Silence would now have been no virtue, and he
roared most manfully, to the surprise of the thunderer, who,
neglecting to stop the rolling machine, it entered on the stage, and
George Frederick, bursting off the carpet head of the barrel, appeared
before the audience just as the witches had agreed to meet when 'the
hurly-burly's done.'" Cooke's biographer, Mr. William Dunlap, thought
that this story bore "sufficient marks of probability." It must be
said, however, that as to anecdotes touching their heroes, biographers
are greatly prone to be credulous.
The illusions of the stage were much enhanced by Garrick's Alsatian
scene-painter, Philip James de Loutherbourg, a man of genius in his
way, and an eminent innovator and reformer in the matter of theatrical
decoration. Before his time the scenes had been merely strained
"flats" of canvas, extending the whole breadth and height of the
stage. He was the first to introduce set scenes and what are
technically called "raking pieces." He invented transparent scenes,
with representations of moonlight, rising and setting suns, fires,
volcanoes, &c.
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