[1195] This is believed to be the date by Mr. Malone, vol. ii. part ii. p. 239.
[1197] See Malone's Shakesp. vol. vi. p. 427. This ingenious writer will, with his known liberality, excuse the difference of opinion here entertained concerning the above tradition.
[1198] He speaks in p. 492 of the playhouses in Bishopsgate-street and on Ludgate-hill, which are not among the seventeen enumerated in the preface to Dodsley's Old Plays. Nay, it appears from Rymer's MSS. that twenty-three playhouses had been at different periods open in London; and even six of them at one time. See Malone's Shakesp. vol. i. pt. ii. p. 48.
[1199] So, I think, we may infer from the following passage, viz.: "How many are there, who, according to their several qualities, spend 2d. 3d. 4d. 6d. 12d. 18d. 2s. and sometimes 4s. or 5s. at a playhouse, day by day, if coach-hire, boat-hire, tobacco, wine, beere, and such like vaine expences, which playes doe usually occasion, be cast into the reckoning?" Prynne's Histriom. p. 322.
But that tobacco was smoaked in the playhouses appears from Taylor the Water-poet, in his Proclamation for Tobacco's Propagation: "Let play-houses, drinking-schools, taverns, &c. be continually haunted with the contaminous vapours of it; nay (if it be possible) bring it into the churches, and there choak up their preachers." (Works, p. 253.) And this was really the case at Cambridge: James I. sent a letter in 1607 against "taking Tobacco" in St. Mary's. So I learn from my friend Dr. Farmer.
A gentleman has informed me that once, going into a church in Holland, he saw the male part of the audience sitting with their hats on, smoking tobacco, while the preacher was holding forth in his morning-gown.
[1200] See the extracts above, in p. [439], from the E. of Northumb. Houshold Book.
[1201] See the Preface to Dodsley's Old Plays. The author of an old invective against the stage, called A third Blast of Retrait from Plaies, &c., 1580, 12mo., says: "Alas! that private affection should so raigne in the nobilitie, that to pleasure their servants, and to upholde them in their vanitye, they should restraine the magistrates from executing their office!... They [the nobility] are thought to be covetous by permitting their servants ... to live at the devotion or almes of other men, passing from countrie to countrie, from one gentleman's house to another, offering their service, which is a kind of beggerie. Who indeede, to speake more trulie, are become beggers for their servants. For comonlie the good-wil, men beare to their Lordes, makes them draw the strings of their purses to extend their liberalitie." Vid. p. [75], [76], &c.