Note 981 — ACT II. SCENE I.

the twelvepenny-stool gentlemen] i.e. gentlemen who pay twelvepence for a stool to sit upon the stage during the performance: see note, p. 412. This is one of the passages which led Malone to think that “persons were suffered to sit on the stage only in the private playhouses (such as Blackfriars, &c.)” Hist. Acc. of Engl. Stage, p. 78—Shakespeare (by Boswell), vol. iii.: but Mr. Collier has shewn that the practice was not confined to private theatres: Hist. of Engl. Dr. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 352.