n 1757, we have an explicit
description of the treatment of ghosts then in vogue upon the stage,
with special reference to the ghost of "our dear friend" Banquo:

But in stage customs what offends me most
Is the slip-door, and slowly rising ghost.
Tell me--nor count the question too severe--
Why need the dismal powdered forms appear?
When chilling horrors shake the affrighted king,
And guilt torments him with her scorpion sting,
When keenest feelings at his bosom pull,
And fancy tells him that the seat is full;
Why need the ghost usurp the monarch's place,
To frighten children with his mealy face?
The king alone should form the phantom there,
And talk and tremble at the vacant chair.

Farther on the poet discourses of the ghosts in "Venice Preserved," of
which mention has already been made:

If Belvidera her loved lost deplore,
Why for twin spectres burst the yawning floor?
When, with disordered starts and horrid cries,
She paints the murdered forms before her eyes,
And still pursues them with a frantic stare,
'Tis pregnant madness brings the visions there.
More instant horror would enforce the scene
If all her shudderings were at shapes unseen.

It may have been due to Lloyd's poem, and to the opinions it expressed
and obtained favour for, that when Drury Lane Theatre opened in 1794
with a performance of "Macbeth," the experiment was tried of omitting
the appearance of Banquo's ghost, and leaving its presence to be
imagined by the spectators. The alteration, however, was not found to
be agreeable to the audience. While granting that Mr. Kemble's fine
acting was almost enough to make them believe they really did see the
ghost, they preferred that there should be no mistake about the
matter, and that Banquo's shade should come on bodily--be distinctly
visible. Further, they were able to point to Shakespeare's stage
direction: "Enter the ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth's place."
Surely there could be no mistake, they argued, as to what the
dramatist himself intended. In subsequent performances the old system
was restored, and in all modern representations of the tragedy the
phantom has not failed to be visible to the spectators. Nevertheless
Banquo's ghost remains the _crux_ of stage managers. How to get him
on? How to get him off? How to make him look anything like a
ghost--respectable, if not awful? How to avoid that distressin