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newes of shipwracke in the same place, and then wee are to blame if we accept it not for a Rock. Vpon the backe of that, comes out a hidious Monster, with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bounde to take it for a Caue. While in the meantime two Armies flye in, represented with foure swords and bucklers, and then what harde heart will not receiue it for a pitched fielde?'

It is evident that the plays which Sidney has mostly in mind, the 'al the rest' of his antithesis with Gorboduc, are precisely those romantic histories which the noblemen's players in particular were bringing to Court in his day, and of which Clyomon and Clamydes and Common Conditions may reasonably be taken as the characteristic débris. He hints at what we might have guessed that, where changes of scene were numerous, the actual visualization of the different scenes left much to the imagination. He lays his finger upon the foreshortening, which permits the two ends of the stage to stand for localities separated by a considerable distance, and upon the obligation which the players were under to let the opening phrases of their dialogue make it clear where they were supposed to be situated. And it certainly seems from the shorter passage, as if he was also familiar with an alternative or supplementary device of indicating locality by great letters on a door. The whole business remains rather obscure. What happened if the distinct localities were more numerous than the doors? Were the labels shifted, or were the players then driven, as Sidney seems to suggest, to rely entirely upon the method of spoken hints? The labelling of special doors with great letters must be distinguished from the analogous use of great letters, as at the Phormio of 1528, to publish the title of a play. That this practice also survived in Court drama may be inferred from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, in which Hieronimo gives a Court play, and bids his assistant ( iii. 17) 'hang up the Title: Our scene is Rhodes'. Even if the 'scene' formed part of the title in such cases, it would only name a generalized locality or localities for the play, and would not serve as a clue to the localization of individual episodes. *