with Shoreditch and the Bankside, the recognized homes of the London
stews.[279]

[Footnote 277: The Petition of 1619, in The Malone Society's
_Collections_, I, 93.]

[Footnote 278: It is true that poor people also, feather-dealers and
such-like, lived in certain parts of Blackfriars, but this, of course,
did not affect the reputation of the precinct as the residence of
noblemen.]

[Footnote 279: In Samuel Rowlands's _Humors Looking Glass_ (1608), a
rich country gull is represented as filling his pockets with money and
coming to London. Here a servant "of the Newgate variety" shows him
the sights of the city:

Brought him to the Bankside where bears do dwell,
And unto Shoreditch where the whores keep hell.]

Thus, a playhouse erected in the precinct of Blackfriars would escape
all the grave disadvantages of situation which attached to the
existing playhouses in the suburbs, and, on the other hand, would gain
several very important advantages.

Burbage's originality, however, did not stop with the choice of
Blackfriars as the site of his new theatre; he determined to improve
on the form of building as well. The open-air structure which he had
designed in 1576, and which had since been copied in all public
theatres, had serious disadvantages in that it offered no protection
from the weather. Burbage now resolved to provide a large "public"
playhouse, fully roofed in, with the entire audience and the actors
protected against the inclemency of the sky and the cold of winter. In
short, his dream was of a theatre centrally located, comfortably
heated, and, for its age, luxuriously appointed.

With characteristic energy and courage he at once set about the task
of realizing this dream. He found in the Blackfriars precinct a large
building which, he thought, would admirably serve his purpose. This
building was none other than the old Frater of the Monastery, a
structure one hundred and ten feet long and fifty-two feet wide, with
stone walls three feet thick, and a flat roof covered with lead. From
the Loseley documents, which M. Feuillerat has placed at the disposal
of scholars,[280] we are now able to reconstruct the old Frater
building, and to point out exactly that portion which was made into a
playhouse.[281]

[Footnote 280: _Blackfriars Records_, in The Malone Society's
_Collections_, (1913).]

[Footnote 281: For a reconstruction of the Priory buildings and
grounds, and for specific evidence of sta