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Non longe ab uno horum theatrorum, quae omnia lignea sunt, ad Thamesim navis est regia, quae duo egregia habet conclavia, fenestris perlucidis, picturis & sculpturis eleganter exornata, in sicco & quidem sub tecto collocata, propterea, ut a pluviis & coeli injuria immunis sit.'

Hentzner then describes the baiting. He concludes:

'Utuntur in hisce spectaculis sicut & alibi, ubicunque locorum sint Angli, herba Nicotiana, quam Americano idiomate Tabacam nuncupant (Paetum alii dicunt) hoc modo frequentissime; Fistulae in hunc finem ex argilia factae, orificio posteriori, dictam herbam probe exiccatam, ita ut in pulverem facile redigi possit, immittunt, & igne admoto accendunt, unde fumus ab anteriori parte ore attrahitur, qui per nares rursum, tanquam per infurnibulum exit, & phlegma ac capitis defluxiones magna copia secum educit. Circumferuntur insuper in hisce theatris varii fructus venales, ut poma, pyra, nuces & pro ratione temporis, etiam vinum & cerevisia.'

It is perhaps natural that foreign visitors should be more struck by the English theatres at a time when the English stage was serving as a model to northern Europe, than was the case with a native chronicler of grave and slightly Puritanic tendencies. John Stowe, when he published his ''Survey of London'' in 1598, had nothing to say of the Bankside houses, and but little of those in Middlesex. After writing of the miracle plays, he says:

'Of late time in place of those Stage playes, hath beene vsed Comedies, Tragedies, Enterludes, and Histories, both true and fayned: For the acting whereof certaine publike places as the Theater, the Curtine, &c., haue been erected' [in margin, 'Theater and Curten for Comedies & other shewes'].

In another place, at the end of a description of Holywell, he adds:

'And neare therevnto are builded two publique houses for the acting and shewe of Comedies, Tragedies, and Histories, for recreation. Whereof the one is called the Courtein, the other the Theatre: both standing on the Southwest side towards the field.'

Even these scanty references were pruned in the second edition of 1603, after the Theatre had disappeared at the end of 1598 and the Chamberlain's men had left the Curtain.