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 sights. In many cases the alcove constructed in the tiring-house behind the scenic wall would give all that is required, and occasionally a mention of the 'curtains' or of 'discovery' in a stage-direction points plainly to this arrangement. The 'traverse' of Webster's plays, both for the King's and the Queen's men, appears, as already pointed out, to be nothing more than a terminological variant. Similarly, hall scenes have still their 'arras' or their 'hangings', behind which a spy can post himself. A new feature, however, now presents itself in the existence of certain scenes, including some bedchamber scenes, which entail the use of properties and would, I think, during the sixteenth century have been placed in the alcove, but now appear to have been brought forward and to occupy, like hall scenes, the main stage. The usage is by no means invariable. Even in so late a play as Cymbeline, Imogen's chamber, with Iachimo's trunk and the elaborate fire-places in it, must, in spite of the absence of any reference to curtains, have been disposed in the alcove; for the trunk scene is immediately followed by another before

(? Fortune), i, 'Sit in his shop' (Merry's);  iii, 'Then Merry must passe to Beeches shoppe, who must sit in his shop, and Winchester his boy stand by: Beech reading'; i, 'The boy sitting at his maisters dore' 'When the boy goeth into the shoppe Merrie striketh six blowes on his head and with the seaventh leaues the hammer sticking in his head' 'Enter one in his shirt and a maide, and comming to Beeches shop findes the boy murthered'; iv, 'Rachell sits in the shop' (Merry's); Bartholomew Fair (Hope),, which need booths for the pig-woman, gingerbread woman, and hobby-horse man.]
 * [Footnote: a Fether shop; the third a Sempsters shop'; Two Lamentable Tragedies