As probably occurring in “Harlequin Sorcerer,” there is an amusing incident.  The belief in the possibility of a supernatural appearance on the stage existed (says an old writer) about the beginning of the eighteenth century.  A dance of infernals having to be exhibited, they were represented in dresses 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.”