The paucity of Shakespeare’s stage armies has sometimes found its reflex in the limited means of country theatres of more modern date.  The ambition of strolling managers is apt to be far in advance of their appliances; they are rarely stayed by the difficulties of representation, or troubled with doubts as to the adequacy of their troupe, in the words of a famous commander, to “go anywhere and do anything.”  We have heard of a provincial Rolla who at the last moment discovered that the army, wherewith he proposed to repulse the forces of Pizarro, consisted of one supernumerary only.  The Peruvian chieftain proved himself equal to the situation, however, and adapted his speech to the case.  Addressing his one soldier, he declaimed in his most dignified manner:  “My brave associate, partner of my toil, my feelings, and my fame, can Rolla’s words add vigour to the virtuous energies which inspire your heart?” and so on.  Thus altered, the speech was found to be sufficiently effective.

In his “Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” Dryden complains of the “tumults to which we are subject in England by representing duels, battles, and the like, which renders our stage too like the theatres where they fight prizes.  For what is more ridiculous than to represent an army with a drum and four men behind it, all which the hero of the other side is to drive before him? or to see a duel fought and one slain with two or three thrusts of the foils, which we know are so blunted that we might give a man an hour to kill another in good earnest with them?”

Two things were especially prized by the audiences of the past:  a speech and a combat.  “For God’s sake, George, give me a speech and let me go home!” cried from the pit the wearied country squire of Queen Anne’s time to his boon companion Powell, the actor, doomed to appear in a part deficient in opportunities for oratory.  “But, Mr. Bayes, might we not have a little fighting?” inquires Johnson, in the burlesque of “The Rehearsal,” “for I love those plays where they cut and slash one another on the stage for a whole hour together.”

The single combats that occur in Shakespeare’s plays are very numerous.  There is little need to remind the reader, for instance, of the hand-to-hand encounters of Macbeth and Macduff, Posthumus and Iachimo, Hotspur and the Prince of Wales, Richard and Richmond.  Romeo has his fierce brawl with Tybalt, Hamlet his famous fencing scene, and there is serious crossing of swords both in “Lear” and “Othello.”  English audiences, from an inherent pugnacity, or a natural inclination for physical feats, were wont to esteem highly the combats of the stage.  The players were skilled in the use of their weapons, and would give excellent effect to their mimic conflicts.  And this continued long after the wearing of swords had ceased to be a necessity or a fashion.  The youthful actor acquired the art of fencing as an indispensable step in his theatrical education.  A sword was