price of these commodities and the comparatively high price of corn, the
average price of necessaries will be found to be in Shakespeare's day
about an eighth of what it is now. The cost of luxuries is also now
about eight times the price that it was in the sixteenth or seventeenth
century. Sixpence was the usual price of a new quarto or octavo book
such as would now be sold at prices ranging between three shillings and
sixpence and six shillings. Half a crown was charged for the best-placed
seats in the best theatres. The purchasing power of one Elizabethan
pound might be generally defined in regard to both necessaries and
luxuries as equivalent to that of eight pounds of the present currency.

{197b} Cf. Henslowe's _Diary_, ed. Collier, pp. xxviii seq. After the
Restoration the receipts at the third performance were given for the
author's 'benefit.'

{199a} _Return from Parnassus_, V. i. 10-16.

{199b} Cf. H[enry] P[arrot]'s _Laquei Ridiculosi or Springes for
Woodcocks_, 1613, Epigram No. 131, headed 'Theatrum Licencia:'

Cotta's become a player most men know,
And will no longer take such toyling paines;
For here's the spring (saith he) whence pleasures flow
And brings them damnable excessive gaines:
That now are cedars growne from shrubs and sprigs,
Since Greene's _Tu Quoque_ and those Garlicke Jigs.

Greens _Tu Quoque_ was a popular comedy that had once been performed at
Court by the Queen's players, and 'Garlicke Jigs' alluded derisively to
drolling entertainments, interspersed with dances, which won much esteem
from patrons of the smaller playhouses.

{200} The documents which are now in the Public Record Office among the
papers relating to the Lord Chamberlain's Office, were printed in full by
Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 312-19.

{202} In 1613 Robert Daborne, a playwright of insignificant reputation,
charged for a drama as much as 25 pounds. _Alleyn Papers_, ed. Collier,
p. 65.

{203} Ten pounds was the ordinary fee paid to actors for a performance
at the Court of James I. Shakespeare's company appeared annually twenty
times and more at Whitehall during the early years of James I's reign,
and Shakespeare, as being both author and actor, doubtless received a
larger share of the receipts than his colleagues.

{204a} Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 312-19; Fleay, _Stage_, pp. 324-8

{204b} Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 17-19.

{206a} See p. 195.

{206b} Halliwell-Phil