This merit is claimed for them by the Oxford historians, and allowed
by the historians of the stage, though they have not agreed of the
exact period. We are informed, in Leland's Collectanea, that "the
stage did vary three times in the acting of one tragedy." In other
words, there were three scenes employed; but these, it is said by
Chalmers, in his History of Oxford University, were the invention of
Inigo Jones; and the exhibition, it appears, took place in the Hall of
Christ Church, in 1636, (the year Wood places the invention in,) for
the entertainment of the unfortunate Charles the First and his Queen,
when, says our annalist, a comedy was performed for their amusement,
entitled, "The Passions Calmed, or the Settling of the Floating,"
written by Strode, the Public Orator, and moveable scenery introduced
with suitable variations; and though there is pretty conclusive
evidence that this was not the first time _moveable scenes_, &c. had
been introduced, it is evident they had not come into general use,
from the fact that, after the departure of the King and his _suite_,
the dresses and scenery were sent to Hampton Court, at the express
desire of the Queen, but with a wish, suggested by the Chancellor of
Oxford, the ill-fated Archbishop Laud, _that they might not come into
the hands of the common players_, which was accordingly promised.
Leland thinks, however, that _moveable scenes_ were better managed,
before this, at Cambridge; and I know not, he says, whether the
invention may not be carried back to the year 1583, when the
celebrated Polish prince, Alesco, was at Oxford, and for whose
entertainment, says Wood (who gives an interesting account of all the
particulars of that famous Oxford gaudy,) the tragedy of Dido was
acted in the Hall of Christ Church, decorated with scenes illustrative
of the play, and the exhibition of "the tempest, wherein it rained
small comfits, rose-water, and new artificial snow, was very strange
to the beholders." But other authorities place the invention in 1605,
when