"Una quod es semper, quod semper es optima, Princeps, Quam bene conveniunt hæc duo verba tibi? Quod pia, quod prudens, quod casta, innuba virgo Semper es, hoc etiam semper es una modo. "Et populum quod ames, populo quod amata vicissim Semper es, hic constans semper et una manes, O utinam; quoniam sic semper es una, liceret Una te nobis semper, Eliza, frui?" Since Cambridge has the merit of producing the _first English play_, it is but justice here to add, that THE SCHOLARS OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, INVENTED MOVEABLE SCENES. This merit is claimed for them by the Oxford historians, and allowed by the historians of the stage, though they have not agreed of the exact period. We are informed, in Leland's Collectanea, that "the stage did vary three times in the acting of one tragedy." In other words, there were three scenes employed; but these, it is said by Chalmers, in his History of Oxford University, were the invention of Inigo Jones; and the exhibition, it appears, took place in the Hall of Christ Church, in 1636, (the year Wood places the invention in,) for the entertainment of the unfortunate Charles the First and his Queen, when, says our annalist, a comedy was performed for their amusement, entitled, "The Passions Calmed, or the Settling of the Floating," written by Strode, the Public Orator, and moveable scenery introduced with suitable variations; and though there is pretty conclusive evidence that this was not the first time _moveable scenes_, &c. had been introduced, it is evident they had not come into general use, from the fact that, after the departure of the King and his _suite_, the dresses and scenery were sent to Hampton Court, at the express desire of the Queen, but with a wish, suggested by the Chancellor of Oxford, the ill-fated Archbishop Laud, _that they might not come into the hands of the common players_, which was accordingly promised. Leland thinks, however, that _moveable scenes_ were better managed, before this, at Cambridge; and I know not, he says, whether the invention may not be carried back to the year 1583, when the celebrated Polish prince, Alesco, was at Oxford, and for whose entertainment, says Wood (who gives an interesting account of all the particulars of that famous Oxford gaudy,) the tragedy of Dido was acted in the Hall of Christ Church, decorated with scenes illustrative of the play, and the exhibition of "the tempest, wherein it rained small comfits, rose-water, and new artificial snow, was very strange to the beholders." But other authorities place the invention in 1605, when JAMES THE FIRST AND HIS COURT CAME TO OXFORD,