It was not until the celebrated Inigo Jones designed scenery for certain masques given at the Court of King James that the traditional bareness of the boards was covered, and it was not until the time of Charles II. that women began to make their appearance upon the boards and unite the stage with the second estate. Many writers have emphasised the difficulties besetting the Elizabethan dramatist; Sir Philip Sidney himself has apologised to the spectator for the heavy overdraft on his imagination, and we have but to consider some of the most striking moments in our poet's work to realise what they must have lost under the Elizabethan tradition. How could bare boards conjure up a vision of Juliet's garden, of the wood "outside Athens" in which Titania and Oberon met, of Prospero's island, of the Forest of Arden? How could any boy, however smoothly spoken, present a Rosalind, a Juliet, a Miranda, or Cordelia? While we wonder at these things, it is well to remember that to those who have never eaten wheat, acorns may prove very satisfactory fare. The tradition of the theatre being so strictly circumscribed, nobody could imagine anything better than bare boards, boy heroines, and modern costumes. There are many sound judges of stage matters to-day who are very strongly of the opinion that we have travelled too far in the opposite direction, that by reason of costly mounting, extravagant costumes, alluring music, and the rest, we are no longer able to maintain that "the play's the thing." Doubtless the need for the finest possible expression of thought, and the knowledge that his words must carry the full burden of success, stimulated not only Shakespeare, but every dramatist of the great Elizabethan age. There was one special advantage attaching to the limitation of stage equipment--touring was a simple matter. When we remember that three or even four days were required to travel on horseback from London to Stratford-on-Avon, owing to the bad tracks that enjoyed the courtesy title of roads, and the fords that must be crossed out of flood time, it is easy to see that no part of the cumbersome equipment of the modern stage could have been taken far out of London without vast and unremunerative labour. But the Elizabethan actor travelled light, and as soon as the fine weather came he would leave London for the country, and tour in all manner of unexpected places until autumn warned him home, because it was no longer possible to pass from town to town.