In August, 1636, The Royal Slave, written by a very popular poet, William Cartwright, was acted at Oxford before the king and queen, and afterwards at Hampton-Court. Wood informs us,' that the scenery was an exquisite and uncommon piece of machinery, contrived by Inigo Jones. The play was printed in 1639; and yet even at that late period, the term scene, in the sense now affixed to it, was unknown to the author; for describing the various scenes employed in this courtexhibition, he denominates them thus: "The first Appearance, a temple of the sun.-Second Appearance, a city in the front, and a prison at the side," &c. The three other Appearances in this play were, a wood, a palace, and a castle.

In every disquisition of this kind much trouble and many words might be saved, by defining the subject of dispute. Before therefore I proceed further in this inquiry, I think it proper to say, that by a scene, I mean, A painting in perspective on a cloth fastened to a wooden frame or roller; and that I do not mean by this term, "a coffin, or a tomb, or a gilt chair, or a fair chain of pearl, or a crucifix:" and I am the rather induced to make this declaration, because a writer, who obliquely alluded to the position which I am now maintaining, soon after the first edition of this Essay was published, has mentioned exhibitions of this kind as a proof of the scenery of our old plays; and taking it for granted that the point is completely established by this decisive argument, triumphantly adds, "Let us for the future no more be told of the want of proper scenes and dresses in our ancient theatres."

Hist. et Antiq. Oxon. L. I. p. 344.

8.66

My present purpose," says this writer, " is not so much

A passage which has been produced from one of the old comedies, proves that the common theatres

to describe this dramatick piece, [The Second Maiden's Tragedy, written in 1610 or 1611,] as to show that it bears abundant testimony to the use of scenery, and the richness of the habits then worn. These particulars will be sufficiently exemplified by the following speeches, and stage-directions:

"Enter the Tyrant agen at a farder door, which opened brings him to the tomb, where the lady lies buried. The Toombe here discovered, richlie set forthe."

Some lines are then quoted from the same piece, of which the following are those which alone are material to the present point: "Tyrant.-Softlee, softlee;—

"The vaults e'en chide our steps with murmuring sounds. All thy still strength,

"Thow grey-eyde monument, shall not keep her from

us.

"Strike, villaines, thoe the echo raile us all
"Into ridiculous deafnes; pierce the jawes
"Of this could ponderous creature.-
"O, the moone rises: What reflection
"Is throwne around this sanctified buildinge!
"E'en in a twinkling how the monuments glitter,
"As if Death's pallaces were all massie sylver,
"And scorn'd the name of marble!"

"Is it probable, (adds this writer) that such directions and speeches should have been hazarded, unless at the same time they could be supported and countenanced by corresponding scenery?"

"I shall add two more of the stage-directions from this tragedy. On a sodayne in a kinde of noyse like a wynde, the dores clattering, the toombestone flies open, and a great light appeares in the midst of the toombe: his lady, as went owt, standing in it before hym all in white, stuck with jewells, and a great crucifix on her breast.' Again: They bring the body in a chayre, drest up in black velvet, which setts off the paillnes of the hands and face, and a faire chayne of pearle cross the breast, and the crucifix above it,' &c.

6

"Let us for the future, Mr. Baldwin, be told with less confidence of the want of proper scenes and dresses in our ancient theatres."-Letter in The St. James's Chronicle, May, 1780.

To all this I have only to say, that it never has been asserted, at least by me, that in Shakspeare's time a tomb was not repre

were furnished with some rude pieces of machinery, which were used when it was necessary to exhibit the descent of some god or saint; but it is manifest from what has been already stated, as well as from all the contemporary accounts, that the mechanism of our ancient theatres seldom went beyond a tomb, a painted chair, a sinking cauldron, or a trap-door, and that none of them had moveable scenes. When King Henry VIII. is to be discovered by the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, reading in his study, the scenical direction in the first folio, 1623, (which was printed apparently from playhouse copies,) is, "The King draws the curtain, [i. e. draws it open] and sits reading pensively;" for, beside the principal curtains that hung in the front of the stage, they used others as substitutes for scenes,' which were

sented on the stage. The monument of the Capulets was perhaps represented in Romeo and Juliet, and a wooden structure might have been used for this purpose in that and other plays; of which, when the door is once opened, and a proper quantity of lamps, false stones, and black cloth displayed, the poet might be as luxuriant as he pleased in describing the surrounding invisible marble monuments. This writer, it should seem, was thinking of the epigram on Butler the poet: we ask for scenes, and he gives us only a stone.

"Of whyche the lyke thyng is used to be shewed now adays in stage-playes, when some god or some saynt is made to appere forth of a cloude; and succoureth the parties which seemed to be towardes some great danger, through the Soudan's crueltie." The author's marginal abridgement of his text is"The lyke manner used nowe at our days in stage-playes." Acolastus, a comedy by T. Palsgrave, chaplain to King Henry VIII. 1540.

See Webster's Dutchess of Malfy, acted at the Globe and Blackfriars, and printed in 1623: "Here is discovered behind a traverse the artificial figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead." In The Devil's Charter, a tragedy, 1607, the following stage-direction is found: "Alexander draweth [that is, draws open] the curtaine of his studie, where

denominated traverses. If a bedchamber is to be represented, no change of scene is mentioned; but the property-man is simply ordered to thrust 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 stage-direction is"Enter King and Salisbury, and then the curtaines be drawn, [i. e. drawn open,] and the Cardinal is discovered in his bed, raving and staring as if he were mad." When the fable requires the Roman capitol to be represented, we find two officers enter, "to lay cushions, as it were in the capitol." So, in King Richard II. Act IV. sc. i: "Bolingbroke, &c. enter as to the parliament.

Again, in Sir John

he discovereth the devill sitting in his pontificals." Again, in Satiromastix, by Decker, 1602: "Horace sitting in his study, behind a curtaine, a candle by him burning, books lying confusedly," &c. In Marston's What you will, a comedy, 1607, the following stage-direction still more decisively proves this point: "Enter a Schoole-maister,-draws [i. e. draws open] the curtains behind, with Battus, Nows, Slip, Nathaniel, and Holifernes Pippo, school-boyes, sitting with bookes in their handes." Again, in Albovine, by Sir William D'Avenant, 1629: He drawes the Arras, and discovers Albovine, Rhodolinda, Valdaura, dead in chaires." Again, in The Woman in the Moon, by Lily, 1597: "They draw the curtins from before Natures shop, where stands an image clad, and some unclad. They bring forth the cloathed image." Again, in Romeo and Juliet, 1597, Juliet, after she has swallowed the sleepy potion, is ordered to "throw herselfe on the bed, within the curtaines." As soon as Juliet has fallen on the bed, the curtains being still open, the Nurse enters, then old Capulet and his Lady, then the Musicians; and all on the same spot. If they could have exhibited a bed-chamber, and then could have substituted any other room for it, would they have suffered the musicians and the Nurse's servant to have carried on a ludicrous dialogue in one where Juliet was supposed to be lying dead?

See these stage-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 seeing them in the balcony already described; or perhaps a few boards were tacked together, and painted so as to resemble the rude discoloured walls of an old town, behind which a platform might have been placed near the top, on which the citizens stood: but surely this can scarcely be called a scene. Though undoubtedly our poet's company were furnished with some wooden fabrick sufficiently resembling a tomb, for which they must have had occasion in several plays, yet some doubt may be entertained, whether in Romeo and Juliet any exhibition of Juliet's monument was given on the stage. Romeo perhaps only opened with his mattock one of the stage trap-doors, (which might have represented a tomb-stone,) by which he descended to a vault beneath the stage, where Juliet was deposited; and this notion is countenanced by a passage in the play, and by the poem on which the drama was founded.3

In all the old copies of the play last-mentioned we find the following stage-direction: "They march

3" Why I descend into this bed of death,-."_Romeo and Juliet, Act V. So, in The Tragical Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562:

"And then our Romeus, the vault-stone set up-right,
"Descended downe, and in his hand he bore the candle
light."

Juliet, however, after her recovery, speaks and dies upon the stage. If, therefore, the exhibition was such as has been now supposed, Romeo must have brought her up in his arms from the vault beneath the stage, after he had killed Paris, and then addressed her," O my love, my wife," &c.