about in all directions, he was compelled to display an activity in avoiding them, singularly inappropriate to the age and condition of the character he was personating.  He was even said to resemble a dancer achieving the terpsichorean feat known as the egg hornpipe.  Presently, too, the musicians became alarmed for the safety of themselves and their instruments, and deemed it advisable to scale the spiked partition which divided them from the pit; for the cannon-balls were upon them, smashing the lamps, and falling heavily into the orchestra.  Meantime, exposed to the full gaze of the house, lay prone, beside his empty barrow, the carpenter, the innocent invoker of the storm he had been unable to allay or direct, not at all hurt, but exceedingly frightened and bewildered.  After this unlucky experiment, the manager abandoned his wheelbarrow and cannon-balls, and reverted to more received methods of producing stage storms.

In 1713, a certain Dr. Reynardson published a poem called “The Stage,” which the critics of the time agreed to be a pretty and ingenious composition.  It was dedicated to Addison, the preface stating that “‘The Spectator’s’ account of ‘The Distrest Mother’ had raised the author’s expectation to such a pitch that he made an excursion from college to see that tragedy acted, and upon his return was commanded by the dean to write upon the Art, Rise, and Progress of the English Stage; which how well he has performed is submitted to the judgment of that worthy gentleman to whom it is inscribed.”  Dr. Reynardson’s poem is not a work of any great distinction, and need only be referred to here for its mention of the means then in use for raising the storms of the theatre.  Noting the strange and incongruous articles to be found in the tiring-room of the players—­such as Tarquin’s trousers and Lucretia’s vest, Roxana’s coif and Statira’s stays, the poet proceeds: 

    Hard by a quart of bottled lightning lies
    A bowl of double use and monstrous size,
    Now rolls it high and rumbles in its speed,
    Now drowns the weaker crack of mustard-seed;
    So the true thunder all arrayed in smoke,
    Launched from the skies now rives the knotted oak,
    And sometimes naught the drunkard’s prayers prevail,
    And sometimes condescends to sour the ale.

There is also allusion to the mustard-bowl as applied to theatrical uses in “The Dunciad:” 

    “Now turn to different sports,” the goddess cries,
    “And learn, my sons, the wondrous power of NOISE. 
    To move, to raise, to ravish every heart,
    With Shakespeare’s nature or with Jonson’s art,
    Let others aim; ’tis yours to shake the soul
    With thunder rumbling from the mustard-bowl.”

And further reference to the frequency of stage storms is continued in the well-known lines, written by way of parodying the mention of the Duke of Marlborough in Addison’s poem “The Campaign:”