ard on the production at Drury Lane
Theatre, in 1709, of his "Appius and Virginia," a hopelessly dull
tragedy, which not even the united exertions of Booth, Wilkes, and
Betterton could keep upon the stage for more than four nights. "The
Dunciad" was written in 1726, when Pope either did not really know
that the old mustard-bowl style of storm was out of date, or purposely
refrained from mentioning the recent invention of "troughs of wood
with stops in them."

In July, 1709, Drury-lane Theatre was closed by order of the Lord
Chamberlain, whereon Addison published in "The Tatler" a facetious
inventory of the goods and movables of Christopher Rich, the manager,
to be disposed of in consequence of his "breaking up housekeeping."
Among the effects for sale are mentioned:

A mustard-bowl to make thunder with.

Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. D----'s directions, little used.

The catalogue is not of course to be viewed seriously, or it might be
inferred that Dennis's new thunder was still something of the
mustard-bowl sort. Other items relative to the storms of the stage and
their accessories are:

Spirits of right Nantz brandy for lambent flames and
apparitions.

Three bottles and a half of lightning.

A sea consisting of a dozen large waves, the tenth bigger than
ordinary, and a little damaged.

(According to poetic authority, it may be noted, the tenth wave is
always the largest and most dangerous.)

A dozen and a half of clouds trimmed with black, and well
conditioned.

A set of clouds after the French mode, streaked with lightning
and furbelowed.

One shower of snow in the whitest French paper.

Two showers of a browner sort.

It is probably to this mention of snow-storms we owe the familiar
theatrical story of the manager who, when white paper failed him, met
the difficulty of the situation by snowing brown.

The humours of the theatre afforded great diversion to the writers in
"The Spectator," and the storms of the stage are repeatedly referred
to in their essays. In 1771, Steele, discoursing about inanimate
performers, published a fictitious letter from "the Salmoneus of
Covent Garden," demanding pity and favour on account of the unexpected
vicissitudes of his fortune. "I have for many years past," he writes,
"been thunderer to the playhouse; and have not only made as much noise
out of the clouds as any predecessor of mine in the theatre