priated to individuals, under the security of a lock and key. An upper balcony, over what is now called the stage box, constituted the orchestra.

The stage was separated from the audience part of the house by palings, and, previous to the commencement of the performance, was concealed by a curtain, which, divided in the middle, could be drawn from the centre to the sides its materials varied, with the opulence of the theatre, from woollen to silk. Like the floors of private houses in the Elizabethan age, the stage was usually strewed with rushes, but on occasions of extraordinary ceremony, it was covered with matting. At the back of the stage there was a balcony, or upper stage, on which the characters entered who were required to appear in elevated situations, such as Juliet in the balcony; and Romeo and Juliet aloft.* When not in use for the purposes of the scene, the balcony stage was concealed by a curtain. Where a play was exhibited within a play, the balcony was made use of either for the audience before whom the representation was to be made, or as a stage for the performance of the auxiliary play. Shakspeare himself furnishes an instance of each

*Act 3. sc. 5. "Aloft" is the stage direction of the second quarto.

practice. Sly would sit in the balcony to witness the Taming of the Shrew; and the mock play in Hamlet was certainly acted on the upper stage.

The presence of scenery in the booths and temporary erections in inn yards, where the first companies of comedians exhibited, is not to be supposed; and the evidence collected on the subject, for the most part, goes to prove, that the first regular theatres were nearly as destitute of scenic decoration as their beggarly predecessors had been. The absence of so essential an article of theatrical furniture is a proof, above all others, decisive of the excessive poverty of the first dramatic establishments, since the account books of Queen Elizabeth's master of the revels for 1571, and several subsequent years, clearly demonstrate the use of four varieties of scenery in almost every masque or play exhibited at court. 1. Temporary erections on the stage; 2. paintings on canvass stretched on frames; 3. mechanical contrivances; and, 4. furniture and properties generally.*

Scarcely a representation took place in the royal presence without the introduction of a "castell" or "battlement." Houses, arbours, prisons, senate-houses, altars, tombs, rocks and caves, devices for hell and hell-mouth, were

in constant requisition. On one occasion a "church" is specified, which appears, by a subsequent item in the account, to have contained a light. Trees, "hollow," and "of holly," appeared in painting or in effigy, and for the representation of a "wilderness" the axe was laid to the root, and the requisite proportion of timber removed in a waggon from the place of its growth to the revel-hall at court. The notice of such rural scenery forms a natural introduction to the mention of an exhibition little to have been expected on the ancient stage; "hunters that made cry after the fox (let loose in the coorte,) with their hounds, hornes, and hallowing in the play of Narcissus, which crye was made of purpose even as the words then in utterance, and the parte then played did requier." The appearance of these realities was, however, the exception rather than the rule. Notices elsewhere appear of "hobby horses ;" and from the perpetual charges throughout the accounts for lions, dragons, and fish, it is evident that the representation of animals was very common.

The suspension of the sun, in a cloud likewise suspended, must have been skilfully executed indeed, if it did not carry with it the appearance of absurdity; but the sun certainly was exhibited in that way before her majesty,

who, in the masque of Janus, witnessed with delight the descent of "flakes of yse, hayle stones, and snow-balls," delicately composed of "sugar plate, musk, kumfets, corianders prepared, clove cumfetts, synnamon cumfetts, ginger cumfetts, rose-water, spike-water, &c." The royal ear and eye were occasionally also recreated with artificial thunder, and its natural precursor, lightning. An instance is afforded, by the description of a chariot in these accounts, of the ponderous and complicated machinery and properties sometimes used in masques. "A charrott of 14 foote long and 8 foote brode, with a rocke upon it, and a fountayne therein, for Apollo and the Nine Muzes."

The contrast afforded to the ample equipment of the royal stage by the destitute state of the public theatres is striking. A simple hanging of arras or tapestry was all the ornament the stage could boast, and this, as it became decayed or torn, was clumsily repaired by the display of pictures over the fractured places. A plain curtain hung up in a corner, separated distant regions. A board inscribed with the name of a country or a city, indicated the scene of action, the varieties of which were proclaimed by the removal of one board and the substitution of another: a table with a pen and ink thrust in,

signified that the stage was a counting house; if these were withdrawn, and two stools put in their places, it was then a tavern. It was not always thought necessary to clear the stage previous to the execution of these inartificial contrivances. The Dramatis Personæ frequently remained immoveable during two or three shiftings of boards, stools, and tables, and were thus transferred, without the trouble of removal, to as many dif ferent places in succession. An endeavour was, indeed, sometimes made to rectify so striking an incongruity by the use of curtains, called traverses, which were suspended across the stage, and being withdrawn, discovered a person in a place distinct from that where the scene had hitherto been laid; and this constituted a transfer of all the persons present to the new locality.

When the theatres were entirely destitute of scenery, the protruded board indicated that the empty stage was to be considered as a city, a house, a wood, or any other place. When scenes were first introduced, the board was not immediately discontinued, but was used to denote that the painting exhibited to the audience represented such a particular city, wood, or house. It was a long while indeed before the theatres were rich enough to afford a separate