[329] It was a common practice for gallants to sit on the stage; but when a coxcomb obstructed the view by planting himself in a prominent position, the audience naturally took offence. Dekker, in the chapter of the _Gull's Horn-Book_, describing "how a gallant should behave himself at a play-house," writes:--"But on the very rushes where the comedy is to dance, yea, and under the state of Cambyses himself, must our feathered estridge, like a piece of ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently), _beating down the mews and hisses of the opposed rascality_." [330] Sixpence, as we learn from the _Gull's Horn-Book_, Induction to _Cynthia's Revels_, &c., was the usual charge for the loan of a stool. Francis Lenton in his _Young Gallant's Whirligig_ tells us of an "expensive fool" who was ready to "pay an angel for a paltry stool." It was not uncommon to pay a shilling for the convenience. [331] Dr. Karl Elze in his _Notes on the Elizabethan Dramatists_ (2nd. ser., pp. 160-4) indulges in some speculations about this actor. [332] From _A Funeral Elegy_ on Burbadge, first printed by Collier, we learn that the great actor took the part of Malevole in _The Malcontent_:-- "Vindex is gone, and what a loss was he! Frankford, Brachiano, and Malevole." The elegy is in the main unquestionably genuine. [333] "A quotation from the part of Osrick in _Hamlet_. Sly might have been the original performer of that character."--_Steevens._ [334] The meaning is that in _The Malcontent_, which had been originally acted at Blackfriars Theatre, the practice of wearing feathers had been so ridiculed that the feather-makers of Blackfriars had suffered injury in their business. In v. 4 occurs the passage in which the use of feathers is ridiculed:--"For as now-a-days no courtier but has his mistress, no captain but has his cockatrice, no cuckold but has his horns, and _no fool but has his feather._" &c. Blackfriars was noted as being the residence of Puritans, many of whom followed the trade of feather-makers. There is some amusing ridicule of the Puritan feather-makers in Ben Jonson's _Bartholomew Fair_, Randolph's _Muses' Looking-Glass_, &c. [335] Judge. [336] Box.