recorders;" after
act three, "organs, viols, and voices;" with "a base lute and a treble
viol" after act four. In the course of this play, moreover, musical
accompaniments of a descriptive kind were introduced, the stage
direction on two occasions informing us that "infernal music plays
softly." Nabbes, in the prologue to his "Hannibal and Scipio," 1637,
alludes at once to the change of the place of action of the drama, and
to the performance of music between the acts:

The place is sometimes changed, too, with the scene,
Which is transacted as the music plays
Betwixt the acts.

The closing of the theatres by the Puritans, in 1642, plainly
distressed the musicians almost as much as the players. Their
occupation was practically gone, although not declared illegal by Act
of Parliament. "Our music," writes the author of "The Actor's
Remonstrance," 1643, "that was held so delectable and precious that
they scorned to come to a tavern under twenty shillings for two hours,
now wander with their instruments under their cloaks--I mean such as
have any--into all houses of good fellowship, saluting every room
where there is company with: 'Will you have any music, gentlemen?'"

At the Restoration, however, king, actors, and orchestra all enjoyed
their own again. Presently, for the first time it would seem in an
English theatre, the musicians were assigned that intrenched position
between the pit and the stage they have so long maintained. "The front
of the stage is opened, and the band of twenty-four violins with the
harpsicals and theorbos which accompany the voices are placed between
the pit and the stage. While the overture is playing the curtain rises
and discovers a new frontispiece joined to the great pilasters on each
side of the stage," &c. So runs one of the preliminary stage
directions in the version of Shakespeare's "Tempest," arranged by
Dryden and Davenant for performance at the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, in 1667. The change was, no doubt, introduced by Davenant
in pursuance of French example. The authors of the "Histoire
Universelle des Theatres" state, regarding the French stage, that
after the disuse of the old chorus in 1630, "a la place du chant qui
distinguoit les actes et qui marquoit les repos necessaires, on
introduisit des joueurs d'instrumens, qui d'abord furent places sur
les ailes du theatre, ou ils executoient differens airs avant la
commencement de la piece et entre les actes.