the tobacco smoked--though admitting its
medicinal virtue. Dekker suggests, probably with truth, that one
reason why the young gallant liked to push his way to a stool on the
stage, notwithstanding "the mewes and hisses of the opposed
rascality"--the "mewes" must have been the squeals or whistles
produced by the instrument which was later known as a cat-call--was
the opportunity such a prominent position afforded for the display of
"the best and most essential parts of a gallant--good cloathes, a
proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and a tolerable
beard." Apparently, too, serving-boys were within call, and thus
lights could easily be obtained, which were handed to one another by
the smokers on the points of their swords.

Ben Jonson has given us an amusing picture of the behaviour of
gallants on the Elizabethan stage, in his "Cynthia's Revels." In this
scene a child thus mimics the obtrusive beau: "Now, sir, suppose I am
one of your genteel auditors, that am come in (having paid my money at
the door, with much ado), and here I take my place, and sit downe. I
have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus
I begin. 'By this light, I wonder that any man is so mad, to come to
see these rascally tits play here--they do act like so many wrens--not
the fifth part of a good face amongst them all--and then their musick
is abominable--able to stretch a man's ears worse than ten--pillories,
and their ditties--most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows
that make them--poets. By this vapour--an't were not for tobacco--I
think--the very smell of them would poison me, I should not dare to
come in at their gates. A man were better visit fifteen jails--or a
dozen or two hospitals--than once adventure to come near them.'" And
the young rascal, who at each pause marked by a dash had puffed his
pipe, no doubt blowing an extra large "cloud" when he swore "by this
vapour," turns to his companions and says: "How is't? Well?" and they
pronounce his mimicry "Excellent!"

Smoking was not confined to the auditors on the stage, who paid
sixpence each for a stool. There was the "lords' room" over the stage,
which seems to have corresponded with the modern stage boxes, the
price of admission to which appears to have been a shilling, where the
pipe was also in full blast. Dekker tells how a gallant at a new play
would take a place in the "twelve penny room, next the stage, because
the lords and you may