[Footnote A:  This essay was written (July, 1709) at the time that Drury Lane was closed, by order of the Lord Chamberlain.]

THE INVENTORY.

Spirits of right Nantz brandy, for lambent flames and apparitions.

Three bottles and a half of lightning.

One shower of snow in the whitest French paper.

Two showers of a browner sort.

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

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

A rainbow, a little faded.

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

A new moon, something decayed.

A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two hogsheads sent over last winter.

A coach very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to be sold cheap.

A setting-sun, a pennyworth.

An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the Great, and worn by Julius
Caesar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signor Valentini.

A basket-hilted sword, very convenient to carry milk in.

Roxana’s night-gown.

Othello’s handkerchief.

The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once.

A wild boar killed by Mrs. Tofts[A] and Dioclesian.

[Footnote A:  A favourite singer of the day.]

A serpent to sting Cleopatra.

A mustard-bowl to make thunder with.

Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. D——­’s[A] directions, little used.

[Footnote A:  John Dennis, the critic.]

Six elbow-chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots for their partners.

The whiskers of a Turkish Pasha.

The complexion of a murderer in a band-box; consisting of a large piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke.

A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz., a bloody shirt, a doublet curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the breast.

A bale of red Spanish wool.

Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trapdoors, ladders of ropes, vizard-masques, and tables with broad carpets over them.

Three oak-cudgels, with one of crab-tree; all bought for the use of
Mr. Pinkethman.[A]

[Footnote A:  The comedian.]

Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten rounds.

Aurengezebe’s scymitar, made by Will Brown in Piccadilly.

A plume of feathers, never used but by Oedipus and the Earl of Essex.

There are also swords, halbards, sheep-hooks, cardinals’ hats, turbans, drums, gallipots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cart-wheel, an altar, an helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and a jointed baby.

ACTORS AND AUDIENCE.