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the words, "Ismeron asleep in the scene," I
should draw my traverses not completely off the
stage as before, but so as to leave a small opening
in the scene, through which the incarcerated
man would be discovered. The same arrangement
would perhaps suffice for the fourth act,
where we find Montezuma in prison, though I
would rather discover the whole of the stage, as
in the first. While the front curtains were
closed after this act, I should set all hands to
work with all possible vigour, introducing now
my painted scene of the temple at the back,
with as many gorgeous properties as I had at
command. In short, with respect to the last
act, my labours would be precisely those of a
stage-manager of the present day.

By this practical illustration, which, I trust,
is not tedious, I think I have shown that my
theory of the combination of the traverses of
one period with the painted scenery of another
exactly corresponds to the direction of certain
play-books published shortly after the Restoration.
In my imaginary capacity of a stage-
manager, I have done exactly what my Dryden
tells me, neither more nor less.

If reference is made to the theatrical proceedings
of London during the period to which I
refer, but the later limit of which I cannot as
yet specify, it will be seen that my theory
implies the hypothesis, that while plays were
represented by the Duke's company originally under
Davenant, with pictorial illustrations throughout,
the combination of pictures and traverses
was maintained by the King's company under
Killigrew. That painted scenery on a grand
scale was first introduced by Davenant, when
he opened his house in Lincoln's Inn-fields, is
an undisputed fact; and when, after the death of
Davenant in 1668, his company moved to
Dorset-gardens, their predilection for scenic
magnificence increased. The King's company,
on the other hand, openly boasted that they did
not seek to attract the public by means of splendid
accessories, and reviled the Duke's
company for pursuing the opposite course. The
prologue written for them by Dryden, and spoken
on the opening of their new house in March,
1674 (the old one having been destroyed by fire
about two years before), commences thus:

A plain-built house, after so long a stay,
Will send you half unsatisfied away;
When fallen from your expected pomp, you find
A bare convenience only is designed.
You who each day can theatres behold,
Like Nero's palace, shining all with gold,
Our mean, ungilded stage will scorn, we fear,
And, for the homely room, disdain the cheer.

Afterwards it proceeds thus:

'Twere folly now a stately pile to raise,
To build a playhouse while you threw down plays,
While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign,
And for the pencil you the pen disdain.

I could not prophesy our house's fate;
But while vain shows and scenes you overrate,
'Tis to be fear'd————
That as a fire the former house o'erthrew,
Machines and tempests will destroy the new.

The last line evidently refers to the production
of a modernised version of Shakespeare's
Tempest (of which perhaps more on a future
occasion) at Dorset Gardens, in 1673.

By the supposition that the King's people
at Drury Lane were for the most part
content with their old-fashioned traverses, only
introducing a painted scene when it was absolutely
necessary, while all manner of gorgeousness
was displayed at Dorset Gardens, we give the
greatest possible force to Dryden's prologue. I
may observe, however, that I do not believe
that painted scenes were always employed, even
by the Duke's company.

Is it not possible that a combination of
traverses, with an occasional painted scene, may
have preceded the closing of the theatres by
the Puritans? If it did, the difficulty of the
passage from Brome's prologue, delivered in
1632, and cited in the paper on "Old Scenes,"
vanishes at once. When he says
                           No gaudy scene
Shall give instruction what the plot doth mean,

we may suppose that he declares his intention
to employ traverses only, and not to use the
occasional painted scene, which in his time was
an innovation, though recognised by the strict
conservatives of a late date.

THE HAUNTED ORGANIST OF HURLY BURLY.

THERE had been a thunderstorm in the village
of Hurly Burly. Every door was shut, every
dog in his kennel, every rut and gutter a flowing
river after the deluge of rain that had
fallen. Up at the great house, a mile from the
town, the rooks were calling to one another
about the fright they had been in, the fawns in
the deer-park were venturing their timid heads
from behind the trunks of trees, and the old
woman at the gate lodge had risen from her
knees, and was putting back her Prayer-book
on the shelf. In the garden, July roses,
unwieldly with their full-blown richness, and
saturated with rain, hung their heads heavily to
the earth; others, already fallen, lay flat upon
their blooming faces on the path, where Bess,
Mistress Hurly's maid, would find them when
going on her morning quest of rose-leaves for
her lady's pot pourri. Ranks of white lilies,
just brought to perfection by to-day's sun, lay
dabbled in the mire of flooded mould. Tears
ran down the amber cheeks of the plums on the
south wall, and not a bee had ventured out of
the hives, though the scent of the air was sweet
enough to tempt the laziest drone. The sky
was still lurid behind the boles of the upland
oaks, but the birds had begun to dive in and
out of the ivy that wrapped up the home of the
Hurlys of Hurly Burly.

This thunderstorm took place half a century
ago, and we must remember that Mistress
Hurly was dressed in the fashion of that time
as she crept out from behind the squire's chair,
now that the lightning was over, and, with many