And ftill more exprefs is that of the author of The Generous Enemies, exhibited at the King's Theatre in 1672: "I cannot choose but laugh, when I look back and fee "The ftrange viciffitudes of poetrie. "Your aged fathers came to plays for wit, "And fat knee-deep in nutshells in the pit; "Courfe hangings then, instead of fcenes, were worn, "And Kidderminster did the stage adorn: "But you, their wifer offspring, did advance "To plot of jigg, and to dramatick dance," &c. These 7 This explains what Dryden means in his prologue to The Rival Ladies, quoted above, where, with fcenes and the other novelties introduced after the Restoration, he mentions dance. A dance by a boy was not uncommon in Shakspeare's time; but fuch dances as were exhibited at the Duke's and King's theatre, which are here called dramatick dances, were unknown. The following prologue to Tunbridge Wells, acted at the Duke's theatre, and printed in 1678, is more diffufe upon this subject, and confirms what has been ftated in the text: "The old English ftage, confin'd to plot and fenfe, The Thefe are not the fpeculations of fcholars concerning a custom of a former age, but the teftimony of perfons who were either spectators of what they defcribe, or daily converfed with thofe who had trod our ancient ftage: for D'Avenant's first play, The Cruel Brother, was acted at the Blackfriars in January, 1626-7, and Mohun and Hart, who had themfelves acted before the civil wars, were employed in that company, by whose immediate fucceffors The Generous Enemies was exhibited; I mean the King's Servants. Major Mohun acted in the piece before which the lines laft quoted were spoken. I may add alfo, that Mr. Wright, the author of Hiftoria Hiftrionica, whofe father had been a spectator of feveral plays before the breaking out of the civil wars, exprefsly fays, that the theatres had then no fcenes. The French theatre, as we learn from Scaliger, was not furnished with scenes, or even with the ornament of tapestry, in the year 1561. See Scaliger. Poetices, folio, 1561, lib. 1. c. 21. Both it, however, and the Italian stage, appear to have had the decoration of fcenery before the English. In 1638 was published at Ravenna-Pratica di fabbricar Scene e machine ne'teatri, di Nicola Sabbatini da Pefaro. With respect to the French stage, fee D'Avenant's Prologue to the Second Part of the Siege of Rhodes, 1663: 66 many travellers here as judges come, "From Paris, Florence, Venice, and from Rome; "Thofe praising for extensive breadth and height, It is faid in the Life of Betterton, that he was fent to Paris by King Charles the Second, to take a view of the French theatre, that he might better judge of what might contribute to the improvement of our own." He went to Paris probably in the year 1666, when both the London theatres were fut. Shakspeare, (who, as I have heard, was a much better poet than player,) Burbage, Hemmings, and others of the older fort, were dead before I knew the town; but in my time, before the wars, Lowin ufed to act Falstaffe," &c." Though the town was then not much more than half so populous as now, yet then the prices were fmall, (there being no fcenes,) and better order kept among the company that came." Hiftoria Hiftrionica, 8vo. 1699. This Effay is in the form of a Dialogue between Trueman, an old Cavalier, and Loverit, his friend. The account of the old ftage, which is given by the Cavalier, Wright probably derived from his father, who was born in 1611, and was himself a dramatick writer. VOL. I. PART II. *G But, But, fays Mr. Steevens, (who differs with me in opinion on the fubject before us, and whofe fentiments I fhall give below,) "how happened it, that Shakspeare himself fhould have mentioned the act of shifting Scenes, if in his time there were no fcenes capable of being Shifted? Thus in the Chorus to King Henry V. "Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.” "This phrafe" (he adds) " was hardly more ancient thar the custom it defcribes 9." Who does not fee, that Shakspeare in the paffage here quoted ufes the word Scene in the fame fenfe in which it was used two thoufand years before he was born; that is, for the place of action reprefented by the stage; and not for that moveable hanging or painted cloth, ftrained on a wooden frame, or rolled round a cylinder, which is now called a SCENE? If the fmalleft doubt could be entertained of his meaning, the following lines in the fame play would remove it: "The king is fet from London, and the Scene "Is now transported to Southampton." This, and this only, was the shifting that was meant; a movement from one place to another in the progrefs of the drama; nor is there found a fingle paffage in his plays in which the word fcene is ufed in the fenfe required to fupport the argument of those who fuppofe that the common ftages were furnished with moveable scenes in his time. He conftantly uses the word either for a ftage-exhibition in general, or the component part of a play, or the place of action represented by the ftage': 9 See Mr. Steevens's Shakspeare, 1785, K. Jobn, p. 56, And fo do all the other dramatick writers of his time. Heywood's Downfall of Robert earl of Huntington, 1601: 1 only mean "Myfelf in perfon to prefent fome fcenes Of tragick matter, or perchance of mirth." << For n. 7. So, in "For all my life has been but as a scene, What fcene of death hath Rofcius now to act?" K. Henry VI. P. III. "Thus with imagin'd wing our fwift fcene flies,-." K. Henry. V. "To give our scene fuch growing,-." Ibid. "And fo our fcene muft to the battle fly,-." Ibid. "That he might play the woman in the scene." Coriolanus. "A queen in jeft, only to fill the fcene." K. Rich. III. I fhall add but one more inftance from All's well that ends well: "Our fcene is alter'd from a serious thing, "And now chang'd to the Beggar and the King." from which lines it might, I conceive, be as reasonably inferred that scenes were changed in Shakspeare's time, as from the paffage relied on in K. Henry V.: and perhaps by the fame mode of reafoning it might be proved, from a line above quoted from the fame play, that the technical modern term, wings, or fide-fcenes, was not unknown to our great poet. Again, in the prologue to Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, a comedy, 1611: "But if conceit, with quick-turn'd feeanes, "May win your favours,-." Again, in the prologue to Late Lancashire Witches, 1634: 66 we are forc'd from our own nation "To ground the fcene that's now in agitation." Again, in the prologue to Shirley's School of Compliments, 1629: This play is "The first fruits of a mufe, that before this Again, in the prologue to Hannibal and Scipio, 1637: "The places fometimes chang'd too for the feene, Here tranflating a scene means just the fame as shifting a scene in K. Henry V. I forbear to add more inftances, though almost every one of our old plays would furnish me with many. G 2 The The various circumftances which I have ftated, and the accounts of the contemporary writers2, furnish us, in my 2 All the writers on the ancient English stage that I have met with, concur with thofe quoted in the text on this fubject: "Now for the difference betwixt our theatres and thofe of former times," (fays Fleckno, who lived near enough the time to be accurately informed,) "they were but plain and fimple, with no other scenes nor decorations of the ftage, but only old tapestry, and the ftage ftrewed with rushes; with their habits accordingly." Short Difcourfe of the English Stage, 1664. In a fubfequent paffage indeed he adds, "For fcenes and machines, they are no new invention; our mafques, and fome of our playes, in former times, (though not fo ordinary,) having had as good or rather better, than any we have now."-To reconcile this paffage with the foregoing, the author must be fuppofed to speak here, not of the exhibitions at the publick theatres, but of masques and private plays, performed either at court or at noblemen's houfes. He does not fay, fome of our theatres,"-but, "our mafques, and fome of our playes having had," &c. We have already feen that Love's Miftrefs or the Queen's Mafque was exhibited with fcenes at Denmark-houfe in 1636. In the reign of king Charles I. the performance of plays at court, and at private houses, feems to have been very common; and gentlemen went to great expence in thefe exhibitions. See a letter from Mr. Garrard to lord Strafford, dated Feb. 7, 1637; Strafford's Letters, Vol. II. p. 150: "Two of the king's fervants, privy-chamber men both, have writ each of them a play, Sir John Sutlin [Suckling] and Will. Barclay, which have been acted in court, and at the Black-friars, with much applaufe. Sutlin's play coft three or four bundred pounds fetting out; eight or ten fuits of new cloaths he gave the players; an unheard-of prodigality." The play on which Sir John Suckling expended this large fum, was Aglaura. To the authority of Fleckno may be added that of Edward Phillips, who, in his Theatrum Poetarum, 1674, [article, D'Avenant,] praifes that poet for "the great fluency of his wit and fancy, efpecially for what he wrote for the English ftage, of which, having laid the foundation before by his mufical dramas, when the ufual plays were not fuffered to be acted, he was the first reviver and improver, by painted fcenes," Wright alfo, who was well acquainted with the history of our ancient ftage, and had certainly converfed with many perfons who had feen theatrical performances before the civil wars, exprefsly fays, as I have obferved above, that "fcenes were first introduced by Sir William D'Avenant, on the publick stage, at the Duke's old theatre in Lincoln's-Innfields." Prefently after the Restoration, "this writer informs us," the king's players acted publickly at the Red Bull for fome time, and then removed to a new-built playhoufe in Vere-ftreet, by Clare-market. There they continued for a year or two, and then removed to the theatre-royal in Drury-lane, where they first made ufe of SCENES, which bad been a little before intro duced |