e passed, he had in one corner of his
Schoole, a Clocke, with a verie faire large diall; he had
within that Schoole a roome the which he called his privie
schoole, with manie weapons therein, where he did teach his
schollers his secret fight, after he had perfectly taught
them their rules. He was verie much loved in the Court.

[Footnote 300: _Ibid._, p. 122.]

We are further told by Silver that Bonetti took it upon himself "to
hit anie Englishman with a thrust upon anie button." It is no wonder
that Shakespeare ridiculed him in _Romeo and Juliet_ as "the very
butcher of a silk button," and laughed at his school and his fantastic
fencing-terms:

_Mercutio._ Ah! the immortal "passado"! the "punto reverso"!
the "hay"!

_Benvolio._ The what?

_Mercutio._ The pox of such antick, lisping, affecting
fantasticoes! These new tuners of accents!--"By Jesu, a very
good blade!"

At the date of the sale to Burbage, February 4, 1596, the fencing
school of Bonetti, had become "those rooms and lodgings, with the
kitchen thereunto adjoining, called the Middle Rooms or Middle
Stories, late being in the tenure or occupation of Rocco Bonetti, and
now being in the tenure or occupation of Thomas Bruskett, gentleman."

To make his playhouse Burbage removed all the partitions in the Middle
Rooms, and restored the Parlor to its original form--a great room
covering the entire breadth of the building, and extending fifty-two
feet in length from north to south. To this he added the Hall at the
north, which then existed as two rooms in the occupation of Peter
Johnson. The Hall and Parlor when combined made an auditorium
described as "per estimacionem in longitudine ab australe ad borealem
partem eiusdem sexaginta et sex pedes assissae sit plus sive minus, et
in latitudine ab occidentale ad orientalem partem eiusdem quadraginto
et sex pedes assissae sit plus sive minus."[301] The forty-six feet of
width corresponds to the interior width of the Frater building, for
although it was fifty-two feet wide in outside measurement, the stone
walls were three feet thick. The sixty-six feet of length probably
represents the fifty-two feet of the Parlor plus the breadth of the
Hall.

[Footnote 301: Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_,
p. 39, note 1.]

The ceiling of these two rooms must have been of unusual height. The
Infirmary, which was below the Parliament Chamber at the so