277

44.--An interior view of the Swan Theatre in the time
of Shakespeare, from a drawing by John de Witt, 1596,
recently discovered in the Utrecht library by M. K. T.
Gaedertz, of Berlin. Reproduced as illustrative of
Dekker's "Horne-booke," 1609 (_infra_, ch. vi. Sec. 3).
Spectators have not been represented. They must be
supposed to fill the pit, "planities sive arena," where
they remained standing in the open air, and the covered
galleries. The more important people were seated on the
stage. Actors, to perform their parts, came out of the
two doors inscribed "mimorum aedes." The boxes above
these doors, concerning which some doubts have been
expressed, seem to be what was called "the Lords'
room." "Let our gallant," says Dekker, "advance himself
up to the throne of the stage. I meane not the Lords
roome (which is now but stages suburbs): no, those
boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of
waiting women and gentlemen ushers, that there sweat
together, and the covetousness of sharers are
contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new satten
is there dambd by being smothrd 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 be planted valiantly, because
impudently, beating downe the mewes and hisses of
opposed rascality" ("Works," ed. Grosart, vol. ii. p.
247) 286

45.--Elizabethan gaieties. The actor Kemp's dance to
Norwich, from the frontispiece of "Kemps nine daies
wonder performed in a from London to Norwich,
containing the pleasure, paines and kind entertainment
of William Kemp betweene London and that city ...
written by himselfe to satisfie his friends," London,
1600, reprinted by Dyce, Camden Society, 1840, 4to 287

46.--Portrait of Nash, from "Tom Nash his ghost ...
written by Thomas Nash his ghost" (no date). A copy in
the British Museum 326

47.--Portrait of Dekker, from "Dekker his dreame," a
poem by the same, London, 1620, frontispiece 333

48.--Heroical deeds in an heroical novel. "Pandion
slayes Clausus," from "Pandion and Amphigenia," by J.
Crow