an records are fragmentary, opinions more abundant than facts, and the most willing witnesses not the most credible.
             Nothing profitable can now be said of Shakespeare's audience unless we clear our minds of preconception. We must take a long draft of the purgative of doubt, especially concerning opinion. The following typical description of theatregoers was written in 1603, that is, between Hamlet and Lear; it is the dictum of one Henry Crosse, whose eloquence I revere:
             Now the common haunters are for the most part, the leaudest persons in the land, apt for pilferie, periurie, forgerie, or any rogories, the very scum, rascallitie, and baggage of the people, thieues, cut-purses, shifters, cousoners; briefly an vncleane gencration, and spaune of vipers: must not here be good rule, where is such a broode of Hell-bred creatures? for a Play is like a sincke in a Towne, whereunto all the filth doth runne: or a byle in the body, that draweth all the ill humours vnto it. 1
             For "periurie" at least, opportunities in a playhouse must have been limited, not to cavil at other heightened effects.
             That we know how to discount such testimony now might be taken for granted. But let me quote from the most cautious and clearheaded of modern stage historians:
             plays were not only the occasions for frays and riots, but also brought bad characters together, and were suspected of affording secret opportunities for the hatching of sedition. It must be borne in mind that, so far as the external abuses of theatres go, the complaints of their bitterest enemies are fairly well supported by independent evidence. The presence of improper persons in the theatres is amply testified to by the satirists, and by references in the plays themselves. Intrigues and other nefarious transactions were carried on there; and careful mothers, such as Lady Bacon, anxiously entreated their sons to choose more salutary neighbourhoods for their lodgings. Some serious disturb...