Shakespeare as an Actor 184 Court Performances 203 Theatrical Allusions 233 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Interior of the Swan Theatre _Frontispiece_ _Facing page_ A Stage Play in Progress at an Inn-yard 12 A Typical Inn-yard in Elizabethan Times, used by the Players 12 The Swan Theatre. From Visscher’s Map of London, 1616 81 The Plot of England’s Joy 86 The Rose Theatre or the First Globe Theatre 87 Frontispiece to James Howell’s Londinopolis, 1657, showing the position of four London Theatres, circa 1600 96 The Second Fortune Theatre, 1621 113 The Red Bull Theatre 117 Facsimile of an Admission Ticket to the Roman Coliseum 120 Ticket of Admission to the Red Bull Theatre 120 The Second Globe Theatre, 1614, and the Hope 121 The Palace of Whitehall 206 Banqueting Hall and Holbein Gate, Whitehall Tiltyard in foreground 206 Greenwich Palace in the time of Elizabeth 216 Interior of the Middle Temple Hall 227 Interior of the Old Inner Temple Hall 228 Facsimile of Passage in Manningham’s Diary, referring to Twelfth Night 228 Interior of Gray’s Inn Hall 231 Jocasta: A Tragedie written in Greek by Euripides 232 Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies 233 CHAPTER I THE EARLY DRAMA