The general opinion of players remains that they have at all times been a penniless tribe, eating the 'corn in the green;' borrowing; spending their money in riotous living. This opinion is not by any means always true. The musician, the mummer, the dancer, and the tumbler were all regarded much in the same light; they were despised; they did not fight like the soldier; they did not produce like the craftsman; they did not, like the priest, say mass and forgive sins; they did not heal the sick; they knew no law; their only function in the world was to amuse; to make men laugh. It is very remarkable that directly the players ceased to be dependent on noble lords, as soon as they appealed to the public and received money from those who came to see them perform, they became prudent men of business. They may have been a cheerful tribe; they were, however, well to do, and, so far as can be learned, a thrifty tribe. They made money, not by writing plays, nor by acting them, but by being shareholders in the company with which they played. Burbage, Alleyn, Heminge, Sly, Field, Schanke, not to speak of Shakespeare, all appear to have lived in comfort, and to have died possessed of moderate fortunes. The poets, certainly, continued, as poets have always been, penniless and in debt. By the end of the sixteenth century the earliest of the dramatic poets, Marlowe, Peele, Nash, Greene--that turbulent roystering profligate band whom everybody loved while everybody reproved--had passed away. The early extravagance vanished. The later poets, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, led more godly lives. Yet they were often harassed for want of money. Three of them, Massinger, Field and Daborne, write to Henslow asking for an advance of 5_l._ on the security of a play which is worth ten pounds in addition to what they have had. All those, in fact, were poor, and remained poor, who attempted to live by poetic literature alone. The poets have had enough attention paid to them: let us consider the Company of Actors who played at the Globe and the Rose, the Hope and the Lion, and lived on and near the Bankside. The books of St. Saviour's (see Rendle's 'Southwark,' App. p. 26) are full of references to the actors who died and were buried here, whose children were baptised here or buried here. The name of William Shakespeare, unfortunately, does not occur. Among the actors, and first and chief, was Richard Burbage--like Shakespeare, a Warwickshire man. In person he was under the middle stature, and grew fat and scant of breath. But no actor of the time had so great a power over his audience. It was his father who built the very first permanent theatre--called The Theatre at Shoreditch. In consequence of a dispute with the landlord, he pulled down the house, carried the timbers across the river to Bankside, and set up the Globe.