es of black and red, with fiery eyes and snaky
locks, and garnished with every pendage of horror. They were twelve in
number. In the middle of their performance, while intent upon the figure
in which they had been completely practised, an actor of some humour,
who had been accommodated with a spare dress, appeared among them. He
was, if possible, more terrific than the rest, and seemed to the
beholders as designed by the conductor for the principal fiend. His
fellow furies took the alarm; they knew he did not belong to them, and
they judged him an infernal in earnest. Their fears were excited, a
general panic ensued, and the whole group fled different ways; some to
their dressing-rooms, and others, through the streets, to their own
homes, in order to avoid the destruction which they believed to be
coming upon them, for the profane mockery they had been guilty of. The
odd devil was _non inventus_. He took himself invisibly away, through
fears of another kind. He was, however, seen by many, in imagination, to
fly through the roof of the house, and they fancied themselves almost
suffocated by the stench he had left behind. The confusion of the
audience is scarcely to be described. They retired to their families,
informing them of this supposed appearance of the devil, with many of
his additional frolics in the exploit. So thoroughly was its reality
believed that every official assurance which could be made the following
day did not entirely counteract the idea. The explanation was given by
Rich himself, in the presence of his friend Bencraft, the contriver, and
perhaps the actor of the scheme, which he designed only as an innocent
affair, to confuse the dancers, without adverting to the serious
consequences which succeeded.

I have met with another author, who, in giving an account of this
transaction, places it as a much earlier period, and says it was during
the performance of "Dr. Faustus," and that when the devil took flight he
carried away with him the roof of the theatre. This story may be
alluded to in a very curious work, entitled, "The Blacke Booke" (a
proper depository), "London, printed in black letter, by T.C. for
Jeffery Chorlton, 1604." "The light burning serjant Lucifer" says of
one, running away through fear of fire at a brothel, "Hee had a head of
hayre like one of my divells in 'Doctor Faustus,' when the olde theatre
crakt and frighted the audience."

Emulating Rich, Drury Lane then followed with "Mars a