few feet of each other. The ghosts of Richard's victims rise
from the stage and address speeches alternately to him and to his
opponent. Playgoers who can look back a score of years may remember a
textual revival of the tragedy, in which this scene was exhibited in
exact accordance with the original stage directions. Colley Cibber's
famous acting version was for once discarded, and Richard and Richmond
on the eve of their great battle quietly retired to rest in the
presence of each other, and of their audience. However to be
commended on the score of its fidelity to the author's intentions, the
scene had assuredly its ludicrous side. The rival tents wore the
aspect of opposition shower-baths. It was exceedingly difficult to
humour the idea that the figures occupying the stage could neither see
nor hear one another. Why, if they but outstretched their arms they
could have touched each other; and they were supposed to be mutually
eager for combat to the death! It became manifest, indeed, that the
spectators had lost greatly their ancestors' old power of "making
believe." They could no longer hold their reason in suspense for the
sake of enhancing the effect of a theatrical performance, though
prepared to be indulgent in that respect. What is called "realism" had
invaded the stage since Shakespeare's time, and could not now be
repelled or denied. Hints and suggestions did not suffice; the
positive and the actual had become indispensable.

There can be no doubt, however, that Shakespeare's battles had
oftentimes the important aid of real gunpowder. The armies might be
small; but the noise that accompanied their movements was surely very
great. The stage direction "alarums and chambers go off" occurs more
than once in "King Henry V." The Chorus to the play expressly states:

Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur;
... and the nimble gunner
With linstook now the devilish cannon touches,
And down goes all before them.

Gunpowder was even employed in plays wherein battles were not
introduced. Thus at the close of "Hamlet," Fortinbras says: "Go bid
the soldiers shoot," and the stage direction runs: "A dead march.
_Exeunt_ bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance
is shot _off_." And just as, in 1846, the Garrick Theatre, in
Goodman's Fields, was destroyed by fire, owing to some wadding lodging
in the flies after a performance of