The performance of tragedy appears to have been attended with some peculiar preparations; one of which was hanging the stage with black, a practice which dwelt on Shakspeare's recollection when, in writing his Rape of Lucrece, he speaks of
"Black stage for tragedies, and murthers fell;"[220:A]
and is put out of dispute by a passage in the Induction to an anonymous tragedy, entitled, A Warning for fair Women, 1599, where History, addressing Comedy, says:—
"Look, Comedie, I mark'd it not till now,
The stage is hung with blacke, and I perceive
The auditors prepar'd for tragedie:"
to which Comedy replies:—
"Nay then, I see she shall be entertain'd;
These ornaments beseem not thee and me."[220:B]
If the decorations of the stage itself could boast but little splendour, the wardrobe, even of The Globe and Blackfriars, could not be supposed either richly or amply furnished; in fact, even Jonson, in 1625, nine years after Shakspeare's death, betrays the poverty of the stage-dresses, when he exclaims in the Induction to his Staple of News, "O curiosity, you come to see who wears the new suit to-day; whose clothes are best pen'd, &c.—what king plays without cuffs, and his queen without gloves: who rides post in stockings, and dances in boots."[220:C] It is evident, therefore, that the dramas of our great poet could derive little attraction from magnificence of attire, though it