ly eight now) petitioning the Privy Council to allow
them to repair and enlarge their theatre, which the Puritans of
Blackfriars wanted to close. The Council allowed the repairs, but
forbade the enlargement. At this time Shakespeare was living near the
Bear Garden, Southwark, to be close to the Globe. He was now evidently a
thriving, "warm" man, for in 1597 he purchased for L60 New Place, one of
the best houses in Stratford. In 1613 we find Shakespeare purchasing a
plot of ground not far from Blackfriars Theatre, and abutting on a
street leading down to Puddle Wharf, "right against the king's majesty's
wardrobe;" but he had retired to Stratford, and given up London and the
stage before this. The deed of this sale was sold in 1841 for L162 5s.

In 1608 the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London made a final attempt to
crush the Blackfriars players, but failing to prove to the Lord
Chancellor that the City had ever exercised any authority within the
precinct and liberty of Blackfriars, their cause fell to the ground. The
Corporation then opened a negotiation for purchase with Burbage,
Shakespeare, and the other (now nine) shareholders. The players asked
about L7,000, Shakespeare's four shares being valued at L1,433 6s. 8d.,
including the wardrobe and properties, estimated at L500. The poet's
income at this time Mr. Collier estimates at L400 a year. The
Blackfriars Theatre was pulled down in Cromwell's time (1655), and
houses built in its room.

Randolph, the dramatist, a pupil of Ben Jonson's, ridicules, in _The
Muses' Looking-Glass_, that strange "morality" play of his, the Puritan
feather-sellers of Blackfriars, whom Ben Jonson also taunts; Randolph's
pretty Puritan, Mrs. Flowerdew, says of the ungodly of Blackfriars:--

"Indeed, it sometimes pricks my conscience,
I come to sell 'em pins and looking-glasses."

To which her friend, Mr. Bird, replies, with the sly sanctity of
Tartuffe:--

"I have this custom, too, for my feathers;
'Tis fit that we, which are sincere professors,
Should gain by infidels."

Ben Jonson, that smiter of all such hypocrites, wrote _Volpone_ at his
house in Blackfriars, where he laid the scene of _The Alchymist_. The
Friars were fashionable, however, in spite of the players, for Vandyke
lived in the precinct for nine years (he died in 1641); and the wicked
Earl and Countess of Somerset resided in the same locality when they
poisoned their former favourite, Sir Thomas Overbur