4 NOVEMBER 1916, Page 10

Some Notes on Shakespeare's Stage and Plays. By William Pail.

(Longmans and Co. Is. net.)—The Director of the Elizabethan Stage Society summarizes in this lecture, delivered at the John Rylands Library, his well-known theory that " the Elizabethan drama was written for the Elizabethan stage," and that " when the Elizabethan stage dis- appeared it became no longer possible to produce Elizabethan drama." Mr. Peel is inclined to forget that, whatever the stage, " the play's the thing " ; but his account of Shakespeare's theatre, with its stage pro- jecting into, and almost surrounded by, the pit, is curiously interesting.