Upon our early stage a kind of biscuit--a "marchpane"--was consumed by the players when they required to eat upon the stage. In "Romeo and Juliet" one of the servants says: "Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane." In Marston's "What you Will" occurs the passage: Now work the cooks, the pastry sweats with slaves, The marchpanes glitter. And in Brome's "City Wit" Mrs. Pyannet tells Toby Sneakup: "You have your kickshaws, your players' marchpanes--all show and no meat." Real macaroni in "Masaniello," and real champagne in "Don Giovanni," in order that Leporello may have opportunities for "comic business" in the supper scene, are demanded by the customs of the operatic stage. Realism generally, indeed, is greatly affected in the modern theatre. The audiences of to-day require not merely that real water shall be seen to flow from a pump, or to form a cataract, but that real wine shall proceed from real bottles, and be fairly swallowed by the performers. In Paris, a complaint was recently made that, in a scene representing an entertainment in modern fashionable society, the champagne supplied was only of a second-rate quality. Through powerful opera-glasses the bottle labels could be read, and the management's sacrifice of truthfulness to economy was severely criticised. The audience resented the introduction of the cheaper liquor as though they had themselves been constrained to drink it. As part also of the modern regard for realism may be noted the "cooking scenes" which have frequently figured in recent plays. The old conjuring trick of making a pudding in a hat never won more admiration than is now obtained by such simple expedients as frying bacon or sausages, or broiling chops or steaks, upon the stage in sight of the audience. The manufacture of paste for puddings or pies by one of the _dramatis personae_ has also been very favourably received, and the first glimpse of the real rolling-pin and the real flour to be thus employed has always been attended with applause. In a late production, the opening of a soda-water bottle by one of the characters was generally regarded as quite the most impressive effect of the representation.