services of a stage-servant being called into
requisition, or the audience knowing anything of
what is going on.

The banishing from the boards of that
abnormal personage, the stage-footman, with his
red breeches and white stockings, is an
improvement on which we cannot but
congratulate the manager of the Lyceum Theatre.
It was not pleasant to sit and watch the
proceedings of these gentry during a pause in the
drama, though it must be owned that they
appeared to know their business better than the
footmen of ordinary life. With what precision
they used to place the table, on which the deed
was to be signed, in its exact place; the sofa,
again, never had to be removed an inch after it
was once put down; the very footstools seemed
to be attracted to their right places as if by
magnetic force. Still, those footmen used to
give one a shock, and bring one's imagination
down to the realities of life whenever they
appeared, and it is agreeable to think that in future
their work will be accomplished by means of
trap-doors and other simple contrivances.

Many beautiful and interesting effects again
will no doubt be achieved on this new stage by
means of what may be called "closed in" scenes.
It will be possible to try such effects, not only
in the case of an interior shut in above with
a ceiling, but in representations of out-door
scenery. It is in contemplation at this theatre
to dispense entirely with the use of those
horizontal strips of canvas which were alluded to
somewhat disparagingly at the commencement
of this notice, and which are technically called
"borders," or at most only to employ them in
scenes so nearly covered in with foliage that
they will not appear. In open out-door scenes,
where, for instance, the open country, or perhaps
the open sea, extends far away into the distance,
the sky will close the scene in overhead: an
unbroken canopy extending from a certain point
behind the proscenium and high above it, over
the stage, and away to where, at the extreme
backward limit of the theatre, it mingles softly
with the horizon. One may, without being too
sanguine, believe that this great arched canopy,
spanning the stage from side to side, and from
front to back, will lend itself to all sorts of
beautiful and truthful effects. With trees, or
rocks, or whatever else may be needed at the
sides—not, indeed, pushed on in flat pieces
parallel to the proscenium, like the separated
joints of a screen, but planted here and there, as
Nature plants, carelessly and irregularly—it
will be possible so to close in an out-door scene,
as that there shall be really no flaw or weak
place about it, no unfinished gaps to which the
scrutinising eye can wander in the confident
hope of ascertaining "how the trick was
done."

This personage with the scrutinising eye who
is always on the look-out for loose screws, who
attends places of entertainment in a spirit by
no means friendly to the performance at which
he has chosen to assist, but rather spitefully
inimical to it; this dreadful individual will, to use
a common phrase, be utterly "done" when he
visits the Theatre Royal Lyceum. It is impossible
to see "off," as it is called. Our glimpses
of beer-drinking, our visions of prompter's boxes,
of flopping rows of grooves, of ladies waiting to
go on, of seedy females holding shawls, are over,
and done away with. The arrangement of the
side-pieces, slanting obliquely away from the
audience, and appearing to mingle together in
masses rather than to stand carefully separated
into regular entrances, renders it quite impossible
that any member of the audience situated
in any part of the house, should see anything not
intended to be seen as part of the illusion.
Sufficient entrances for all needful purposes are left
among these side-pieces, but they are most
carefully masked, and the actor is not seen—unless
it is requisite that he should be seen—until he
emerges clear upon the stage. As to the
cunningly contrived entrances by mountain-paths
and rocky descents from the back, those, the
most agreeable, because the most natural of all,
we may safely leave to MR. FECHTER, who, an
accomplished artist as well as a fine actor, is
not likely to lose sight of the picturesque in any
such matters of stage-arrangement.

There are many minor advantages connected
with the curious mechanical contrivances behind
the Lyceum scenes, on which we might enlarge,
but we must be content with a brief allusion
to only one of them. That minute subdivision
of this new stage into small separate pieces
which has been already spoken of, has another
advantage besides that of placing a prodigious
number of traps at the manager's disposal. For,
these subdivisions being all numbered, an accurate
plan can be made of every scene, which,
though temporarily put aside, may be wanted
some day again. A drawing may be made, so
accurate, that a set of carpenters who never were
in the theatre before, could by its aid set up the
scene in question at any time, exactly as it was
originally, with every shrub and piece of rock-
work in its place to an inch. Such drawings of
all the different scenes occurring in any given
play will be laid up in the archives of the theatre
along with the prompt copy, and by such means
the play can at any time be put on the stage
again with the greatest exactness.

It is one of the privileges of success that he
who attains it gains, not only advantages for
himself, but confers some lasting benefit on the
profession to which he belongs. He raises
it a step. He infuses some new element into
it. He makes some great improvement, which
is soon generally adopted. The man who
has only sought to distinguish himself; who
has aimed alone at winning fame and fortune,
but has done nothing for his profession; who has
gone into it, made money and reputation by it,
and come out of it, leaving it where he found
it; such a man is, with reason, charged with
selfishness. There is no danger of such an
accusation lying at MR. FECHTER'S door; for
even if he had not done what he has already
done towards clearing the stage of
conventionality, he would still have effected a very great