CHAPTER VI

How a Gallant should behaue himself in a Play-house.

THE theater is your Poets Royal Exchange, vpon which their Muses (that are now turnd to Merchants) meeting, barter away that light commodity of words for a lighter ware then words, _Plaudites_, and the _breath_ of the great _Beast_; which (like the threatnings of two Cowards) vanish all into air. _Plaiers_ and their _Factors_, who put away the stuffe, and make the best of it they possibly can (as indeed tis their parts so to doe), your / Gallant, your Courtier, and your Capten, had wont to be the soundest paymaisters; and I thinke are still the surest chapmen: and these, by meanes that their heades are well stockt, deale vp[=o] this comical freight by the grosse: when your _Groundling_, and _gallery-Commoner_ buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a _Hagler_, is glad to vtter it againe by retailing.

Sithence then the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stoole as well to the Farmers sonne as to your Templer: that your Stinkard has the selfe-same libertie to be there in his Tobacco-Fumes, which your sweet Courtier hath: and that your Car-man and Tinker claime as strong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to giue iudgement on the plaies life and death, as well as the prowdest _Momus_ among the tribe[s] of _Critick_: It is fit that hee, whom the most tailors bils do make roome for, when he comes, should not be basely (like a vyoll) casd vp in a corner.

Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or priuate Play-house stand to receiue the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (hauing paid it) presently aduance himselfe vp to the Throne of the Stage. I meane not into the Lords roome (which is now but the Stages Suburbs): No, those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-women and Gentlemen-Ushers, that there sweat together, and the couetousnes of Sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new Satten is there dambd, by being smothred to death in darknesse. But on the very Rushes where the Commedy is to daunce, yea, and vnder the state of _Cambises_ himselfe must our fethered _Estridge_, like a piece of Ordnance, be planted, valiantly (because impudently) beating downe the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality.

For do but cast vp a reckoning, what large cummings-in are pursd vp by sitting on the Stage. First a conspicuous _Eminence_ is gotten; by which meanes, the best and most essenciall parts of a Gallant (good cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and a tollerable beard) are perfectly reuealed.

By sitting on the stage, you haue a signd patent to engrosse the whole commodity of Censure; may lawfully presume to be a Girder; and stand at the helme to steere the passage of _scoenes_; yet / no man shall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, ouer-weening Coxcombe.

By sitting on the stage, you may (without trauelling for it) at the very next doore aske whose play it is: and, by that _Quest_ of _Inquiry_, the law warrants you to auoid much mistaking: if you know not ye author, you may raile against him: and peraduenture so behaue your selfe, that you may enforce the Author to know you.

By sitting on the stage, if you be a Knight, you may happily get you a Mistresse: if a mere _Fleet-street_ Gentleman, a wife: but assure yourselfe, by continuall residence, you are the first and principall man in election to begin the number of _We three_.

By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a Iustice in examining of plaies, you shall put your selfe into such true _scoenical_ authority, that some Poet shall not dare to present his Muse rudely vpon your eyes, without hauing first vnmaskt her, rifled her, and discouered all her bare and most mysticall parts before you at a tauerne, when you most knightly shal, for his paines, pay for both their suppers.

By sitting on the stage, you may (with small cost) purchase the deere acquaintance of the boyes: haue a good stoole for sixpence: at any time know what particular part any of the infants present: get your match lighted, examine the play-suits lace, and perhaps win wagers vpon laying tis copper, &c. And to conclude, whether you be a foole or a Justice of peace, a Cuckold, or a Capten, a Lord-Maiors sonne, or a dawcocke, a knaue, or an vnder Sheriffe; of what stamp soeuer you be, currant, or counterfet, the Stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light and lay you open: neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the Scarcrows in the yard hoot at you, hisse at you, spit at you, yea, throw durt euen in your teeth: tis most Gentlemanlike patience to endure all this, and to laugh at the silly Animals: but if the _Rabble_, with a full throat, crie, away with the foole, you were worse then a madman to tarry by it: for the Gentleman and the foole should neuer sit on the Stage together.

Mary, let this obseruation go hand in hand with the rest: or rather, like a country-seruing-man, some fiue yards before them. Present / not your selfe on the Stage (especially at a new play) vntill the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got culor into his cheekes, and is ready to giue the trumpets their Cue, that hees vpon point to enter: for then it is time, as though you were one of the _properties_, or that you dropt out of ye _Hangings_, to creepe from behind the Arras, with your _Tripos_ or three-footed stoole in one hand, and a teston mounted betweene a forefinger and a thumbe in the other: for if you should bestow your person vpon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but halfe full, your apparell is quite eaten vp, the fashion lost, and the proportion of your body in more danger to be deuoured then if it were serued vp in the Counter amongst the Powltry: auoid that as you would the Bastome. It shall crowne you with rich commendation to laugh alowd in the middest of the most serious and saddest scene of the terriblest Tragedy: and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost so high, that all the house may ring of it: your Lords vse it; your Knights are Apes to the Lords, and do so too: your Inne-a-court-man is Zany to the Knights, and (mary very scuruily) comes likewise limping after it: bee thou a beagle to them all, and neuer lin snuffing, till you haue scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a Plough-man in a Morris) you heap _Pelion_ vpon _Ossa_, glory vpon glory: As first, all the eyes in the galleries will leaue walking after the Players, and onely follow you: the simplest dolt in the house snatches vp your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, or that you fall into his hands in the middle of a Watch, his word shall be taken for you: heele cry _Hees such a gallant_, and you passe. Secondly, you publish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resort thither to taste vaine pleasures with a hungrie appetite: but onely as a Gentleman to spend a foolish houre or two, because yoe can doe nothing else: Thirdly, you mightily disrelish the Audience, and disgrace the Author: marry, you take vp (though it be at the worst hand) a strong opinion of your owne iudgement, and inforce the Poet to take pity of your weakenesse, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring you into a better paradice, onely to stop your mouth.

If you can (either for loue or money) prouide your selfe a lodging by the water-side: for, aboue the conuenience it brings to / shun Shoulder-clapping, and to ship away your Cockatrice betimes in the morning, it addes a kind of state vnto you, to be carried from thence to the staires of your Playhouse: hate a Sculler (remember that) worse then to be acquainted with one o' th' Scullery. No, your Oares are your onely Sea-crabs, boord them, and take heed you neuer go twice together with one paire: often shifting is a great credit to Gentlemen; and that diuiding of your fare wil make the poore watersnaks be ready to pul you in peeces to enioy your custome: No matter whether vpon landing, you haue money or no: you may swim in twentie of their boates ouer the riuer upon _Ticket_: mary, when siluer comes in, remember to pay trebble their fare, and it will make your Flounder-catchers to send more thankes after you, when you doe not draw, then when you doe; for they know, It will be their owne another daie.

Before the Play begins, fall to cardes: you may win or loose (as _Fencers_ doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet share the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the _Ragga-muffins_ that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards (hauing first torne foure or fiue of them) round about the Stage, iust vpon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skils not if the foure knaues ly on their backs, and outface the Audience; theres none such fooles as dare take exceptions at them, because, ere the play go off, better knaues than they will fall into the company.

Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammd you, or hath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather, or your red beard, or your little legs, &c. on the stage, you shall disgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket, or giuing him the bastinado in a Tauerne, if, in the middle of his play (bee it Pastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedie), you rise with a screwd and discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the Scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distast them: and, beeing on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on the rushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troope you can from the stage after you: the _Mimicks_ are beholden to you, for allowing them / elbow roome: their Poet cries, perhaps, a pox go with you, but care not for that, theres no musick without frets.

Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde you to sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain Ape, take vp a rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to make other fooles fall a laughing: mewe at passionate speeches, blare at merrie, finde fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action, whistle at the songs: and aboue all, curse the sharers, that whereas the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embrodered Felt and Feather (scotch-fashion) for your mistres in the Court, or your punck in the city, within two houres after, you encounter with the very same block on the stage, when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that morning.

To conclude, hoard vp the finest play-scraps you can get, vpon which your leane wit may most sauourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when the _Arcadian_ and _Euphuizd_ gentlewomen haue their tongues sharpened to set vpon you: that qualitie (next to your shittlecocke) is the onely furniture to a Courtier thats but a new beginner, and is but in his A B C of complement. The next places that are fild, after the Playhouses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) Tauernes: into a Tauerne then let vs next march, where the braines of one Hogshead must be beaten out to make vp another.