Immediately after the restoration there were two companies of players formed, one under the title of the King’s Servants, the other, under that of the Duke’s Company, both by patents, from the crown; the first granted to Henry Killigrew, Esq; and the latter to Sir William Davenant.  The King’s company acted first at the Red Bull in the upper end of St. John’s Street, and after a year or two removing from place to place, they established themselves in Drury-Lane.  It was some time before Sir William Davenant compleated his company, into which he took all who had formerly played under Mr. Rhodes in the Cock-Pit in Drury-Lane, and amongst these the famous Mr. Betterton, who appeared first to advantage under the patronage of Sir William Davenant.  He opened the Duke’s theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields with his own dramatic performance of the Siege of Rhodes, the house being finely decorated, and the stage supplied with painted scenes, which were by him introduced at least, if not invented, which afforded certainly an additional beauty to the theatre, tho’ some have insinuated, that fine scenes proved the ruin of acting; but as we are persuaded it will be an entertaining circumstance to our Readers, to have that matter more fully explained, we shall take this opportunity of doing it.

In the reign of Charles I, dramatic entertainments were accompanied with rich scenery, curious machines, and other elegant embellishments, chiefly condufted by the wonderful dexterity of that celebrated English, architect Inigo Jones.  But these were employed only in masques at court, and were too expensive for the little theatres in which plays were then acted.  In them there was nothing more than a ouftain of very coarse stuff, upon the drawing up of which, the stage appeared either with bare walls on the sides, coarsly matted, or covered with tapestry; so that for the place originally represented, and all the successive changes in which the poets of those times freely indulged themselves, there was nothing to help the spectator’s understanding, or to assist the actor’s performance, but bare imagination.  In Shakespear’s time so undecorated were the theatres, that a blanket supplied the place of a curtain; and it was a good observation of the ingenious Mr. Chitty, a gentleman of acknowledged taste in dramatic excellence, that the circumstance of the blanket, suggested to Shakespear that noble image in Macbeth, where the murderer invokes

  Thick night to veil itself in the dunnest smoke of Hell,
  Nor Heaven peep thro’ the blanket of the dark
  To cry hold, hold.

It is true, that while things continued in this situation, there were a great many play-houses, sometimes six or seven open at once.  Of these some were large, and in part open, where they acted by day light; others smaller, but better fitted up, where they made use of candles.  The plainness of the theatre made the prices small, and drew abundance of company; yet upon the whole it is doubtful, whether the spectactors