Ham. How then?
Gil. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away,
For the principall publike audience that
Came to them, are turned to priuate playes,[19]
And to the humour[20] of children.
Ham. I doe not greatly wonder of it,
For those that would make mops and moes
At my vncle, when my father liued, &c.]
[Footnote 2: a nest of children. The acting of the children of two or three of the chief choirs had become the rage.]
[Footnote 3: Eyases—unfledged hawks.]
[Footnote 4: Children cry out rather than speak on the stage.]
[Footnote 5: 'cry out beyond dispute'—unquestionably; 'cry out and no mistake.' 'He does not top his part.' The Rehearsal, iii. 1.—'He is not up to it.' But perhaps here is intended above reason: 'they cry out excessively, excruciatingly.' 103.
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,—A Lover's Complaint.]
[Footnote 6: I presume it should be the present tense, beratle—except the are of the preceding member be understood: 'and so beratled are the common stages.' If the present, then the children 'so abuse the grown players,'—in the pieces they acted, particularly in the new arguments, written for them—whence the reference to goose-quills.]
[Footnote 7: —of the play-going public.]