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Show 176 THE CODE OF TERPSICHORE. CHAPTER XII. STAGE EFFECT. " C'est la ce qui surprend, frappe, saisit, attache." BOILEAC. M A N Y Ballet-masters, as well as dramatic authors, place great confidence in stage effect. Every opportunity of such a species of display is seized with avidity, and such persons think they have completely succeeded by representing an improbable and extravagant event, or by emblazoning forth some horrible scene of assassination. They imagine, also, that sudden changes of scenery, a multitude of supernumeraries, apparitions, showers of fire, and, above all, military evolutions by horse and foot, are all indispensably necessary, as producing stage effect. It is with such unmeaning noise and bustle as this that bad composers generally stuff the trash they produce, and, unfortunately, if through chance and ignorance they succeed, true taste and talent are despised. Such a triumph, however, cannot continue unchanged ; clatter and tinsel cannot always drown the opposing voice of good sense. " il volgo ignaro, che non fe bastante A discernere il ver con vista acuta, Tutto ci6, che ha del nuovo, e del brillante Pill che il solido, e Futile valuta." CASH. These are the sort of connoisseurs who dictate laws, but it is the ignorant only w h o submit to them. The meaning of stage effect is not generally understood ; the real explanation of this cannot be gathered from what is so termed. I cannot do better, therefore, than supply an |