Note 896 — X THE ACTOR'S QUALITY

By 1574 the City had offers to farm their licensing rights 'to the relefe of the poore in the hospitalles'; but their regulations of Dec. 1574 provide for direct contributions to the poor and sick by holders of licences for playing-places. A weekly subsidy to the poor from every stage is suggested by Walsingham's correspondent of 1587. Hunsdon, in asking for the use of the Cross Keys in 1594, promised that his men would 'be contributories to the poore of the parishe where they plaie accordinge to their habilities'. In 1600 the Southwark Vestry were negotiating with the players for tithes and contributions for the poor on the basis of an 'order taken before my lords of Canterbury and London and the Master of the Revels'. In the same year the inhabitants of Finsbury recite the 'very liberall porcion' of money promised weekly for the relief of the poor as one of their grounds for assenting to the building of the Fortune. The accounts of the overseers of Paris Garden between 1611 and 1621 show varying sums, amounting to about £4 or £5 a year, as received during several years from the players at the Swan.