"
And the "Gull's Horn Book," 1609, counsels, "At a new play you take up
the twelvepenny room next the stage, because the lords and you may
seem to be hail-fellow well met!"
But it is plain that the tariff of admission was subject to frequent
alterations, and that as money became more abundant, the managers
gradually increased their charges. In the "Scornful Lady" "eighteen
pence" is referred to as though it were the highest price of admission
to the Blackfriars Theatre. Sir John Suckling writes, about the middle
of the seventeenth century:
The sweat of learned Jonson's brain,
And gentle Shakespeare's easier strain,
A hackney-coach conveys you to,
In spite of all that rain can do,
And for your eighteenpence you sit,
The lord and judge of all fresh wit.
It must always be doubtful, however, as to the precise portion of the
theatre these writers intended to designate. As Mr. Collier suggests,
the discordances between the authorities on this question arise,
probably, from the fact that "different prices were charged at
different theatres at different periods.
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