Note 16 — THE STORY OF A SCENE-PAINTER.

'I decidedly concur with Malone in the general conclusion that painted moveable scenery was unknown on our early stage; and it is a fortunate circumstance for the poetry of our old plays that it was so: the imagination of the auditor only 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. The introduction of scenery gives the date to the commencement of the decline of our dramatic poetry.'—Annals of the Stage, by J. Payne Collier, vol. iii. p. 366.