Note 1685 — BOOK IV THE PLAY-HOUSES (continued 5)

A. Copley, Wits, Fits and Fancies (1595; ed. 1614, p. 124), tells of a man cast off by his brother, an actor, who sent him sixpence in a sheet of paper, to show that, ‘though his brother had vowed not in seven years to see him, yet he for his sixpence could come and see him upon the stage at his pleasure’. If Platter’s 3d. was the highest normal charge in the sixteenth century, the 6d. may represent a first night’s charge.