in all these houses were really superior in number, to those who have frequented the theatres in later times.  If the spirit and judgment of the actors supplied all deficiencies, and made as some would insinuate, plays more intelligible without scenes, than they afterwards were with them, it must be very astonishing; neither is it difficult to assign another cause, why those who were concerned in play-houses, were angry at the introduction of scenes and decorations, which was, that notwithstanding the advanced prices, their profits from that time were continually sinking; and an author, of high authority in this case, assures us, in an historical account of the stage, that the whole sharers in Mr. Hart’s company divided a thousand pounds a year a-piece, before the expensive decorations became fashionable.  Sir William Davehant considered things in another light:  he was well acquainted with the alterations which the French theatre had received, under the auspice of cardinal Rich[e]lieu, who had an excellent taste; and he remembered the noble contrivances of Inigo Jones, which were not at all inferior to the designs of the best French masters.  Sir William was likewise sensible that the monarch he served was an excellent judge of every thing of this kind; and these considerations excited in him a passion for the advancement of the theatre, to which the great figure it has since made is chiefly owing.  Mr. Dryden has acknowledged his admirable talents in this way, and gratefully remembers the pains taken by our poet, to set a work of his in the fairest light possible, and to which, he ingenuously ascribes the success with which it was received.  This is the hislory of the life and progress of scenery on our stage; which, without doubt, gives greater life to the entertainment of a play; but as the best purposes may be prostituted, so there is some reason to believe that the excessive fondness for decorations, which now prevails, has hurt the true dramatic taste.  Scenes are to be considered as secondary in a play, the means of setting it off with lustre, and ought to engross but little attention; as it is more important to hear what a character speaks, than to observe the place where he stands; but now the case is altered.  The scenes in a Harlequin Sorcerer, and other unmeaning pantomimes, unknown to our more elegant and judging fore-fathers, procure crowded houses, while the noblest strokes of Dryden, the delicate touches of Otway and Rowe, the wild majesty of Shakespear, and the heart-felt language of Lee, pass neglected, when put in competition with those gewgaws of the stage, these feasts of the eye; which as they can communicate no ideas, so they can neither warm nor reform the heart, nor answer one moral purpose in nature.