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painted 'motantibus quasi nubibus, ut eas, Sole Britannico statim ingressuro, aufugientes putares'.^[1]

The changing stage of 1605 was obviously an advance from the Elizabethan methods of twenty years before. But it can hardly be assumed that the new principles were regularly adopted in the Jacobean Court. In 1614-15 the Revels office was still buying 'canvas for the boothes and other necessaries for a play called Bartholmewe Faire', and the entry seems to suggest 'houses' of the old type.^[2] Possibly Inigo Jones was not sufficiently successful with his Oxford mechanism to inspire confidence. It is not until much later, in Caroline days, that we can clearly discern him beginning to apply to the presentation of Court plays the proscenium arch and the other perfected results of his studies in the mask.^[3] There is no obvious trace of the new methods even in his interesting design for the new Cockpit at Court, which may date from about 1632. This shows a building 58 feet square without and octagonal within. Five sides of the octagon are occupied by the auditorium, which contains a pit with balconies above, and apparently a royal box at the back; the other three by a stage 35 feet wide and 16 deep, which stands 41/2 feet above the pit level, and has a 5-foot apron and a semicircular back wall of a 15-foot radius. This does not appear to be adapted either for hangings or for shifting scenes, but is a Palladian façade of two stories in solid architecture adorned with niches and busts and a tablet inscribed 'Prodesse et delectare'. It is pierced below by a large archway and four other doors, and above the archway is a single window.^[4]

1. I. Wake, Rex Platonicus sive Musae Regnantes (1607), 46, 79, 112, 134; Nichols, i. 530 (from account, probably by Philip Stringer, in Harl. MS. 7044, f. 201). Wake thus describes the hall: 'Partem Aulae superiorem occupavit Scena, cuius Proscenium molliter declive (quod actorum egressui, quasi e monte descendentium, multum attulit dignitatis) in planitiem desinebat. Peripetasmata scenicaque habitacula, machinis ita artificiose ad omnium locorum rerumque varietatem apparata, ut non modo pro singulorum indies spectaculorum, sed etiam pro Scenarum una eademque fabula diversitate subito (ad stuporem omnium) compareret nova totius theatralis fabricae facies. . . . Media cavea thronus Augustalis cancellis cinctus Principibus erigitur, quem utrinque optimatum stationes communiunt: reliquum inter thronum et theatrum interstitium Heroinarum Gynaeceum est paulo depressius.' In Annus Recurrens the scene was a zodiac with a sun moving by artifice, and the play lasted from the Ram to the Fishes. Stringer adds the details about the turning pillars, the false wall, and the participation of Jones.
2. Pipe Office, Declared Accounts (Revels), 2805.
3. Thorndike, 191.
4. Cf. p. 217.