The conjecture of Mr. Steevens, however, that _private_ theatres had no scenes, while the _public_ had, owing to the former admitting part of the audience on the stage, who might interfere with the convenient shifting of such an apparatus, is annihilated by the quotation from Decker, who expressly says, that "_by SITTING ON THE STAGE_, you have _a signed patent to stand at the helm to steer the passage of the scenes_," by which it would appear, that those who obtained seats on the private stage, occasionally amused themselves by assisting the regular mechanists in the adjustment of the scenery. We learn, also, from Heywood[213:A], that the internal roof of the stage was either painted of a sky-blue colour, or hung with drapery of a similar tint, in order to represent the HEAVENS; and there is much reason to suppose, with a very ingenious commentator, that when the idea of a gloomy and starless night was to be impressed, these _heavens_ were hung with black, whence, among many passages in Shakspeare illustrative of this position, the following line manifestly owes its origin:— "_Hung_ be the _Heavens_ with _black_, yield day to night."[214:A] It has, likewise, been asserted, and, indeed, to a certain extent, proved, by the same learned writer, that the lower part of the stage was distinguished by the name of HELL; and he quotes the annexed passage from Chapman as decisive on the subject:— "The fortune of a _Stage_ (like fortune's self) Amazeth greatest judgments: and none knows The hidden causes of those strange effects, That rise from _this HELL_, or fall from _this HEAVEN_."[214:B] From this connection of the celestial and infernal regions with the stage, Mr. Whiter has inferred, through the medium of numerous pertinent quotations from Shakspeare and his contemporaries, that a vast mass of imagery was so blended and associated in the mind of our great poet, as to form an intimate union in his ideas between HELL and NIGHT; the DARKENED HEAVENS and the STAGE of TRAGEDY[214:C]; and this, too, at an early period, even during the composition of his Rape of Lucrece, which contains some striking instances of this theatrical combination. To these notices on the interior structure of the Shakspearean theatre, we shall now add the most material circumstances relative to its economy and usages.