Note 275 — NOTE ON SYMBOLS (continued 2)

Of the late woodcuts, Roxana shows ‘above’ two compartments, clearly with spectators; Messalina one, closed by curtains; The Wits a central one closed by curtains, and three on each side, with female spectators. In view of their dates and doubtful provenances (cf. Bibl. Note to ch. xviii), these are no evidence for the sixteenth-century public theatre, but they show that at some plays, public or private, the audience continued to sit ‘over the stage’ well in to the seventeenth century.