f the Children of the Chapel and of Windsor in giving
performances before the public in Blackfriars, the Paul's Boys soon
began to give such performances in a building near the Cathedral.[162]
The building so employed was doubtless one of the structures owned by
the Church. Burbage and Heminges refer to it as "the said house near
St. Paul's Church."[163] Richard Flecknoe, in _A Discourse of the
English Stage_ (1664), places it "behind the Convocation-house in
Paul's";[164] and Howes, in his continuation of Stow's _Annals_
(1631), says that it was the "singing-school" of the Cathedral.[165]
That the auditorium was small we may well believe. So was the stage.
Certain speakers in the Induction to _What You Will_, acted at Paul's
in 1600, say: "Let's place ourselves within the curtains, for, good
faith, the stage is so very little, we shall wrong the general eye
else very much." Both Fleay and Lawrence[166] contend that the
building was "round, like the Globe," and as evidence they cite the
Prologue to Marston's _Antonio's Revenge_, acted at Paul's in 1600, in
which the phrases "within this round" and "within this ring" are
applied to the theatre. The phrases, however, may have reference
merely to the circular disposition of the benches about the stage.
That high prices of admission to the little theatre were charged we
learn from a marginal note in _Pappe with an Hatchet_ (1589), which
states that if a tragedy "be showed at Paul's, it will cost you four
pence; at the Theatre two pence."[167] The Children, indeed, catered
to a very select public. Persons who went thither were gentle by birth
and by behavior as well; and playwrights, we are told, could always
feel sure there of the "calm attention of a choice audience."[168]
Lyly, in the Prologue to _Midas_, acted at Paul's in 1589, says: "Only
this doth encourage us, that presenting our studies before
_Gentlemen_, though they receive an inward dislike, we shall not be
hissed with an open disgrace." Things were quite otherwise in the
public theatres of Shoreditch and the Bankside.

[Footnote 162: Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 325,
erroneously says: "Their public place was, probably, from the first,
the courtyard of St. Paul's Cathedral."]

[Footnote 163: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.
95.]

[Footnote 164: That is, in or near Pater Noster Row.]

[Footnote 165: _Annales, or A Generall Chronicle of England_, 1631,
signature liii 1, verso.]