s between the methods of theatrical representation in
Shakespeare's day and our own lay in the fact that neither scenery nor
scenic costume nor women-actors were known to the Elizabethan stage. All
female _roles_ were, until the Restoration in 1660, assumed in the public
theatres by men or boys. {38c} Consequently the skill needed to rouse in
the audience the requisite illusions was far greater then than at later
periods. But the professional customs of Elizabethan actors approximated
in other respects more closely to those of their modern successors than
is usually recognised. The practice of touring in the provinces was
followed with even greater regularity then than now. Few companies
remained in London during the summer or early autumn, and every country
town with two thousand or more inhabitants could reckon on at least one
visit from travelling actors between May and October. A rapid
examination of the extant archives of some seventy municipalities
selected at random shows that Shakespeare's company between 1594 and 1614
frequently performed in such towns as Barnstaple, Bath, Bristol,
Coventry, Dover, Faversham, Folkestone, Hythe, Leicester, Maidstone,
Marlborough, New Romney, Oxford, Rye in Sussex, Saffron Walden, and
Shrewsbury. {40a} Shakespeare may be credited with faithfully fulfilling
all his professional functions, and some of the references to travel in
his sonnets were doubtless reminiscences of early acting tours. It has
been repeatedly urged, moreover, that Shakespeare's company visited
Scotland, and that he went with it. {40b} In November 1599 English
actors arrived in Scotland under the leadership of Lawrence Fletcher and
one Martin, and were welcomed with enthusiasm by the king. {41a}
Fletcher was a colleague of Shakespeare in 1603, but is not known to have
been one earlier. Shakespeare's company never included an actor named
Martin. Fletcher repeated the visit in October 1601. {41b} There is
nothing to indicate that any of his companions belonged to Shakespeare's
company. In like manner, Shakespeare's accurate reference in 'Macbeth'
to the 'nimble' but 'sweet' climate of Inverness, {41c} and the vivid
impression he conveys of the aspects of wild Highland heaths, have been
judged to be the certain fruits of a personal experience; but the
passages in question, into which a more definite significance has
possibly been read than Shakespeare intended, can be satisfactorily
accounted for by his