Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/339

Rh arrived; there were no stalls, the whole floor being given up to the pit, where sat the critics, while boxes and galleries contained the general public. The play began at five o'clock, seats varying from five shillings to one shilling. The occupants of some of the boxes attended as much to be seen as to see. "I rose and sat down, covered and uncovered my head, twenty times between the acts," says Roderick Random, "pulled out my watch, wound it up, set it, displayed my snuff-box, affected to take snuff, wiped my nose with a perfumed handkerchief, dangled my cane and adjusted my sword-knot, in order to attract attention."

It was the rising middle-class folk who really appreciated the plays on their own merits, and delighted in "As You Like It," the "Merry Wives," and "A Winter's Tale." Perdita appeared in a dress of pink lustring, a long stomacher and a hoop festooned with flowers, Othello in a regimental suit of the King's bodyguard and a flowered wig, Lady Macbeth in a hoop eight yards in circumference, and Cleopatra had a powdered commode and a jewelled fan. The same improvement in taste that revolutionised the stage affected the lighter literature of the day, and a "wave of delicacy" created a new