——Gallants, you can tell,
No foreign stage can ours in pomp excel;
And here none e'er shall treat you half so well.
Poor players have this day such splendour shown,
Which yet but by great monarchs has been done.
D'Avenant, by whom the Duke's company were long directed, was the first who introduced regular scenery upon a public stage. His drama of the "Siege of Rhodes" seems to have been the first exhibited with these decorations.—See Malone's Account of the English Stage."
A plain-built house, after so long a stay,
Will send you half unsatisfied away;
When, fallen from your expected pomp, you find
A bare convenience only is designed.