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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
tended back to the benches, as when the "round" was used for 
dramatic purposes it would have been useless to have spectators 
behind the actors. The trench, covered by the stage, would enable 
the actors who had gone down to hell, or to the grave, and 
had not to come visibly thence again to pass along to the cavity 
and return to the stage unnoticed by the spectators, as they 
seem to have had, as at Ammergau, some rude scenery. It is 
possible also that they might have, same as at Ammergau, a 
small covered space on the stage for the acting of the principal 
parts. One of the stage directions is, Hie sol obscuratur. This 
seems to point to a representation otherwise than altogether sub 
dio ; and there is a casual notice of a play called "Sampson" 
being acted at Penryn, in 1587, in a barn at night. 4 
Some speak of these " rounds " as if they had been formed 
expressly for the representation of the " Passion," and other extant 
dramas, and Carew has been quoted in proof. But the amphi- 
theatres Carew speaks of were much smaller, only " about forty 
feet or fifty feet " in diameter. These are about three times that ; 
and what he says shows also that those lie mentions were probably 
constructed in a less durable manner, mere temporary "rounds;" 
and to this day there are in various parts of West Cornwall, and 
only there, circles or earthworks, or traces or traditions of them, 
which differ in various respects from those of a military character 
found in the west as elsewhere. And some of these are called in the 
Ordnance Map, the tithe apportionments, and, in vulgar parlance, 
Plain an Guarys. b Part of the town of Redruth bears the name 
of Plain an Gwarry, from there having once been a round there. 
In the parish of Kea they have a literal translation of this, 
Surrey. There seems to have been something of the sort in the acting of the 
Cornish mysteries. In the "Creation," when the "Father" has reproved 
"Lucifer" for his pride, the stage direction says, "Let hell gape when ye 
father nameth yt." 
4 "The Cornish Drama," hy W. Sandys, F.S.A. ; "Journal of the Royal 
Institution of Cornwall," No. 3, page 18. 
5 " There was a Plaen an guare near Redruth, now nearly destroyed ; another 
on the Lizard Downs, near Landewednack — a road runs through the middle 
of it —it is 117 feet in diameter. In Ruan Major was one of sixty-six feet, 
and in Ruan Minor one of ninety-three feet in diameter, of which the turn- 
pike road cuts off a portion. These are all found in the western part of the 
county." — Cyrus Reading's ''Illustrated Itinerary of the Countyof Cornwall." 
There are said to be similar rounds in the parishes of Sithney, S. Hilary, and 
Grade. Nothing of the kind is found in Devon or East Cornwall. 
