the personification
of every virtue. We simply do not know; there is no record extant. We
grope with dim eyes through the London of Shakespeare's time, glad to
find any trace of his presence in some favoured spot, and content to
make it a place of pilgrimage for his sake. It is to the history of the
stage itself that we must turn in order to piece together some
fragmentary record of his life in a city so changed by time and
prosperity that if the poet could revisit the glimpses of the moon, and
were to be set down in Bishopgate or Southwark to-day, he would not know
where to turn, and the metropolis of which we are so proud would be no
more to him than "the monstrous fabric of a vision."

CHAPTER VI

THE STAGE IN SHAKESPEARE'S DAY

When Shakespeare was at work the women of the plays were represented by
men or boys. In the highest society the Elizabethan women might take
some part in masques or pageants without rebuke, but the appearance of a
woman on the public stage in Shakespeare's day would have aroused
something like the emotion that would be caused by the appearance of a
Moslem woman unveiled in the chief thoroughfare of a fanatical
Mohammedan city, or a suffragist in the House of Commons. Costumes were
those of the day. Just as the great painters of Italy dressed the heroes
and heroines of Bible story in the contemporary costume, so the actor of
Shakespeare's time did no more than wear the best Elizabethan clothes he
could assume. Scenery was unknown. The front curtain, opening in the
middle, revealed a bare stage with perhaps a balcony at the back. This
was sometimes used by the actors, but where the play did not require a
balcony, visitors to the play would find their places there, just as at
the Queen's Hall, when a piano or violin recital is given, the orchestra
is sometimes added to the auditorium. A trumpet flourish warned
playgoers that the curtain was about to rise, and between the acts a
small company of musicians helped the interval to pass.

=GUILD CHAPEL AND SCHOOL=

It was not until the celebrated Inigo Jones designed scenery for certain
masques given at the Court of King James that the traditional bareness
of the boards was covered, and it was not until the time of Charles II.
that women began to make their appearance upon the boards and unite the
stage with the second estate. Many writers have emphasised the
difficulties besetting the Elizabethan dramatist; Sir Philip Sidney
himsel