Note 1729 — BOOK IV THE PLAY-HOUSES (continued 5)
Reading edition
Grindal to Cecil (1564, App. D, No. xv), ‘these Histriones, common playours who now daylye, butt speciallye on holydayes, sett vp bylles’; Merry Tales, &c. (1567; cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Vennar), ‘billes ... vpon postes about London’; Northbrooke (1577, App. C, No. xvi), ‘they use to set vp their billes vpon postes certain dayes before’; Gosson, S. A. (1579, App. C, No. xxii), 44, ‘If players can ... proclame it in their billes, and make it good in theaters’; Rankins (1587, App. C, No. xxxviii), ‘sticking of their bills in London’; Marston, Scourge of Villainy (Bullen, iii. 302), ‘Go read each post, view what is play’d to-day’; Histriomastix, v. 69, ‘Text-bills must now be turned to iron bills’; Warning for Fair Women, (> 1599):
’Tis you have kept the Theatres so long, Painted in play-bills upon every post. That I am scorned of the multitude.
Wither, Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613), ii. 2:
But, by the way, a Bill he doth espy, Which showes theres acted some new Comedy.
In Bartholomew Fair, v. iii. 6, Cokes ‘reads the Bill’ of the motion; cf. Lawrence (ii. 55), The Origin of the Theatre Programme.