the rush-strewn floor, eating, drinking, playing cards and smoking the tobacco which Raleigh had just made fashionable. Below in the pit, and the word meant something then, were gathered the common people, standing up, taking the rain when it fell, drinking beer, etc., etc., etc. When the smell became too strong, a cry arose, ' Burn the juniper,' and the air was filled with its heavy smoke. On the stage, a huge scroll attached to a post told in large letters the location of the scene; a bunch of flowers indicated a garden; three or four supernum eraries with swords and bucklers represented an army and the rolling of a drum a pitched battle." For the benefit of our lady readers we must give Mr. Campbell's description of a gallant: " His beard will be cut so as to resemble a fan, a spade or the letter 'T.' He has great gold rings in his ears, set per haps with pearls or diamonds. About his neck will probably be a ribbon on which he will string his other jewels for exhibition. His dress excites astonishment everywhere. He has no costume of his own and so bor rows from all his neighbors. Portia describes him, in speaking of Falconbridge, the young baron of England : ' How oddly he is suited : I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Ger many, and his behavior everywhere '" (P- 336). The spirit of Elizabeth's legislation and her low ideas of common players of inter ludes and minstrels prevailed and often showed itself in legislation down to the Vagrant Act of 1744, which statute con tinued the law of England down to the year 1824. This act ( 1o Geo. II. c. 28) provides that persons acting plays etc. in any place where they have not a settlement, or without the Lord Chamberlain's license,
shall be deemed rogues and vagabonds and treated accordingly; and whether they had a legal settlement or no, if the license was absent each person was liable to a fine of £50. But to hark back a little and continue our investigations in chronological order. In 1605 the Parliament of James I. passed "An Act to restrain the abuses of players." This made it an offence punishable by a fine of £10 to jestingly or profanely speak or use the holy name of God, or of Jesus Christ, or of the Holy Ghost or of the Trinity, in any stage play, interlude, show, May game or pageant (3 Jac. I. c. 21). This wise Stuart afterwards passed an ordinance forbidding the representation on the stage of any Christian king who had not already been gathered to his fathers. Sir John Yorke was compelled to have some monetary transactions with the Star Chamber, while James was king, because of some private theatricals which he had in his house and which were supposed to exalt some of the peculiarities of Rome. By the first act of the reign of Charles I. acting on Sunday was forbidden under a penalty of three shillings and four pence. In the library at Lambeth Palace are the records of the presenting of the Lord Bishop of Lincoln for having a play in his house on the Lord's day in 1631, and what purports to be a copy of an order or decree made in the case by a self-constituted court, among the Puritans, for the censure and punishment of such offences (Collier's " English Drama tic Poetry," etc., vol. I., page 462). Here it is : " Forasmuch as the Court hath been in formed, by Mr. Commissry General, of a greate misdemeanor committed in the house of the Right Honorable Lord Bishopp of Lincoln by entertaining into his house divers Knights and Ladyes, with many other householders and servants upon the 27th Septembris, being the Saboth day, to see a playe or tragidie there acted, which began about ten of the clock at night and ended
