erfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance:
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning th' accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass.

These conditions, however, were accepted by the audiences of the time
in the most liberal spirit. Critics were prone to deride the popular
liking for "cutler's work" and "the horrid noise of target fight;"
"the fools in the yard" were censured for their "gaping and gazing" at
such exhibitions. But the battles of the stage were still fought on;
"alarums and excursions" continued to engage the scene. Indeed,
variety and stir have always been elements in the British drama as
opposed to the uniformity and repose which were characteristics of the
ancient classical theatre.

Yet our early audiences must have been extremely willing to help out
the illusions of the performance, and abet the tax thus levied upon
their credulity. Shakespeare's battles could hardly have been very
forcibly presented. In his time no "host of auxiliaries" assisted the
company. "Two armies flye in," Sir Philip Sidney writes in his
"Apologie for Poetrie," 1595, "represented with four swords and
bucklers, and what harde heart will not receive it for a pitched
fielde?" So limited an array would not be deemed very impressive in
these days; but it was held sufficient by the lieges of Elizabeth.
Just as the Irish peasant is even now content to describe a mere squad
of soldiers as "the army," so Shakespeare's audiences were willing to
regard a few "blue-coated stage-keepers" as a formidable body of
troops. And certainly the poet sometimes exercised to the utmost the
imaginations of his patrons. He required them to believe that his
small stage was immeasurably spacious; that his handful of "supers"
was in truth a vast multitude. During one scene in "King John" he does
not hesitate to bring together upon the boards the three distinct
armies of Philip of France, the Archduke of Austria, and the King of
England; while, in addition, the citizens of Angiers are supposed to
appear upon the walls of their town and discuss the terms of its
capitulation. So in "King Richard III.," Bosworth Field is
represented, and the armies of Richard and Richmond are made to encamp
within a