Addison accounted "thunder and lightning--which are often made use of at the descending of a god or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil or the death of a tyrant"--as occupying the first place "among the several artifices put in practice by the poets to fill the minds of an audience with terror." Certainly the stage owes much to its storms: they have long been highly prized both by playwrights and playgoers, as awe-inspiring embellishments of the scene; and it must have been an early occupation of the theatrical machinist to devise some means of simulating the uproar of elemental strife. So far back as 1571, in the "Accounts of the Revels at Court," there appears a charge of £1 2s. paid to a certain John Izarde, for "mony to him due for his device in counterfeting thunder and lightning in the play of 'Narcisses;' and for sundry necessaries by him spent therein;" while to Robert Moore, the apothecary, a sum of £1 7s. 4d. is paid for "prepared corianders," musk, clove, cinnamon, and ginger comfits, rose and "spike" water, "all which," it is noted, "served for flakes of snow and haylestones in the maske of 'Janus;' the rose-water sweetened the balls made for snow-balls, and presented to her majesty by Janus." The storm in this masque must clearly have been of a very elegant and courtly kind, with sugar-plums for hailstones and perfumed water for rain. The tempests of the public theatres were assuredly conducted after a ruder method. In his prologue to "Every Man in his Humour," Ben Jonson finds occasion to censure contemporary dramatists for the "ill customs" of their plays, and to warn the audience that his production is not as others are:
He rather prays you will be pleased to see One such to-day as other plays should be; Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas, Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please, Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard The gentlewomen; nor rolled bullet heard To say it thunders; nor tempestuous drum Rumbles to tell you when the storm doth come, &c.
It has been conjectured that satirical allusion was here intended to the writings of Shakespeare; yet it is certain that Shakespeare sustained a part, most probably that of Old Knowell, in the first representation of Jonson's comedy. Storms are undoubtedly of frequent occurrence in Shakespeare's plays. Thus, "Macbeth" and "The Tempest" both open with thunder and lightning; there is "loud weather" in "The Winter's Tale;" there is thunder in "The First Part of King Henry VI.," when La Pucelle invokes the fiends to aid her endeavours; thunder and lightning in "The Second Part of King Henry VI.," when Margery Jourdain conjures up the spirit Asmath; thunder and lightning in "Julius Cæsar;" a storm at sea in "Pericles," and a hurricane in "King Lear." It is to be noted, however, that all these plays could hardly have been represented so early as 1598, when "Every Man in his Humour" was first performed.