passengers, landed successively 'even just under me', and then at St. Katharine's, Wapping, and the Isle of Dogs. These are three places on the north bank, all to the east of Billingsgate and on the other side of the Tower, but as each rescue is described, the passengers enter the stage, and go off again. Evidently a wild foreshortening is deliberately involved. Now, although the print obscures the fact, must begin a new scene.[1] A night has passed, and Winifred, who landed at St. Katharine's, returns to the stage, and is now before the Blue Anchor.[2] From IV. ii onwards the setting is normal again, with three houses, of which one is Touchstone's. But the others are now the exterior of the Counter and of the lodging of Gertrude. One must conclude that in this play the Blackfriars management was trying an experiment, and made complete, or nearly complete, changes of setting, at the end of Act III and again after IV. i. Touchstone's, which was discovered, could be covered again. The other houses, except the tavern, were represented by mere doors or windows, and gave no trouble. The tavern, the introduction of which in the early acts already entailed foreshortening, was allowed to stand for IV. i, and was then removed, while Touchstone's was discovered again.
Middleton's tendency to multiply his houses is noticeable, as at Paul's, in Your Five Gallants. There are eight, in London, with an open-country scene in Combe Park (III. ii, iii), and one cannot be confident of continuous setting.[3] But a group of new writers, enlisted at Blackfriars in Jacobean days, conform well enough to the old traditions of the house. Daniel's Philotas has the abstract stage characteristic of the closet tragedies to the type of which it really belongs. Any Renaissance façade would do; at most a hall in the court and the lodging of Philotas need be distinguished. Day's Isle of Gulls is tout en pastoralle.[4] His Law Tricks has, with Wynnyfrid'; he will shelter her at 'a house of my friends heere in S. Kath'rines' . . . (297) 'Enter Drawer, with Wynifrid new attird', who says 'you have brought me nere enough your taverne' and 'my husband stale thither last night'. Security enters (310) with 'I wil once more to this unhappy taverne'.]*
- ↑ Clearly IV. i. 346-64 (ed. Schelling) has been misplaced in the Q_{q}; it is a final speech by Slitgut, with his Exit, but without his name prefixed, and should come after 296. The new scene begins with 297.
- ↑ E. Ho!, IV. i. 92, 'Enter the Drawer in the Taverne before [i.e. in III. iii
- ↑ Y. F. Gallants has (a) Frippery's shop (I. i); (b) Katherine's (I. ii; V. ii); (c) Mitre inn (II. iii); (d) Primero's brothel (II. i; III. iv; V. i); (e) Tailby's lodging (IV. i, ii); (f) Fitzgrave's lodging (IV. iii); (g) Mrs. Newcut's dining-room (IV. vii); (h) Paul's (IV. vi). There is action within in all these, and in V. i, which is before (d), spies are concealed 'overhead' (124).
- ↑ In Isle of Gulls the park or forest holds a lodge for the duke (I. i),
