Probably the quiet of his studio oppressed our painter somewhat. The simple effects attainable in an easel-picture did not satisfy him. He missed the appliances of the stage: the coloured lights, the transparent scenes, the descending gauzes, and cleverly combined set-pieces. He would not go back to Drury Lane, however; as to that he was fully determined. He would not toil for ungrateful managers, or paint backgrounds merely to supplement and enrich the exertions of the actors. He decided upon providing London with a new entertainment; upon opening an exhibition that should be _all_ scene painting. Charles Dibdin, the famous sea song writer, who was also a dramatist, a composer of music, an actor, a scene painter, and a manager, had constructed in Exeter Change what he whimsically called 'The Patagonian Theatre:' in truth, a simple puppet-show, upon the plan of that contrived years before by Mr. Powell, under the Piazza, Covent Garden, and concerning which Steele had written humorously in the _Spectator_. Dibdin, assisted by one Hubert Stoppelaer, humorist and caricaturist, wrote miniature plays for the doll performers, recited their parts, composed the music, played the accompaniments upon a smooth-toned organ, and painted the scenes. The stage was about six feet wide and eight feet deep; the puppets some ten inches high; the little theatre was divided into pit, boxes, and gallery, and held altogether about two hundred persons. For half a century no exhibition of the kind had appeared in London. The puppet show was old enough to be a complete novelty to the audience of the day. For a time it thrived wonderfully; then managers and public seem both, by degrees, to have grown weary. Dibdin and his friend departed; the exhibition fell into the hands of incompetent persons; then closed its doors. The dolls, properties, scenery, and dresses were brought to the hammer by merciless creditors; and there was an end of the puppet-show. In 1782 De Loutherbourg took the theatre for the exhibition of his EIDOPHUSIKON. De Loutherbourg had professedly two objects in view: to display his skill as a scene-painter well versed in dioramic effects, and to demonstrate to the English people the beauties of their own country. He averred 'that no English landscape-painter needed foreign travel to collect grand prototypes for his study.' The lakes of Cumberland, the rugged scenery of North Wales, and the mountainous grandeur of Scotland, furnished, he said, inexhaustible occupation for the pencil. He opposed the prejudice then rife among artists and amateurs alike, that England afforded no subjects for the higher display of the painter's art. He confined the Eidophusikon for the most part to the exhibition of English landscapes under different conditions of light and shadow.