Those who came away from the Lyceum on that opening night must have had a sense almost of bewilderment, so rich and dazzling were the scenes of light and colour that had for hours passed before their eyes. According to the true illusive principle in use on this stage, the lights are lowered as every scene is about to change, by which a sense of mystery is produced, and the prosaic mechanism of the movement is shrouded. Hence, a sort of richness of effect and surprise as the gloom passes away and a gorgeous scene steeped in effulgence and colour is revealed. It would take long to detail the beautiful views, streets, palaces, chambers, dresses, groupings, that were set before the audience, all devised with an extraordinary originality and fertility of resource; though this was the third of these Italian revivals. When it is considered that there were twenty-two scenes, and that most of these were “sets,” it is amazing with what rapidity and smoothness the changes were contrived. Not the least pleasurable part of the whole was the romantic music, written in a flowing, tender strain by Sir Julius Benedict, full of a juvenile freedom and spirit, thoroughly Italian in character, and having something of the grace and character of Schubert’s ‘Rosamunde.’ In the exquisite garden, with its depth of silvered trees glistening in the moonlight, viewed from a terrace, the arrangement of the balcony was the only successful solution seen as yet. It has always been forgotten that Juliet has to act—is, as it were, “on the stage”—and should not be perched in a little wobbling cage. Here it was made a sort of solid loggia, as much a part of the stage as that upon which her lover was standing. I fancy this was the scenic triumph of the night. When it is considered that Romeo and Juliet are characters almost impossible to perform so as to reach the Shakespearian ideal, it becomes easier to “liberate one’s mind” on the subject of the performance of the two leading characters. The chief objection was that they scarcely presented the ideal of superabundant youth—boyish and girlish—required by the play. I have always thought this a point to be but little insisted upon; it is much the same as with strictness of costume, which is overpowered, as it were, by the acting. It is the _acting_ of youth, not the appearance of youth, that is required; and a case is conceivable where all the flush of youth with its physical accompaniments may be present in perfection, and yet from failure of the acting the idea of maturity and age may be conveyed.[30] In the dramatic ballroom scene, when he was moving about arrayed as a pilgrim, the unbecoming dress and rather too swarthy features seemed to convey the presentment of a person in the prime of life. The critics spoke freely in this sense.