But there was no lavishing of expense. I am recalling these details
to show that the amusement was popular and cheap. The ordinary actors,
including the boys and men who took women's parts (for women did not
appear on the stage till after the Restoration) received only about five
or six shillings a week (for Sundays and all), and the first-class actor,
who had a share in the net receipts, would not make more than ninety
pounds a year. The ordinary price paid for a new play was less than seven
pounds; Oldys, on what authority is not known, says that Shakespeare
received only five pounds for "Hamlet."
The influence of the theatre upon politics, contemporary questions that
interested the public, and morals, was early recognized in the restraints
put upon representations by the censorship, and in the floods of attacks
upon its licentious and demoralizing character. The plays of Shakespeare
did not escape the most bitter animadversions of the moral reformers. We
have seen how Shakespeare mirrored his age, but we have less means of
ascertaining what effect he produced upon the life of his time. Until
after his death his influence was mainly direct, upon the play-goers, and
confined to his auditors. He had been dead seven years before his plays
were collected. However the people of his day regarded him, it is safe to
say that they could not have had any conception of the importance of the
work he was doing.
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