outhing of
splendid poetry, virile situations that contained the blood and thunder
elements always dear to the heart of the groundlings, these the play of
that period had to have to hold the audiences. Impudent breakings in
from the gentles who lounged on the stage and blew tobacco smoke from
their pipes into the faces perchance of Burbage and Shakespeare himself;
vulgar interpolations of some clown while the stage waited the entrance
of a player delayed in the tiring room must have been daily occurrences.
And yet, from such a stage, confined in extent and meager in fittings,
and under such physical limitations of comfort and convenience, were the
glories of the master poet given forth to the world. Our sense of the
wonder of his work is greatly increased when we get a visualized
comprehension of the conditions under which he accomplished it. It is
well to add that one of the most fruitful phases of contemporary
scholarship is that which has thrown so much light upon the structure of
the first English theaters. We now realize as never before the limits of
the scenic representation and the necessary restriction consequent upon
the style of drama given.

Another interesting and important consideration should also be noted
here; and one too generally overlooked. The groundlings in the pit,
albeit exposed to wind and weather and deprived of the seats which
minister to man's ease and presumably dispose him to a better reception
of the piece, were yet in a position to witness the play as a play
superior to that of the more aristocratic portions of the assemblage.
However charming it may have been for the sprigs of the nobility to
touch elbows with Shakespeare on the boards as he delivered the tender
lines of old Adam in _As You Like It_, or to exchange a word aside with
Burbage just before he began the immortal soliloquy, "To be or not to
be," it is certain that these gentry were not so advantageously placed
to enjoy the rendition as a whole as were master Butcher or Baker at
the front. And it would seem reasonable to believe that the nature of
the Elizabethan play, so broadly humorous, so richly romantic, so large
and obvious in its values and languaged in a sort of surplusage of
exuberance, is explained by the fact that it was the common herd to whom
in particular the play was addressed in these early playhouses: not the
literature in which it was written so much as the unfolding story and
the tout ensemble which they were