Theater+.--Having dined, the Elizabethan gentleman often
visited one of the numerous bookshops, or else went to the theater,
perhaps to the Globe. In the latter case, since this theater was on
the south bank of the Thames, he was most likely to cross the river by
boat. A flag, floating from a turret over the theater, announced a
performance there. The prices paid for admission varied, but the
regular price for entrance to the Globe seems to have been a penny
(about fifteen cents in the money of to-day). This, however, gave one
only the right to stand in the pit or, perhaps, to sit in the top
gallery. For a box the price was probably a shilling (equivalent to
two dollars), the poorer seats costing less. At the aristocratic
Blackfriars, sixpence (one dollar) was the {58} lowest price. At this
theater, the most fashionable occupied seats on the stage, where they
were at once extremely conspicuous and in the way of the actors; but
this custom probably did not spread to the Globe before 1603. At the
Blackfriars, too, one could have a seat in the pit, while at the Globe
the pit was filled with a standing, jostling crowd of apprentices and
riffraff. In the theater every one was talking, laughing, smoking,
buying oranges, nuts, wine, or cheap books from shouting venders, just
as is done in some music halls to-day. Once the trumpet had sounded
for the third time, indicating the beginning of the performance, a
reasonable degree of quiet was restored, until a pause in the action
let the uproar burst forth anew. At an Elizabethan theater there were
no pauses for shifting scenes. Consequently the few introduced were
determined either by convention or by breaks in the action. At the
Blackfriars and more aristocratic theaters, there was music between the
acts, but at the Globe this was not customary until a comparatively
late date, if ever.

An audience like that at the Globe, made up of all sorts and conditions
of men from the highest nobility to the lowest criminal, was, quite
naturally, not easy to please as a whole. Yet, after all, the
Elizabethans were less critical in some respects than we are. Although
many comparatively cheap books were published, reading had not then
become a habit, and a good plot was not the less appreciated because it
was old. The audiences did, however, demand constant variety, so that
plays had short runs, and most dramatists were forced to pay more
attention to quantity {59} than to qua