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 passengers, landed successively 'even just under me', and then at St. Katharine's, Wapping, and the Isle of Dogs. These are three places on the north bank, all to the east of Billingsgate and on the other side of the Tower, but as each rescue is described, the passengers enter the stage, and go off again. Evidently a wild foreshortening is deliberately involved. Now, although the print obscures the fact, must begin a new scene. A night has passed, and Winifred, who landed at St. Katharine's, returns to the stage, and is now before the Blue Anchor. From ii onwards the setting is normal again, with three houses, of which one is Touchstone's. But the others are now the exterior of the Counter and of the lodging of Gertrude. One must conclude that in this play the Blackfriars management was trying an experiment, and made complete, or nearly complete, changes of setting, at the end of Act and again after  i. Touchstone's, which was discovered, could be covered again. The other houses, except the tavern, were represented by mere doors or windows, and gave no trouble. The tavern, the introduction of which in the early acts already entailed foreshortening, was allowed to stand for i, and was then removed, while Touchstone's was discovered again.

Middleton's tendency to multiply his houses is noticeable, as at Paul's, in Your Five Gallants. There are eight, in London, with an open-country scene in Combe Park ( ii, iii), and one cannot be confident of continuous setting. But a group of new writers, enlisted at Blackfriars in Jacobean days, conform well enough to the old traditions of the house. Daniel's Philotas has the abstract stage characteristic of the closet tragedies to the type of which it really belongs. Any Renaissance façade would do; at most a hall in the court and the lodging of Philotas need be distinguished. Day's Isle of Gulls is tout en pastoralle. His Law Tricks has, with Wynnyfrid'; he will shelter her at 'a house of my friends heere in S. Kath'rines' (297) 'Enter Drawer, with Wynifrid new attird', who says 'you have brought me nere enough your taverne' and 'my husband stale thither last night'. Security enters (310) with 'I wil once more to this unhappy taverne'.]*