"It chaunc'd me gazing at the Theater,
To spie a Dock-Tabacco-Chevalier,
Clouding the loathing ayr with foggie fume
Of Dock-Tabacco;— — — —
I wisht the Roman lawes severity:
Who smoke selleth, with smoke be done to dy."[218:C]
The most rational of the amusements which occupied the impatient audience, was certainly that of reading, and this appears to have been supplied by a custom of hawking about new publications at the
theatre; at least this may be inferred from the opening of an address to the public, prefixed by William Fennor, to a production of his, entitled "Descriptions," and published in 1616. "To the Gentlemen readers, worthy gentlemen, of what degree soever, I suppose this pamphlet will hap into your hands, before a play begin, with the importunate clamour of Buy a New Booke, by some needy companion, that will be glad to furnish you with worke for a turn'd teaster."[219:A]
As soon as the third sounding had finished, it was usual for the person whose province it was to speak the Prologue, immediately to enter. As a diffident and supplicatory manner were thought essential to this character, who is termed by Decker, "the quaking Prologue," it was the custom to clothe him in a long black velvet cloak, to which Shirley adds, a little beard, a starch'd face, and a supple leg.[219:B]
On withdrawing the curtain, the stage was generally found strewed with rushes, which, in Shakspeare's time, as hath been remarked in our first volume, formed the common covering of floors, from the palace to the cottage[219:C]; but, on very splendid occasions, it was matted entirely over; thus, Sir Henry Wotton, in a letter which describes the conflagration of the Globe Theatre, in 1613, says, that on the night of the accident, "the King's Players had a new play, called All is true, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage."[219:D]