quoted, and in his prologue to The Rival Ladies, performed at the King's theatre in 1664: -in former days "Good prologues were as fcarce as now good plays.- And still 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 "Your aged fathers came to plays for wit, "But you, their wifer offspring, did advance 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 fubject, and confirms what has been ftated in the text : "The old English ftage, confin'd to plot and fenfe, But fince the invafion of the foreign cene, These are not the fpeculations of fcholars concerning a custom of a former age, but the testimony of perfons who were either spectators of what they defcribe, or daily converfed with those 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 themselves acted before the civil wars, were employed in that company, by whofe 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 also, that Mr. Wright, the author of Hiftoria Hiftrionica, whofe father had been a fpectator of feveral plays before the breaking out of True fenfe or plot would fooleries appear Faults, I fuppofe, you feldom meet with here, "And you ne'er pay'd treble prices to be wife.” The French theatre, as we learn from Scaliger, was not furnished with fcenes, or even with the ornaments of tapestry, in the year 1561. See Scaliger. Poetices, folio, 1561, Lib. I. c. xxi. Both it, however, and the Italian ftage, appear to have had the decora tion 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 refpect to the French flage, see D'Ave. nant's prologue to The Second Part of the Siege of Rhodes, 1663: many travellers here as judges come, "From Paris, Florence, Venice, and from Rome; "Who will defcribe, when any scene we draw, By each of ours all that they ever faw : "Thofe praifing for extenfive 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 shut. the civil wars, exprefsly fays, that the theatre had no Scenes. 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 scenes capable of being shifted? Thus in the Chorus to King Henry V: Unto Southampton do we shift our fcene.' "This phrafe" (he adds) "was hardly more ancient than the custom it defcribes."3 Who does not fee, that Shakspeare in the paffage here quoted ufes the word fcene 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: 2 "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 fo populous as now, yet then the prices were small, (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 Lovewit, 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 himfelf a dramatick writer. 3 See Mr. Steevens's Shakspeare, 1785, King John, p. 56, "The king is fet from London, and the Scene This, and this only, was the fifting that was meant; a movement from one place to another in the progress of the drama; nor is there found a fingle paffage in his plays in which the word Scene is ufed in the fenfe required to fupport the argument of those who fuppofe that the common stages were furnished with moveable fcenes in his time. He conftantly ufes the word either for a ftageexhibition in general, or the component part of a play, or the place of action reprefented by the Stage: + "For all my life has been but as a scene, "Acting that argument." King Henry IV. Part II. King John. 4 And fo do all the other dramatick writers of his time. So, in Heywood's Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601: I only mean "Myfelf-in perfon to prefent fome fcenes "Of tragick matter, or perchance of mirth." Again, in the prologue to Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, a comedy, 1611: "But if conceit, with quick-turn'd sceanes,— May win your favours,—.” Again, in the prologue to The Late Lancashire Witches, 1634: 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 "Never faluted audience, nor doth meane "To fwear himself a factor for the fcene." Again, in the prologue to Hannibal and Scipio, 1637: "The places fometimes chang'd too for the scene, "Which is tranflated as the mufick plays," &c. Here tranflating a scene means juft the fame as bifting a feene in King Henry V. I forbear to add more inftances, though almost every one of our old plays would furnish me with many. VOL. II. Р "What scene of death hath Rofcius now to act?" King Henry VI. Part III. "Thus with imagin'd wing our fwift fcene flies,-." King Henry V. "To give our scene fuch growing,-." Ibid. Coriolanus. "A queen in jeft, only to fill the feene." King Richard III. I fhall add but one more inftance from All's well that ends well: "Our scene is alter'd from a ferious thing, "And now chang'd to the Beggar and the King." from which lines it might, I conceive, be as reafonably inferred that scenes were changed in Shakfpeare's time, as from the paffage relied on in King 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. The various circumftances which I have ftated, and the accounts of the contemporary writers,' All the writers on the ancient English ftage 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 fcenes nor decorations of the ftages but only old tapestry, and the ftage ftrewed with rufhes; 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 mafquies, and Some of our playes, in former times, (though not fo ordinary,) hav ing had as good or rather better, than any we have now."-To reconcile this paffage with the foregoing, the author muft be fuppofed to fpeak here, not of the exhibitions at the publick theatres, but of mafques 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. 66 |