But in stage customs what offends me most
    Is the slip-door, and slowly rising ghost. 
    Tell me—­nor count the question too severe—­
    Why need the dismal powdered forms appear? 
    When chilling horrors shake the affrighted king,
    And guilt torments him with her scorpion sting,
    When keenest feelings at his bosom pull,
    And fancy tells him that the seat is full;
    Why need the ghost usurp the monarch’s place,
    To frighten children with his mealy face? 
    The king alone should form the phantom there,
    And talk and tremble at the vacant chair.

Farther on the poet discourses of the ghosts in “Venice Preserved,” of which mention has already been made: 

    If Belvidera her loved lost deplore,
    Why for twin spectres burst the yawning floor? 
    When, with disordered starts and horrid cries,
    She paints the murdered forms before her eyes,
    And still pursues them with a frantic stare,
    ’Tis pregnant madness brings the visions there. 
    More instant horror would enforce the scene
    If all her shudderings were at shapes unseen.

It may have been due to Lloyd’s poem, and to the opinions it expressed and obtained favour for, that when Drury Lane Theatre opened in 1794 with a performance of “Macbeth,” the experiment was tried of omitting the appearance of Banquo’s ghost, and leaving its presence to be imagined by the spectators.  The alteration, however, was not found to be agreeable to the audience.  While granting that Mr. Kemble’s fine acting was almost enough to make them believe they really did see the ghost, they preferred that there should be no mistake about the matter, and that Banquo’s shade should come on bodily—­be distinctly visible.  Further, they were able to point to Shakespeare’s stage direction:  “Enter the ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place.”  Surely there could be no mistake, they argued, as to what the dramatist himself intended.  In subsequent performances the old system was restored, and in all modern representations of the tragedy the phantom has not failed to be visible to the spectators.  Nevertheless Banquo’s ghost remains the crux of stage managers.  How to get him on?  How to get him off?  How to make him look anything like a ghost—­respectable, if not awful?  How to avoid that distressing titter generally audible among those of the spectators who cannot suppress their sense of the ludicrous even in one of Shakespeare’s grandest scenes?  Upon a darkened stage a ghost, skilfully attired in vaporous draperies, may be made sufficiently impressive, as in “Hamlet,” for instance.  The shade of the departed king, if tolerably treated, seldom provokes a smile, even from the most hardened and jocose of spectators.  But in “Macbeth” the scene must be well lighted, for the nobles, courtiers, and guests are at high banquet; and the ghost must appear towards the front of the stage, otherwise Macbeth will be