Formerly the public had been satisfied with a very prosaic ghost. A substantial figure, with a whitened face, and a streak of red paint on his brow, was thrust through a trap-door, and it was held that all had been done that was necessary in the way of stage illusion. The ghost of Hamlet's father was frequently attired in a suit of real armour borrowed from the Tower. There is a story of a ghost thus heavily accoutred, who, overcome by the weight of his harness, fell down on the stage and rolled towards the foot-lights, the pit raising an alarm lest the poor apparition should indeed be burnt by the fires of the lamps. Barton Booth, the great actor in the time of Queen Anne and George I., is said to have been the first representative of the ghost in "Hamlet" who wore list shoes to deaden the noise of his footsteps as he moved across the stage. In the poem of "The Actor," by Robert Lloyd, the friend of Churchill, published in 1757, we have an explicit description of the treatment of ghosts then in vogue upon the stage, with special reference to the ghost of "our dear friend" Banquo: 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.