"Our music," writes the author of "The Actor's Remonstrance," 1643, "that was held so delectable and precious that they scorned to come to a tavern under twenty shillings for two hours, now wander with their instruments under their cloaks--I mean such as have any--into all houses of good fellowship, saluting every room where there is company with: 'Will you have any music, gentlemen ?'" At the Restoration, however, king, actors, and orchestra all enjoyed their own again.

Presently, for the first time it would seem in an English theatre, the musicians were assigned that intrenched position between the pit and the stage they have so long maintained.

"The front of the stage is opened, and the band of twenty-four violins with the harpsicals and theorbos which accompany the voices are placed between the pit and the stage.

While the overture is playing the curtain rises and discovers a new frontispiece joined to the great pilasters on each side of the stage," &c.

So runs one of the preliminary stage directions in the version of Shakespeare's "Tempest," arranged by Dryden and Davenant for performance at the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1667.