Mr.Boaden, adapting Ann Radcliffe's "Romance of the Forest" to the stage of Covent Garden Theatre, records the anxiety he felt about the proper presentment of its supernatural incidents.

The contrivance he hit upon has since become one of the commonplaces of theatrical illusion.

It was arranged that the spectre should be seen through a bluish-gray gauze, so as to remove the too corporeal effect of a live actor, and convert the moving substance into a gliding essence.
The plan, however, was not carried into effect without considerable difficulty.

Mr.Harris, the manager, ordered a night rehearsal of the play, so that the author might judge of the success of the effects introduced.

The spectre was to be personated by one Thompson, a portly jovial actor, whose views as to the treatment of the supernatural upon the stage were of a very primitive kind.