year or two, and then
removed to the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where they first made use
of scenes, which had been a little before introduced upon the public
stage by Sir William Davenant." It is to be observed, however, that
inasmuch as the masques, such as the court of Charles I. had so
favoured, were sometimes produced at the public theatres, and could
hardly have been presented there, shorn of the mechanical appliances
and changes which constituted a main portion of their attractiveness,
movable scenery, or stage artifices that might fairly be so described,
could not be entirely new to a large portion of the public. Thus the
masque of "Love's Mistress, or the Queen's Masque," by Thomas Heywood,
1640, was "three times presented before their Majesties at the Phoenix
in Drury Lane;" Heywood expressly acknowledging his obligation to
Inigo Jones, who "changed the stage to every act, and almost to every
scene."

It must not be supposed, however, that the introduction of scenery was
hailed unanimously as a vast improvement upon the former condition of
the stage. There was, no doubt, abundance of applause; a sufficient
number of spectators were well pleased to find that now their eyes
were to be addressed not less than their ears and their minds, and
were satisfied that exhibitions of the theatre would be presently much
more intelligible to them than had hitherto been the case. Still the
sages shook their heads, distrusting the change, and prophesying evil
of it. Even Mr. Payne Collier has been moved by his conservative
regard for the Elizabethan stage and the early drama to date from the
introduction of scenery the beginning of the decline of our dramatic
poetry. He holds it a fortunate circumstance for the poetry of our old
plays, that "painted movable scenery" had not then been introduced.
"The imagination only of the auditor was appealed to, and we owe to
the absence of painted canvas many of the finest descriptive passages
in Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and immediate followers." Further,
he states his opinion that our old dramatists "luxuriated in passages
descriptive of natural or artificial scenery, because they knew their
auditors would have nothing before their eyes to contradict the
poetry; the hangings of the stage made little pretensions to anything
but coverings for the walls, and the notion of the place represented
was taken from what was said by the poet, and not from what was
attempted by the paint