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 or in modern phrase 'green-room', a necessary adjunct of every theatre. The Theatre depositions of 1592 speak of this as 'the attyring housse or place where the players make them readye'. The drawing indicates nothing in the way of hangings over either wall or doors, but in some theatres these certainly existed. Thus Peacham, in his Thalia's Banquet (1620) referring to much earlier days, tells us that

Tarlton when his head was onely seene, The Tire-house doore and Tapistrie betweene, Set all the multitude in such a laughter, They could not hold for scarce an hour after.

The front of the tiring-house is the 'scene' in the Renaissance sense, and its characteristics will be of great concern in later chapters. The Fortune tire-house was to be within*