denominated traverfes. If a bedchamber is to be reprefented, no change of fcene is mentioned; but the property-man is fimply ordered to thruft forth a bed, or, the curtains being opened, a bed is exhibited. So, in the old play on which Shakspeare formed his King Henry VI. P. II. when Cardinal Beaufort is exhibited dying, the fiage-direction is"Enter King and Salisbury, and then the curtaines be drawn, [i. e. drawn open,] and the Cardinal is difcovered in his bed, raving and flaring as if he were mad." When the fable requires the Roman capitol to be reprefented, we find two officers enter, "to lay cufhions, as it were in the capitol." So, in King Richard II. A&t IV. fc. i: "Bolingbroke, &c. enter as to the parliament." Again, in Sir John he difcovereth the devill fitting in his pontificals." Again, in Satiromaflix, by Decker, 1002: "Horace fitting in his study, behind a curtaine, a candle by him burning, books lying confufedly," &c. In Mariton's What you will, a comedy, 1607, the following ftage-direction ftill more decifively proves this point: "Enter a Schoole-maitter-draws [i. e. draws open] the curtains behind, with Battus, Nows, Slip, Nathaniel, and Holifernes Pippo, fchool-boyes, fitting with bookes in their handes." Again, in Allovine, by Sir William D'Avenant, 1629: He drawes the Arras, and difcovers Albovine, Rhodolinda, Valdaura, dead in chaires." Again, in The Woman in the Moon, by Lily, 1597: "They draw the curtins from before Natures thop, where ftands an image clad, and fome unclad. They bring forth the cloathed image." Again, in Romeo and Juliet, 1597, Juliet, after the has fwallowed the fleepy potion, is ordered to "throw herfelfe on the bed, within the curtaines." As foon as Juliet has fallen on the bed, the curtains being still open, the Nurfe enters, then old Capulet and his Lady, then the Musicians; and all on the fame spot. If they could have exhibited a bed-chamber, and then could have fubftituted any other room for it, would they have fuffered the musicians and the Nurfe's fervant to have carried on a ludicrous dialogue in one where Juliet was fuppofed to be lying dead? See thefe ftage-directions in the first folio. Oldcastle, 1600: "Enter Cambridge, Scroop, and Gray, as in a chamber." When the citizens of Angiers are to appear on the walls of their town, and young Arthur to leap from the battlements, I suppose our ancestors were contented with feeing them in the balcony already defcribed; or perhaps a few boards were tacked together, and painted fo as to resemble the rude difcoloured walls of an old town, behind which a platform might have been placed near the top, on which the citizens flood: but furely this can scarcely be called a fcene. Though undoubtedly our poet's company were furnished with fome wooden fabrick fufficiently resembling a tomb, for which they muft have had occafion in feveral plays, yet fome doubt may be entertained, whether in Romeo and Juliet any exhibition of Juliet's monument was given on the fiage. Romeo perhaps only opened with his mattock one of the ftage trap-doors, (which might have represented a tomb-ftone,) by which he defcended to a vault beneath the ftage, where Juliet was depofited; and this notion is countenanced by a paffage in the play, and by the poem on which the drama was founded.3 In all the old copies of the play laft-mentioned we find the following ftage-direction: "They march 3 cc Why I defcend into this bed of death,-." Romeo and Juliet, A& V. So, in The Tragical Hyftory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "And then our Romeus, the vault-fione fet up-right, "Defcended downe, and in his hand he bore the candle light." Juliet, however, after her recovery, fpeaks and dies upon the ftage. If, therefore, the exhibition was fuch as has been now fuppofed, Romeo must have brought her up in his arms from the vault beneath the ftage, after he had killed Paris, and then addreffed her," O my love, my wife," &c. about the stage, and ferving-men come forth with their napkins.' A more decifive proof than this, that the stage was not furnished with fcenes, cannot be produced. Romeo, Mercutio, &c. with their torchbearers and attendants, are the perfons who march about the stage. They are in the street, on their way to Capulet's houfe, where a masquerade is given; but Capulet's fervants who come forth with their napkins, are fuppofed to be in a hall or faloon of their mafter's houfe: yet both the mafquers without and the fervants within appear on the fame fpot. In like manner in King Henry VIII. the very fame fpot is at once the outfide and infide of the Council-Chamber.4 It is not, however, neceffary to infift either upon the term itself, in the fenfe of a painting in perfpective on cloth or canvas, being unknown to our early writers, or upon the various stage-directions which are found in the plays of our poet and his contemporaries, and which afford the ftrongeft prefumptive evidence that the ftage in his time was not furnished with fcenes: because we have to the fame point the concurrent teftimony of Shakspeare himself,5 of Ben Jonfon, of every writer of the last age who has had occafion to mention this fubject, and even of the very perfon who firft introduced fcenes on the publick stage. In the year 1629 Jonfon's comedy intitled The New Inn was performed at the Blackfriars theatre, and defervedly damned. Ben was fo much incenfed at the town for condemning his piece, that in 1631 he published it with the following title: The New * See Vol. XV. p. 186, n. 1. 5 "In your imagination hold "This ftage, the fhip, upon whofe deck Inne, or the light Heart, a comedy; as it was never acted, but most negligently played, by fome, the kings fervants, and more fqueamifhly beheld and cenfured by others, the kings fubjects, 1629: And now at laft fet at liberty to the readers, his Ma.ties fervants and subjects, to be judged, 1631." In the Dedication to this piece, the author, after expreffing his profound contempt for the spectators, who were at the firft reprefentation of this play, fays, "What did they come for then, thou wilt aik me. I will as punctually answer: to fee and to be feene. To make a general mufter of themfelves in their clothes of credit, and poffeffe the ftage against the playe: to diflike all, but marke nothing and by their confidence of rifing between the actes in oblique lines, make affidavit to the whole houfe of their not understanding one fcene. Anm'd with this prejudice, as the fiage furniture or arras clothes, they were there; as fpectators away; for the faces in the hangings and they beheld alike." The exhibition of plays being forbidden fome time before the death of Charles I. Sir William • An ordinance for the fupprefling of all ftage-plays and inter ludes, was enacted Feb. 13, 1647-8, and Oliver and his Saints feem to have been very diligent in enforcing it. From Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 332, we learn that Captain Bethan was appointed (13 Dec. 1648,) Provoft Martial," with power to feize upon all ballad-fingers, and to fupprefs finge-plays." "20 Dec. 1649. Some ftage-players in Saint John's-fireet [the Red Bull theatre was in this fireet,] were apprehended by troopers, their cloaths taken away, and themfelves carried to prifon." Ibidem, p. 419. "Jan. 1655. [1655-6.] Players taken in Newcastle, and whipt for rogues." Ibid. 619. "Sept. 4, 1656. Sir William D'Avenant printed his Opera, notwithstanding the nicety of the times." Ibid. p. 639. D'Avenant in 1656 invented a new fpecies of entertainment, which was exhibited at Rutland House, at the upper end of Alderfgate Street. The title of the piece, which was printed in the fame year, is, The Siege of Rhodes, made a Reprefentation by the Art of profpective in Scenes; and the Story fung in recitative Mufick. "The original of this mufick, fays Dryden, "and of the fcenes which adorned his work, he had from the Italian operas ; but he heightened his characters (as I may probably imagine) from the examples of "Corneille and fome French poets." If fixty years before, the exhibition of the plays of Shakspeare had been aided on the common flage by the advantage of moveable fcenes, or if the term fcene had been familiar to D'Avenant's audience, can we fuppofe that he would have found it neceffary to ufe a periphraftick defcription, and to promife that his reprefentation fhould be affifted by the art of profpective in fcenes? "It has been often wifhed," fays he, in his Addrefs to the Reader, "that our fcenes (we having obliged ourselves to the variety of five changes, according to the ancient dramatick dif tinctions made for time,) had not been confined to about eleven fect in the height and about fifteen in depth, including the places of paffage referved for the mufick." From thefe words we learn that he had in that piece five scenes. In 1658 he exhibited at the old theatre called the Cockpit in Drury Lane, The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, exprefs'd by vocal and inftrumental Mufick, and by Art of per 7 Fleckno, in the preface to his comedy entitled Demoiselles a-la-Mode, 1667, obferves, that "one Italian fcene with four doors will do" for the reprefentation. |