INSIDE OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE, As seen from the Stage during the Performance. (Page 451.)

THIS is one of the most elegant and beautiful Theatres in Europe.  It has four ranges of boxes, besides the private boxes, which are a row, on a level with the most elevated part of the pit.  The boxes are painted a light green, relieved with red, and ornamented with bas-reliefs of composition, designed and executed in a very fine taste.  They are supported by slender pillars of iron, washed with silver: they terminate at top with a pointed Gothic arch; and the whole form of the interior is a mixture of Grecian and Gothic architecture.  This is the principal fault of the building; which, however, produces a grand effect to an eye not too nice and critical.  The boxes are perhaps too lofty.  The stage is of prodigious dimensions.  It requires an uncommonly strong and articulate voice to fill the house.  The third row in the front is the two-shilling gallery; and the highest row the one-shilling gallery.  The whole range of boxes on the level of the pit are private boxes.  That on the stage, seen to the right of the Plate, is the Prince of Wales's box; the box immediately above is a public box, distinguished by the name of the stage-box; the one next above that is the Duke of Bedford's box; and the highest on that side is the Duchess of Devonshire's.

The Plate gives a very accurate idea of the coup-d'œil of the Theatre when filled.  The dimensions of this Theatre between the walls are, 192 feet long, and 87 wide.

The receipts of this Theatre, when crowded, amount to between 700 and 800l.

(p. 499)