Under these conditions it is not surprising that for nearly a quarter of a century there was no addition made to the list of London theatres. But time moves on, and even Chamberlains have to move with it. Of late years there has been no difficulty in regard to the licensing of new theatres, and the metropolis has been the richer by many well-conducted houses of dramatic entertainment.



CHAPTER IV.

THE EXAMINER OF PLAYS.

The Lord Chamberlain holds office only so long as the political party to which he is attached remains in power. He comes in and goes out with the ministry. Any peculiar fitness for the appointment is not required of him; it is simply a reward for his political services. Of course different Chamberlains have entertained different opinions of the duties to be performed in regard to the theatres; and, in such wise, much embarrassment has arisen. The Chamberlain's office is supported by a grant from the Civil List, which is settled upon the accession of the sovereign. In addition, fees are received for the licensing of theatres, and for the examination of plays.

The Examiner of Plays has long been recognised as a more permanent functionary than the Lord Chamberlain, although it would seem the precise nature of his appointment has never been clearly understood. "I believe," said Mr. Donne, the late Examiner, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee of 1866, "that it is an appointment that expires with the sovereign (at least, I infer so from the evidence which Mr. Colman gave in the year 1833), but I cannot say that from my own knowledge: I believe it to be an appointment for life."

In truth, the Examiner is simply the employe of the Chamberlain, appointed by him, and holding the office only so long as the superior functionary shall deem fitting. There is no instance on record, however, of the displacement of an Examiner, or of the cancelling by one Chamberlain of the appointment made by his predecessor. Power of this kind, however, would seem to be vested in the Chamberlain for the time being. Colman's evidence, it may be noted, is of no present worth. He was appointed as a consequence of the old Licensing Act, repealed in 1843.

The first Licenser of Plays sworn in after the passing of the Licensing Act of 1737 was William Chetwynd, with a salary of L400 a-year. But this deputy of the Chamberlain was in his turn allowed a deputy, and one Thomas Odell was appointed assistant examiner, with a salary of L200 a-year. Strange to say, it was this Odell who had first opened a theatre in Goodman's Fields, which, upon the complaint of the civic authorities, who believed the drama to be a source of danger to the London apprentices of the period, he had been compelled forthwith to close. He applied to George II, for a royal license, but met with a peremptory refusal. In 1731 he sold his property to one Giffard, who rebuilt the theatre, and, dispensing with official permission, performed stage plays between the intervals of a concert, until producing Garrick, and obtaining extraordinary success by that measure, he roused the jealousy of the authorities, and was compelled to forego his undertaking.

The Licenser's power of prohibition was exercised very shortly after his appointment, in the case of two tragedies: "Gustavus Vasa," by Henry Brooke, and "Edward and Eleonora," by James Thomson. Political allusions of an offensive kind were supposed to lurk somewhere in these works. "Gustavus Vasa" was especially forbidden "on account of some strokes of liberty which breathed through several parts of it." On the Irish stage, however, over which the Chamberlain had no power, the play was performed as "The Patriot;" while, by the publication of "Gustavus Vasa," Mr. Brooke obtained L1000 or so from a public curious as to the improprieties it was alleged to contain, and anxious to protest against the oppressive conduct of the Licenser. In 1805, with the permission of the Chamberlain, the play was produced at Covent Garden, in order that Master Betty, the Young Roscius, might personate the hero. But the youthful actor failed in the part, and the tragedy, being found rather dull, was represented but once. At this time Mr. Brooke had been dead some years. In a preface to his play he had vouched for its purity, and denounced the conduct of the Licenser, as opposed to the intention of the Legislature, Dr. Johnson assisting his cause by the publication of an ironical pamphlet—"A Vindication of the Licenser from the malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr. Brooke." Modern readers may well be excused for knowing little of the dramatist whose "Gustavus Vasa" had no great deal to recommend it, perhaps, beyond the fact of its performance having been prohibited. Yet some few years since, it may be noted, the late Charles Kingsley made endeavours, more strenuous than successful, to obtain applause for Brooke's novel, "The Fool of Quality;" but although a new and handsome edition of this work was published, it was received with some apathy by the romance-reading public.

The author of "The Seasons" hardly seems a writer likely to give offence designedly to a Chamberlain. But Thomson was a sort of Poet Laureate to Frederick, Prince of Wales, then carrying on fierce opposition to the court of his father, and the play of "Edward and Eleonora"—a dramatic setting of the old legend of Queen Eleanor sucking the poison from her husband's arm—certainly contained passages applicable to the differences existing between the king and his heir-apparent. In the first scene, one of the characters demands—

Has not the royal heir a juster claim To share his father's inmost heart and counsels, Than aliens to his interest, those who make A property, a market of his honour?

And King Edward apostrophises his dead sire—

O my deluded father! little joy Hadst thou in life, led from thy real good And genuine glory, from thy people's love, The noblest aim of kings, by smiling traitors!

In 1775, however, the play was produced at Covent Garden. George III. was king, and the allusions to the squabbles of his father and grandfather were not, perhaps, supposed to be any longer of the remotest concern or significance to anybody.

At this time and long afterwards, the Licenser regarded it as his chief duty to protect the court against all possibility of attack from the stage. With the morality of plays he did not meddle much; but he still clung to the old superstition that the British drama had only a right to exist as the pastime of royalty; plays and players were still to be subservient to the pleasure of the sovereign. The British public, who, after all, really supported the stage, he declined to consider in the matter; conceding, however, that they were at liberty to be amused at the theatre, provided they could achieve that end in strict accordance with the prescription of the court and its Chamberlain. In George III.'s time King Lear was prohibited, because it was judged inexpedient that royal insanity should be exhibited upon the stage. In 1808 a play, called "The Wanderer," adapted from Kotzebue, was forbidden at Covent Garden, in that it dealt with the adventures of Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender. Even after the accession of Queen Victoria, a license was refused to an English version of Victor Hugo's "Ruy Blas," lest playgoers should perceive in it allusions to the matrimonial choice her Majesty was then about to make.

The Licenser's keenness in scenting a political allusion oftentimes, indeed, entailed upon him much and richly-merited ridicule. The production, some fifty years ago, of a tragedy called "Alasco" furnishes a notable instance of the absurdity of his conduct in this respect. "Alasco" was written by Mr. Shee, a harmless gentleman enough, if at that time a less fully-developed courtier than he appeared when, as Sir Martin Archer Shee, he occupied the presidential chair of the Royal Academy. Possibly some suspicion attached to the dramatist by reason of his being an Irishman and a Roman Catholic. In any case, the Licenser found much to object to in "Alasco." The play was in rehearsal at Covent Garden; but so many alterations and suppressions were insisted on, that its representation became impracticable. We may note a few of the lines expunged by the Licenser:

With most unworthy patience have I seen My country shackled and her sons oppressed; And though I've felt their injuries, and avow My ardent hope hereafter to avenge them, &c.

Tyrants, proud lord, are never safe, nor should be; The ground is mined beneath them as they tread; Haunted by plots, cabals, conspiracies, Their lives are long convulsions, and they shake, Surrounded by their guards and garrisons!

Some slanderous tool of state, Some taunting, dull, unmannered deputy!

The words in italics were to be expunged from the following passages:

Tis ours to rescue from the oblivious grave Where tyrants have contrived to bury them, A gallant race—a nation—and her fame; To gather up the fragments of our state, And in its cold, dismembered body, breathe The living soul of empire.

Fear God and love the king—the soldier's faith— Was always my religion; and I know No heretics but cowards, knaves, and traitors— No, no, whate'er the colour of his creed, The man of honour's orthodox.

It is difficult now to discover what offence was contained in these lines, and many more such as these, which were also denounced by the Licenser. Shee expostulated—for he was not a meek sort of man by any means, and he knew the advantages of a stir to one aiming at publicity—appealed from the subordinate to the superior, from the Examiner to the Chamberlain, then the Duke of Montrose, and wrote to the newspapers; but all in vain. The tragedy could not be performed. That the stage lost much it would be rash to assert. "Alasco" was published, and those who read it—they were not many—found it certainly harmless; but not less certainly pompous and wearisome. However, that Shee was furnished with a legitimate grievance was generally agreed, although in "Blackwood's Magazine," then very intense in its Toryism, it was hinted that the dramatist, his religion and his nationality being considered, might be in league with the author of "Captain Rock," and engaged in seditious designs against the peace and Protestantism of Ireland! Some five years later, it may be noted, "Alasco" was played at the Surrey Theatre, without the slightest regard for the opinion of the Examiner of Plays, or with any change in the passages he had ordered to be expunged. Westminster was not then very well informed as to what happened in Lambeth, and probably it was not generally known that "Alasco," with all its supposed seditious utterances unsilenced, could be witnessed upon the Surrey stage. Nor is there any record that anybody was at all the worse, or the treasury of the theatre any the better, for the representation of the forbidden tragedy.

The Examiner of Plays at this time was George Colman the younger, who was appointed to the office, less on account of the distinction he enjoyed as a dramatist, than because he was a favourite and a sort of boon companion of George IV. Colman had succeeded a Mr. Larpent, who had filled the post for some twenty years, and who, notwithstanding that, as a strict Methodist, he scarcely seemed a very fit person to pronounce judgment upon stage plays, had exercised the powers entrusted to him with moderation. It was generally agreed that he was a considerate and benignant ruler, and that his career as Examiner offered few occasions for remark, although upon its close some surprise was excited at the exposure for sale by public auction of the many manuscripts of plays, &c., which were found in his possession, and which should certainly have been preserved among the archives of the Chamberlain's office. Colman, however, proved a very tyrant—a consummate Jack-in-office. As a gentleman of rather unbridled habits of life, and the author of "Broad Grins" and other works certainly paying small heed to the respectabilities, it had been hoped that he would deal leniently with his brother playwrights. But he carried to fanatic extravagance his devotion to the purity of the stage. Warned by earlier example, few dramas which could possibly be considered of a political complexion were now submitted for examination. Still the diction of the stage demanded a measure of liberty. But Mr. Colman would not allow a lover to describe his mistress as "an angel." He avowed that "an angel was a character in Scripture, and not to be profaned on the stage by being applied to a woman!" The exclamation, "Oh, Providence!" was not permitted. The words "heaven" and "hell" he uniformly expunged. "Oh, lud!" and "Oh, la!" were condemned for irreverence. Oaths and all violent expletives were strictly prohibited.

Now it was rather an imprecatory age. Men swore in those days, not meaning much harm, or particularly conscious of what they were doing, but as a matter of bad habit, in pursuance of a custom certainly odious enough, but which they had not originated, and could hardly be expected immediately to overcome. In this way malediction formed part of the manners of the time. How could these be depicted upon the stage in the face of Mr. Colman's new ordinance? There was great consternation among actors and authors. Plays came back from the Examiner's office so slashed with red ink that they seemed to be bleeding from numerous wounds; line after line had been prohibited; and by Colman of all people! Critics amused themselves by searching through his own dramatic writings, and cataloguing the bad language they contained. The list was very formidable. There were comminations and anathemas in almost every scene. The matter was pointed out to him, but he treated it with indifference. He was a writer of plays then; but now he was Examiner of Plays. His point of view was changed, that was all. It was no fault of his if there had been neglect of duty on the part of previous examiners. Mr. Arnold, the proprietor and manager of the Lyceum Theatre, expostulated with him on the subject. In a play by John Banim, one of the authors of the "Tales of the O'Hara Family," Colman had forbidden certain lines to be chanted by monks and nuns in a scene of a foreign cathedral. It was too profane. What about the singing of "God save the King" upon the stage? That had been sanctioned by custom, Colman maintained; but he could not regard it as a precedent. Was he prepared to mutilate Portia's great speech in the "Merchant of Venice?" Certainly he was; but then custom had sanctioned it, and playgoers were not prepared for any meddling with the text of Shakespeare. He admitted, however, that he did not trouble himself to ascertain whether his excisions were carried into effect when the plays came to be represented. "My duty," he said, "is simply to object to everything immoral or politically dangerous. When I have marked my objections the play is licensed, subject to the omission of the passages objected to; beyond this I have nothing to do, or an examiner would become a spy as well as a censor on the theatre." Any breach of the law was therefore left to be remedied by the action of the "common informer" of the period.

As evidence of Colman's lack of conscientiousness in this matter, a letter he wrote to Mr. Frederick Yates, in 1829, may be cited. A dramatic author, the friend both of Colman and Yates, had bitterly complained of the retrenchments made by the Examiner in a certain play, or, to follow Colman's own words, had stated "that his comedy would be sure to be damned by the public, owing to the removal of some devilish good jokes by the Examiner." "Cannot you, my dear Fred, instruct him better?" wrote Colman. "The play, you know, must be printed in strict accordance with my obliterations; but if the parts be previously given out, it will be difficult to induce the actors to preach from my text!" No doubt upon this hint the actors spake. Only, in that case, of what good was the Examiner, regarded as a public servant?

It was questioned at the time whether the Chamberlain, by his deputy, was not exercising more authority than he was really clothed with, under virtue of the Licensing Act. He was entitled to prohibit the performance of any play; but could he make terms with the managers, and cut and carve their manuscripts, forcing upon them his capricious alterations? Further, it was asked by what right he delegated his power to another? The Act made no mention of his deputy or of such an officer as an Examiner of Plays. And then, as to the question of fees. What right had he to exact fees? There was no mention of fees in the Act. No doubt the managers had long been in the habit of paying fees—L2 2s. for every piece, song, &c. But it was urged that this was simply to secure expedition in the examination of their plays, which they were bound to submit to the Chamberlain fourteen days at least before representation, and not in pursuance of any legal enactment. The Examiner of Plays received a salary from the Chamberlain for the labour he performed; why should he levy a tax upon managers and authors, and so be paid twice over for the same work?

Now, on the subject of fees Colman was certainly most rapacious. He spared no effort to increase, in this way, the emoluments of his office. Did an actor on a benefit night advertise any new songs, glees, or other musical performance—Colman was prompt to demand a fee of L2 2s. for every separate production. Occasional addresses, prologues, and epilogues, were all rated as distinct stage plays, and the customary fees insisted upon. One actor, long famous as "Little Knight," so far defeated this systematic extortion that he strung together a long list of songs, recitations, imitations, &c., which he wished to have performed at his benefit with any nonsense of dialogue that came into his head, and so sent them to be licensed as one piece. They were licensed accordingly; the dialogue was all omitted, and the ingenious actor aided his benefit by saving L8 8s. or L10 10s., which would otherwise have found their way into the pocket of the Examiner. When the French plays were performed in London, in 1829, Colman insisted that a fee must be paid for every vaudeville or other light piece of that class produced. As some three or four of such works were presented every night—the same plays being rarely repeated—it was computed that the Examiner's fees amounted upon an average to L6 6s. a night. During an interval, however, the Duke of Devonshire succeeding the Duke of Montrose as Chamberlain, this demand was not enforced; eventually a compromise was agreed upon, and a reduced fee of L1 1s. was levied upon each vaudeville, &c. Colman even succeeded in rating as a stage play, an astronomical lecture, delivered at the Lyceum. The "At Homes" of Mathews were of course taxed, a "slight sketch and title" being submitted to the Examiner, the actor professing to speak without any precise text, but simply from "heads and hints before him to refer to should his memory falter." In an attempt to levy a fee on account of an oratorio performed at Covent Garden, Colman failed, however; it was proved that the libretto was entirely composed of passages from the Scriptures. After great discussion it was ultimately decided that the Bible did not need the license of the Lord Chamberlain.

Colman died in 1836, and was succeeded as Examiner of Plays by Mr. Charles Kemble, who, strange to say, while holding that appointment returned to the stage for a short season and performed certain of his most celebrated characters. He resigned the office in 1840, and his son John Mitchell Kemble then held it in his stead. On the death of John Mitchell Kemble, in 1857, Mr. William Bodham Donne, the late Examiner, received the appointment. Mr. Donne, however, had in truth performed the duties of the office as the deputy of the Chamberlain's deputy since the year 1849. As he informed the Parliamentary committee of 1866, he had received a salary of L320, subject to deduction on account of income-tax. Further, the Examiner receives fees for every play examined. Two guineas are paid for every play of three acts or more; under three acts the fee is L1 1s. For every song sung in a theatre a fee of 5s. is paid. As Mr. Donne explained to the committee, he had examined between 1857 and 1866 about 1800 plays.

It is to be noted that in 1843 the Act for Regulating Theatres, commonly known as Sir James Graham's Act, became law. By this measure the powers of the Lord Chamberlain were enlarged and more firmly established; he was empowered to charge such fees as he might deem fit in regard to every play, prologue, epilogue, or part thereof, intended to be produced or acted in Great Britain, although no fee was in any case to exceed L2 2s. in amount. Further, it was made lawful for him, whenever he should be of opinion that it was fitting for the preservation of good manners, decorum, or of the public peace so to do, to forbid the performance of any stage play, or any act, scene or part thereof, or any prologue or epilogue or any part thereof, anywhere in Great Britain or in any such theatre as he should specify, and either absolutely or for such time as he should think fit. It was enacted, moreover, that the term "stage play" should be taken to include "every tragedy, comedy, farce, opera, burletta, interlude, melodrama, pantomime, or other entertainment of the stage."

The Act provides for no appeal against the decision of the Chamberlain. His government was to be quite absolute. If he chose to prohibit the performance of Shakespeare's plays, for instance, no one could question his right to take that strong measure; only another Act of Parliament could, under such circumstances, restore Shakespeare, to the stage. Of the Examiner of Plays the Act made no mention: that office continued to be the creation simply of the Lord Chamberlain, and without any sort of legal status. The old Licensing Act of 1737 was absolutely repealed; yet, unaccountably enough, Mr. Donne's appointment, bearing date 1857, and signed by the Marquis of Breadalbane, then Lord Chamberlain, began: "Whereas in consequence of an Act of Parliament, made in the tenth year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Second," &c. &c.

The intensity of George Colman's regard for "good manners and decorum" has no doubt furnished a precedent to later Examiners. For some time little effort was made again to apply the stage to the purposes of political satire. Mr. Buckstone informed the Parliamentary Committee that an attempt made about 1846, to represent the House of Commons upon the stage of the Adelphi—Mr. Buckstone was to have personated the Lord John Russell of that date—had been promptly forbidden; and the late Mr. Shirley Brooks stated that a project of dramatising Mr. Disraeli's novel of "Coningsby" had also, in regard to its political bearing, been interdicted by the Chamberlain. Few other essays in this direction appear worth noting, until we come to a few seasons back, when certain members of the administration were caricatured upon the stage of the Court Theatre, after a fashion that speedily brought down the rebuke of the Chamberlain, and the exhibition was prohibited within his jurisdiction. But the question of "good manners and decorum" has induced much controversy. For where, indeed, is discoverable an acceptable standard of "good manners and decorum"? In such matters there is always growth and change of opinion. Sir Walter Scott makes mention of an elderly lady, who, reading over again certain books she had deemed in her youth to be of a most harmless kind, was shocked at their exceeding grossness. She had unconsciously moved on with the civilising and refining influences of her time. And the question of morality in relation to the drama is confessedly very difficult to deal with. "It must be something almost of a scandalous character to warrant interference," says Mr. Donne. "If you sift the matter to the very dross, two-thirds of the plays of any period in the history of the stage must be condemned. Where there is an obvious intention, or a very strong suspicion of an intention to make wrong appear right or right appear wrong, those are the cases in which I interfere, or those in which there is any open scandal, or any inducement to do wrong is offered; but stage morality is—the morality of the stage, and generally, quite as good as the morality of the literature of fiction." This does not define the Examiner's principle of action very clearly. As instances of his procedure, it may be stated that upon religious grounds he has forbidden such operas as the "Nabuco" of Verdi and the "Mose in Egitto" of Rossini, allowing them to be presented, however, when their names were changed to "Nino" and "Zora" or "Pietro l'Eremita" respectively. On the other hand, while prohibiting "La Dame aux Camelias"[1] of M. Alexandre Dumas fils, he has sanctioned its performance as the opera "La Traviata." "I think," explained Mr. Donne, "that if there is a musical version of a piece it makes a difference, for the story is then subsidiary to the music and singing." Prohibiting "Jack Sheppard" he yet licensed for representation an adaptation of a French version of the same piece. Madame Ristori was not allowed to appear in the tragedy of "Myrrha," and the dramas which French companies of players visiting this country from time to time have designed to produce, have been severely dealt with, the Examiner forgetting, apparently, that such works should rather be judged by a foreign than a native standard of "good manners and decorum." As a result, we have the strange fact of the Examiner stepping between the English public and what have been judged to be the masterpieces of the French stage.

[1] "La Dame aux Camelias" obtained a license at last, and was played for the first time in England at the Gaiety Theatre, on the 11th June, 1881, with Mdlle. Sarah Bernhardt as the representative of the leading character.

The Chamberlain has also held it to be a part of his duty to interfere in regard to certain of the costumes of the theatre, when these seemed to be more scanty than seemliness required, and from time to time he has addressed expostulations to the managers upon the subject. It must not be concluded, however, that from his action in the matter, much change or amendment has ensued.

In America there is no Lord Chamberlain, Examiner of Plays, or any corresponding functionary. The stage may be no better for the absence of such an officer, but it does not seem to be any the worse.

In 1832, the late Lord Lytton (then Mr. Bulwer), addressing the House of Commons on the laws affecting dramatic literature, said of the authority vested in the Lord Chamberlain: "I am at a loss to know what advantages we have gained by the grant of this almost unconstitutional power. Certainly, with regard to a censor, a censor upon plays seems to me as idle and unnecessary as a censor upon books.... The public taste, backed by the vigilant admonition of the public press, may, perhaps, be more safely trusted for the preservation of theatrical decorum, than any ignorant and bungling censor who (however well the office may be now fulfilled) might be appointed hereafter; who, while he might strain at gnats and cavil at straws, would be without any other real power than that of preventing men of genius from submitting to the caprice of his opinions."



CHAPTER V.

A BILL OF THE PLAY.

Are there, nowadays, any collectors of playbills? In the catalogues of secondhand booksellers are occasionally to be found such entries as: "Playbills of the Theatre Royal, Bath, 1807 to 1812;" or "Hull Theatre Royal—various bills of performances between 1815 and 1850;" or "Covent Garden Theatre—variety of old bills of the last century pasted in a volume;" yet these evidences of the care and diligence of past collectors would not seem to obtain much appreciation in the present. The old treasures can generally be purchased at a very moderate outlay. Still, if scarceness is an element of value, these things should be precious. It is in the nature of such ephemera of the printing-press to live their short hour, and disappear with exceeding suddenness. They may be originally issued in hundreds or even in thousands; but once gone they are gone for ever. Relative to such matters there is an energy of destruction that keeps pace with the industry of production. The demands of "waste" must be met: fires must be lighted. So away go the loose papers, sheets and pamphlets of the minute. They have served their turn, and there is an end of them. Hence the difficulty of obtaining, when needed, a copy of a newspaper of old date, or the guide-book or programme of a departed entertainment, or the catalogue of a past auction of books or pictures. It has been noted that, notwithstanding the enormous circulation it enjoyed, the catalogue of our Great Exhibition of a score of years ago is already a somewhat rare volume. Complete sets of the catalogues of the Royal Academy's century of exhibitions are possessed by very few. And of playbills of the English stage from the Restoration down to the present time, although the British Museum can certainly boast a rich collection, yet this is disfigured here and there by gaps and deficiencies which cannot now possibly be supplied.

The playbill is an ancient thing. Mr. Payne Collier states that the practice of printing information as to the time, place, and nature of the performances to be presented by the players was certainly common prior to the year 1563. John Northbrooke, in his treatise against theatrical performers, published about 1579, says: "They used to set up their bills upon posts some certain days before, to admonish people to make resort to their theatres." The old plays make frequent reference to this posting of the playbills. Thus, in the Induction to "A Warning for Fair Women," 1599, Tragedy whips Comedy from the stage, crying:

'Tis you have kept the theatre so long Painted in playbills upon every post, While I am scorned of the multitude.

Taylor, the water-poet, in his "Wit and Mirth," records the story of Field the actor's riding rapidly up Fleet Street, and being stopped by a gentleman with an inquiry as to the play that was to be played that night. Field, "being angry to be stayed upon so frivolous a demand, answered, that he might see what play was to be played upon every post. 'I cry you mercy,' said the gentleman. 'I took you for a post, you rode so fast.'"

It is strange to find that the right of printing playbills was originally monopolised by the Stationers' Company. At a later period, however, the privilege was assumed and exercised by the Crown. In 1620, James I. granted a patent to Roger Wood and Thomas Symcock for the sole printing, among other things, of "all bills for playes, pastimes, showes, challenges, prizes, or sportes whatsoever." It was not until after the Restoration that the playbills contained a list of the dramatis personae, or of the names of the actors. But it had been usual, apparently, with the title of the drama, to supply the name of its author, and its description as a tragedy or comedy. Shirley, in the prologue to his "Cardinal," apologises for calling it only a "play" in the bill:

Think what you please, we call it but a "play:" Whether the comic muse, or lady's love, Romance or direful tragedy it prove, The bill determines not.

From a later passage in the same prologue Mr. Collier judges that the titles of tragedies were usually printed, for the sake of distinction, in red ink:

——and you would be Persuaded I would have't a comedy For all the purple in the name.

But this may be a reference to the colour of a cardinal's robes. There is probably no playbill extant of an earlier date than 1663. About this time, in the case of a new play, it was usual to state in the bill that it had been "never acted before."

In the earliest days of the stage, before the invention of printing, the announcement that theatrical performances were about to be exhibited was made by sound of trumpet, much after the manner of modern strollers and showmen at fairs and street-corners. Indeed, long after playbills had become common, this musical advertisement was still requisite for the due information of the unlettered patrons of the stage. In certain towns the musicians were long looked upon as the indispensable heralds of the actors. Tate Wilkinson, writing in 1790, records that a custom obtained at Norwich, "and if abolished it has not been many years," of proclaiming in every street with drum and trumpet the performances to be presented at the theatre in the evening. A like practice also prevailed at Grantham. To the Lincolnshire company of players, however, this musical preface to their efforts seemed objectionable and derogatory, and they determined, on one of their visits to the town, to dispense with the old-established sounds. But the reform resulted in empty benches. Thereupon the "revered, well-remembered, and beloved Marquis of Granby" sent for the manager of the troop and thus addressed him: "Mr. Manager, I like a play; I like a player; and I shall be glad to serve you. But, my good friend, why are you all so offended at and averse to the noble sound of a drum? I like it, and all the inhabitants like it. Put my name on your playbill, provided you drum, but not otherwise. Try the effect on to-morrow night; if then you are as thinly attended as you have lately been, shut up your playhouse at once; but if it succeeds, drum away!" The players withdrew their opposition and followed the counsel of the marquis. The musical prelude was again heard in the streets of Grantham, and crowded houses were obtained. The company enjoyed a prosperous season, and left the town in great credit. "And I am told," adds Wilkinson, "the custom is continued at Grantham to this day."

An early instance of the explanatory address, signed by the dramatist or manager, which so frequently accompanies the modern playbill, is to be found in the fly-sheet issued by Dryden in 1665. The poet thought it expedient in this way to inform the audience that his tragedy of "The Indian Emperor" was to be regarded as a sequel to a former work, "The Indian Queen," which he had written in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard. The handbill excited some amusement, by reason of its novelty, for in itself it was but a simple and useful intimation. In ridicule of this proceeding, Bayes, the hero of the Duke of Buckingham's burlesque, "The Rehearsal," is made to say: "I have printed above a hundred sheets of paper to insinuate the plot into the boxes."

Chetwood, who had been twenty years prompter at Drury Lane, and in 1749 published a "History of the Stage," describes a difficulty that had arisen in regard to printing the playbills. Of old the list of characters had been set forth according to the books of the plays, without regard to the merits of the performers. "As, for example, in 'Macbeth,' Duncan, King of Scotland, appeared first in the bill, though acted by an insignificant person, and so every other actor appeared according to his dramatic dignity, all of the same-sized letter. But latterly, I can assure my readers, I have found it a difficult task to please some ladies as well as gentlemen, because I could not find letters large enough to please them; and some were so fond of elbow room that they would have shoved everybody out but themselves, as if one person was to do all and have the merit of all, like generals of an army." Garrick seems to have been the first actor honoured by capital letters of extra size in the playbills. "The Connoisseur," in 1754, says: "The writer of the playbills deals out his capitals in so just a proportion that you may tell the salary of each actor by the size of the letter in which his name is printed. When the present manager of Drury Lane first came on the stage, a new set of types, two inches long, were cast on purpose to do honour to his extraordinary merit." These distinctions in the matter of printing occasioned endless jealousies among the actors. Macklin made it an express charge against his manager, Sheridan, the actor, that he was accustomed to print his own name in larger type than was permitted the other performers. Kean threatened to throw up his engagement at Drury Lane on account of his name having been printed in capitals of a smaller size than usual. His engagement of 1818 contained a condition, "and also that his name shall be continued in the bills of performance in the same manner as it is at present," viz., large letters. On the other hand, Dowton, the comedian, greatly objected to having his name thus particularised, and expostulated with Elliston, his manager, on the subject. "I am sorry you have done this," he wrote. "You know well what I mean. This cursed quackery. These big letters. There is a want of respectability about it, or rather a notoriety, which gives one the feeling of an absconded felon, against whom a hue-and-cry is made public. Or if there be really any advantage in it, why should I, or any single individual, take it over the rest of our brethren? But it has a nasty disreputable look, and I have fancied the whole day the finger of the town pointed at me, as much as to say, 'That is he! Now for the reward!' Leave this expedient to the police officers, or to those who have a taste for it. I have none."

Macready, under date of 28th September, 1840, enters in his journal: "Spoke to Webster on the subject of next year's engagement. He said that he understood I had said that while I was comfortable at the Haymarket I would stay. I mentioned the position of my name on the playbills; that it should not, on any occasion be put under any other person's, as it had been; that I should have the right to a private box when they were not let," &c.

O'Keeffe relates that once when an itinerant showman brought over to Dublin a trained monkey of great acquirements, Mossop engaged the animal at a large salary to appear for a limited number of nights at his theatre. Mossop's name in the playbill was always in a type nearly two inches long, the rest of the performers' names being in very small letters. But to the monkey were devoted capitals of equal size to Mossop's; so that, greatly to the amusement of the public, on the playbills pasted about the town, nothing could be distinguished but the words, MOSSOP, MONKEY. Under John Kemble's management, "for his greater ease and the quiet of the theatre," letters of unreasonable size were abandoned, and the playbills were printed after an amended and more modest pattern.

With the rise and growth of the press came the expediency of advertising the performances of the theatres in the columns of the newspapers. To the modern manager advertisements are a very formidable expense. The methods he is compelled to resort to in order to bring his plays and players well under the notice of the public, involve a serious charge upon his receipts. But of old the case was precisely the reverse. The theatres were strong, the newspapers were weak. So far from the manager paying money for the insertion of his advertisements in the journals, he absolutely received profits on this account. The press then suffered under severe restrictions, and was most jealously regarded by the governing powers; leading articles were as yet unknown; the printing of parliamentary debates was strictly prohibited; foreign intelligence was scarcely obtainable; of home news there was little stirring that could with safety be promulgated. So that the proceedings of the theatres became of real importance to the newspaper proprietor, and it was worth his while to pay considerable sums for early information in this respect. Moreover, in those days, not merely by reason of its own merits, but because of the absence of competing attractions and other sources of entertainment, the stage was much more than at present an object of general regard. In Andrew's "History of British Journalism" it is recorded on the authority of the ledger of Henry Woodfall, the publisher of the Public Advertiser: "The theatres are a great expense to the papers. Amongst the items of payment are: Playhouses, L100. Drury Lane advertisements, L64 8s. 6d.; Covent Garden ditto, L66 11s. The papers paid L200 a-year to each theatre for the accounts of new plays, and would reward the messenger with a shilling or half-a-crown who brought them the first copy of a playbill." In 1721, the following announcement appeared in the Daily Post: "The managers of Drury Lane think it proper to give notice that advertisements of their plays, by their authority, are published only in this paper and the Daily Courant, and that the publishers of all other papers who insert advertisements of the same plays, can do it only by some surreptitious intelligence or hearsay, which frequently leads them to commit gross errors, as, mentioning one play for another, falsely representing the parts, &c., to the misinformation of the town, and the great detriment of the said theatre." And the Public Advertiser of January 1st, 1765, contains a notice: "To prevent any mistake in future in advertising the plays and entertainments of Drury Lane Theatre, the managers think it proper to declare that the playbills are inserted by their direction in this paper only." It is clear that the science of advertising was but dimly understood at this date. Even the shopkeepers then paid for the privilege of exhibiting bills in their windows, whereas now they require to be rewarded for all exertions of this kind, by, at any rate, free admissions to the entertainments advertised, if not by a specific payment of money. The exact date when the managers began to pay instead of receive on the score of their advertisements, is hardly to be ascertained. Genest, in his laborious "History of the Stage," says obscurely of the year 1745: "At this time the plays were advertised at three shillings and sixpence each night or advertisement in the General Advertiser." It may be that the adverse systems went on together for some time. The managers may have paid certain journals for the regular insertion of advertisements, and received payment from less favoured or less influential newspapers for theatrical news or information.

One of Charles Lamb's most pleasant papers arose from "the casual sight of an old playbill which I picked up the other day; I know not by what chance it was preserved so long." It was but two-and-thirty years old, however, and presented the cast of parts in "Twelfth Night" at Old Drury Lane Theatre, destroyed by fire in 1809. Lamb's delight in the stage needs not to be again referred to. "There is something very touching in these old remembrances," he writes. "They make us think how we once used to read a playbill, not as now, peradventure singling out a favourite performer and casting a negligent eye over the rest; but spelling out every name down to the very mutes and servants of the scene; when it was a matter of no small moment to us whether Whitfield or Packer took the part of Fabian; when Benson, and Burton, and Phillimore—names of small account—had an importance beyond what we can be content to attribute now to the time's best actors." The fond industry with which a youthful devotee of the theatre studies the playbills could hardly be more happily indicated than in this extract.

Mention of Old Drury Lane and its burning bring us naturally to the admirable "story of the flying playbill," contained in the parody of Crabbe, perhaps the most perfect specimen in that unique collection of parodies, "Rejected Addresses." The verses by the pseudo-Crabbe include the following lines:

Perchance while pit and gallery cry "Hats off!" And awed consumption checks his chided cough, Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love Drops, reft of pin, her playbill from above; Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap, Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap; But, wiser far than he, combustion fears; And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers; Till, sinking gradual, with repeated twirl, It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl, Who from his powdered pate the intruder strikes, And, for mere malice, sticks it on the spikes.

"The story of the flying playbill," says the mock-preface, "is calculated to expose a practice, much too common, of pinning playbills to the cushions insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all. If these lines save one playbill only from the fate I have recorded, I shall not deem my labour ill employed."

Modern playbills may be described as of two classes, indoor and out-of-door. The latter are known also as "posters," and may thus manifest their connection with the early method of "setting up playbills upon posts." Shakespeare's audiences were not supplied with handbills as our present playgoers are; such of them as could read were probably content to derive all the information they needed from the notices affixed to the doors of the theatre, or otherwise publicly exhibited. Of late years the vendors of playbills, who were wont urgently to pursue every vehicle that seemed to them bound to the theatre, in the hope of disposing of their wares, have greatly diminished in numbers, if they have not wholly disappeared. Many managers have forbidden altogether the sale of bills outside the doors of their establishments. The indoor programmes are again divided into two kinds. To the lower-priced portions of the house an inferior bill is devoted; a folio sheet of thin paper, heavily laden and strongly odorous with printers' ink. Visitors to the more expensive seats are now supplied with a scented bill of octavo size, which is generally, in addition, the means of advertising the goods and inventions of an individual perfumer. Attempts to follow Parisian example, and to make the playbill at once a vehicle for general advertisements and a source of amusing information upon theatrical subjects, have been ventured here occasionally, but without decided success. From time to time papers started with this object under such titles as the "Opera Glass," the "Curtain," the "Drop Scene," &c., have appeared, but they have failed to secure a sufficiency of patronage. The playgoer's openness to receive impressions or information of any kind by way of employment during the intervals of representation, has not been unperceived by the advertisers, however, and now and then, as a result, a monstrosity called an "advertising curtain" has disfigured the stage. Some new development of the playbill in this direction may be in store for us in the future. The difficulty lies, perhaps, in the gilding of the pill. Advertisements by themselves are not very attractive reading, and a mixed audience cannot safely be credited with a ruling appetite merely for dramatic intelligence.



CHAPTER VI.

STROLLING PLAYERS.

It is rather the public than the player that strolls nowadays. The theatre is stationary—the audience peripatetic. The wheels have been taken off the cart of Thespis. Hamlet's line, "Then came each actor on his ass," or the stage direction in the old "Taming of the Shrew" (1594), "Enter two players with packs on their backs," no longer describes accurately the travelling habits of the histrionic profession. But of old the country folk had the drama brought as it were to their doors, and just as they purchased their lawn and cambric, ribbons and gloves, and other raiment and bravery of the wandering pedlar—the Autolycus of the period—so all their playhouse learning and experience they acquired from the itinerant actors. These were rarely the leading performers of the established London companies, however, unless it so happened that the capital was suffering from a visitation of the plague. "Starring in the provinces" was not an early occupation of the players of good repute. As a rule, it was only the inferior actors who quitted town, and as Dekker contemptuously says, "travelled upon the hard hoof from village to village for cheese and buttermilk." "How chances it they travel?" inquires Hamlet concerning "the tragedians of the city"—"their residence both in reputation and profit were better both ways." John Stephens, writing in 1615, and describing "a common player," observes, "I prefix the epithet 'common' to distinguish the base and artless appendants of our City companies, which oftentimes start away into rustical wanderings, and then, like Proteus, start back again into the City number." The strollers were of two classes, however. First, the theatrical companies protected by some great personage, wearing his badge or crest, and styling themselves his "servants"—just as to this day the Drury Lane troop, under warrant of Davenant's patent, still boast the title of "Her Majesty's Servants"—who attended at country seats, and gave representations at the request or by the permission of the great people of the neighbourhood; and secondly, the mere unauthorised itinerants, with no claim to distinction beyond such as their own merits accorded to them, who played in barns, or in large inn-yards and rooms, and against whom was especially levelled the Act of Elizabeth declaring that all players, &c., "not licensed by any baron or person of high rank, or by two justices of the peace, should be deemed and treated as rogues and vagabonds."

The suppression of the theatres by the Puritans reduced all the players to the condition of strollers of the lowest class. Legally their occupation was gone altogether. Stringent measures were taken to abolish stage-plays and interludes, and by an Act passed in 1647, all actors of plays for the time to come were declared rogues within the meaning of the Act of Elizabeth, and upon conviction were to be publicly whipped for the first offence, and for the second to be deemed incorrigible rogues, and dealt with accordingly; all stage galleries, seats, and boxes were to be pulled down by warrant of two justices of the peace; all money collected from the spectators was to be appropriated to the poor of the parish; and all spectators of plays, for every offence, fined five shillings. Assuredly these were very hard times for players, playhouses, and playgoers. Still the theatre was hard to kill. In 1648, a provost-marshal was nominated to stimulate the vigilance and activity of the lord mayor, justices, and sheriffs, and among other duties, "to seize all ballad-singers and sellers of malignant pamphlets, and to send them to the several militias, and to suppress stage-plays." Yet, all this notwithstanding, some little show of life stirred now and then in the seeming corpse of the drama. A few players met furtively, assembled a select audience, and gave a clandestine performance, more or less complete, in some obscure quarter. Secret Royalists and but half-hearted Puritans abounded, and these did not scruple to abet a breach of the law, and to be entertained now and then in the old time-honoured way.

With the Restoration, however, Thespis enjoyed his own again, and sock and buskin became once more lawful articles of apparel. Charles II. mounted the throne arm-in-arm, as it were, with a player-king and queen. The London theatres reopened under royal patronage, and in the provinces the stroller was abroad. He had his enemies, no doubt. Prejudice is long-lived, of robust constitution. Puritanism had struck deep root in the land, and though the triumphant Cavaliers might hew its branches, strip off its foliage, and hack at its trunk, they could by no means extirpate it altogether. Religious zealotry, strenuous and stubborn, however narrow, had fostered, and parliamentary enactments had warranted, hostility of the most uncompromising kind to the player and his profession. To many he was still, his new liberty and privileges notwithstanding, but "a son of Belial"—ever of near kin to the rogue and the vagabond, with the stocks and the whipping-post still in his immediate neighbourhood, let him turn which way he would. And then, certainly, his occupation had its seamy side. With this the satirists, who loved censure rather for its wounding than its healing properties, made great play. They were never tired of pointing out and ridiculing the rents in the stroller's coat; his shifts, trials, misfortunes, follies, were subjects for ceaseless derision. What Grub Street and "penny-a-lining" have been to the vocation of letters, strolling and "barn-strutting" became to the histrionic profession—an excuse for scorn, underrating, and mirth, more or less bitter.

Still strolling had its charms. To the beginner it afforded a kind of informal apprenticeship, with the advantage that while a learner of its mysteries, he could yet style himself a full member of the profession of the stage, and share in its profits. He was at once bud and flower. What though the floor of a ruined barn saw his first crude efforts, might not the walls of a patent theatre resound by-and-by with delighted applause, tribute to his genius? It was a free, frank, open vocation he had adopted; it was unprotected and unrestricted by legislative provisions in the way of certificates, passes, examinations, and diplomas. There was no need of ticket, or voucher, or preparation of any kind to obtain admission to the ranks of the players. "Can you shout?" a manager once inquired of a novice. "Then only shout in the right places, and you'll do." No doubt this implied that even in the matter of shouting some science is involved. And there may be men who cannot shout at all, let the places be right or wrong. Still the stage can find room and subsistence of a sort for all, even for mutes. But carry a banner, walk in a procession, or form one of a crowd, and you may still call yourself actor, though not an actor of a high class, certainly. The histrionic calling is a ladder of many rungs. Remain on the lowest or mount to the highest—it is only a question of degree—you are a player all the same.

The Thespian army had no need of a recruiting-sergeant or a press-gang to reinforce its ranks. There have always been amateurs lured by the mere spectacle of the foot-lights, as moths by a candle. Crabbe's description of the strollers in his "Borough" was a favourite passage with Sir Walter Scott, and was often read to him in his last fatal illness:

Of various men these marching troops are made, Pen-spurning clerks and lads contemning trade; Waiters and servants by confinement teased, And youths of wealth by dissipation eased; With feeling nymphs who, such resource at hand, Scorn to obey the rigour of command, &c. &c.

And even to the skilled and experienced actors a wandering life offered potent attractions. Apart from its liberty and adventure, its defiance of social convention and restraint, ambition had space to stir, and vanity could be abundantly indulged in the itinerant theatre. Dekker speaks of the bad presumptuous players, who out of a desire to "wear the best jerkin," and to "act great parts, forsake the stately and more than Roman city stages," and join a strolling company. By many it was held better to reign in a vagrant than to serve in an established troop—preferable to appear as Hamlet in the provinces than to play Horatio or Guildenstern in town. And then, in the summer months, when the larger London houses were closed, strolling became a matter of necessity with a large number of actors; they could gain a subsistence in no other way. "The little theatre in the Haymarket," as it was wont to be called, which opened its doors in summer, when its more important neighbours had concluded their operations, could only offer engagements to a select few of their companies. The rest must needs wander. Whatever their predilections, they were strollers upon compulsion.

Indeed, strolling was only feasible during summer weather. Audiences could hardly be moved from their firesides in winter, barns were too full of grain to be available for theatrical purposes, and the players were then glad to secure such regular employment as they could, however slender might be the scale of their remuneration. There is a story told of a veteran and a tyro actor walking in the fields early in the year, when, suddenly, the elder ran from the path, stopped abruptly, and planting his foot firmly upon the green-sward, exclaimed with ecstasy: "Three, by heaven! That for managers!" and snapped his fingers. His companion asked an explanation of this strange conduct. "You'll know before you have strutted in three more barns," said the "old hand." "In winter, managers are the most impudent fellows living, because they know we don't like to travel, don't like to leave our nests, fear the cold, and all that. But when I can put my foot upon three daisies—summer's near, and managers may whistle for me!"

The life was not dignified, perhaps, but it had certain picturesque qualities. The stroller toiling on his own account, "padding the hoof," as he called journeying on foot—a small bundle under his arm, containing a few clothes and professional appliances—wandered from place to place, stopping now at a fair, now at a tavern, now at a country-house, to deliver recitations and speeches, and to gain such reward for his labours as he might. Generally he found it advisable, however, to join a company of his brethren and share profits with them, parting from them again upon a difference of opinion or upon the receipts diminishing too seriously, when he would again rely upon his independent exertions. Sometimes the actor was able to hire or purchase scenes and dresses, the latter being procured generally from certain shops in Monmouth Street dealing in cast clothes and tarnished frippery that did well enough for histrionic purposes; then, engaging a company, he would start from London as a manager, to visit certain districts where it was thought that a harvest might be reaped. The receipts were divided among the troop upon a prearranged method. The impresario took shares in his different characters of manager, proprietor, and actor. Even the fragments of the candles that had lighted the representations were divided amongst the company. Permission had always to be sought of the local magnates before a performance could be given; and the best-dressed and most cleanly-looking actor was deputed to make this application, as well as to conciliate the farmer or innkeeper, whose barn, stable, or great room was to be hired for the occasion. Churchill writes:

The strolling tribe, a despicable race, Like wandering Arabs, shift from place to place. Vagrants by law, to justice open laid, They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid; And fawning, cringe for wretched means of life To Madame Mayoress or his worship's wife.

"I'm a justice of the peace and know how to deal with strollers," says Sir Tunbelly, with an air of menace, in "The Relapse." The magistrates, indeed, were much inclined to deal severely with the wandering actor, eyeing his calling with suspicion, and prompt to enforce the laws against him. Thus we find in "Humphrey Clinker," the mayor of Gloucester eager to condemn as a vagrant, and to commit to prison with hard labour, young Mr. George Dennison, who, in the guise of Wilson, a strolling player, had presumed to make love to Miss Lydia Melford, the heroine of the story.

In truth, the stroller's life, with all its seeming license and independence, must always have been attended with hardship and privation. If the player had ever deemed his art the "idle calling" many declared it to be, he was soon undeceived on that head. There was but a thin partition between him and absolute want; meanwhile his labour was incessant. The stage is a conservative institution, adhering closely to old customs, manners, and traditions, and what strolling had once been it continued to be almost for centuries. "A company of strolling comedians," writes the author of "The Road to Ruin," who had himself strolled in early life, "is a small kingdom, of which the manager is the monarch. Their code of laws seems to have existed, with little variation, since the days of Shakespeare." Who can doubt that Hogarth's famous picture told the truth, not only of the painter's own time, but of the past and of the future? The poor player followed a sordid and wearisome routine. He was constrained to devote long hours to rehearsal and to the study of various parts, provided always he could obtain a sight of the book of the play, for the itinerant theatre afforded no copyist then to write neatly out each actor's share in the dialogues and speeches. Night brought the performance, and, for the player engaged as "utility," infinite change of dress and "making-up" of his face to personate a variety of characters. The company would, probably, be outnumbered by the dramatis personae, in which case it would devolve upon the actor to assume many parts in one play. Thus, supposing Hamlet to be announced for representation, the stroller of inferior degree might be called upon to appear as Francisco, afterwards as a lord-in-waiting in the court scenes, then as Lucianus, "nephew to the king," then as one of the grave-diggers, then as a lord again, or, it might be, Osric, the fop, in the last act. Other duties, hardly less arduous, would fall to him in the after-pieces. "I remember," said King, the actor famous as being the original Sir Peter Teazle and Lord Ogleby, "that when I had been but a short time on the stage, I performed one night King Richard, sang two comic songs, played in an interlude, danced a hornpipe, spoke a prologue, and was afterwards harlequin, in a sharing company; and after all this fatigue my share came to threepence and three pieces of candle!" A strolling manager of a later period was wont to boast that he had performed the complete melodrama of "Rob Roy" with a limited company of five men and three women. Hard-worked, ill-paid, and, consequently, ill-fed, the stroller must have often led a dreary and miserable life enough. The late Mr. Drinkwater Meadows used to tell of his experiences with a company that travelled through Warwickshire, and their treasury being empty, depended for their subsistence upon their piscatorial skill. They lived for some time, indeed, upon the trout streams of the county. They plied rod and line, and learned their parts at the same time. "We could fish and study, study and fish," said the actor. "I made myself perfect in Bob Acres while fishing in the Avon, and committed the words to my memory quite as fast as I committed the fish to my basket."

The straits and necessities of the strollers have long been a source of entertainment to the public. In an early number of the "Spectator," Steele describes a company of poor players then performing at Epping. "They are far from offending in the impertinent splendour of the drama. Alexander the Great was acted by a fellow in a paper cravat. The next day the Earl of Essex seemed to have no distress but his poverty; and my Lord Foppington wanted any better means to show himself a fop than by wearing stockings of different colours. In a word, though they have had a full barn for many days together, our itinerants are so wretchedly poor that the heroes appear only like sturdy beggars, and the heroines gipsies." It is added that the stage of these performers "is here in its original situation of a cart." In the "Memoirs of Munden" a still stranger stage is mentioned. A strolling company performing in Wales had for theatre a bedroom, and for stage a large four-post bed! The spaces on either side were concealed from the audience by curtains, and formed the tiring-rooms of the ladies and gentlemen of the troop. On this very curious stage the comedian afterwards famous as Little Knight, but then new to his profession, appeared as Acres in "The Rivals," and won great applause. Goldsmith's Strolling Player is made to reveal many of the smaller needs and shifts of his calling, especially in the matter of costume. "We had figures enough, but the difficulty was to dress them. The same coat that served Romeo, turned with the blue lining outwards, served for his friend Mercutio: a large piece of crape sufficed at once for Juliet's petticoat and pall; a pestle and mortar from a neighbouring apothecary answered all the purposes of a bell; and our landlord's own family, wrapped in white sheets, served to fill up the procession. In short, there were but three figures among us that might be said to be dressed with any propriety; I mean the nurse, the starved apothecary, and myself." Of his own share in the representation the stroller speaks candidly enough: "I snuffed the candles, and, let me tell you, that without a candle-snuffer the piece would lose half its embellishments." But there has always been forthcoming a very abundant supply of stories of this kind, not always to be understood literally, however, concerning the drama under difficulties, and the comical side of the player's indigence, distresses, and quaint artifices to conceal his poverty.

A word should be said as to the courage and enterprise of our early strollers. Travelling is nowadays so easy a matter that we are apt to forget how solemnly it was viewed by our ancestors. In the last century a man thought about making his will as a becoming preliminary to his journeying merely from London to Edinburgh. But the strollers were true to themselves and their calling, though sometimes the results of their adventures were luckless enough. "Our plantations in America have been voluntarily visited by some itinerants, Jamaica in particular," writes Chetwood, in his "History of the Stage" (1749). "I had an account from a gentleman who was possessed of a large estate in the island that a company in the year 1733 came there and cleared a large sum of money, where they might have made moderate fortunes if they had not been too busy with the growth of the country. They received three hundred and seventy pistoles the first night of the 'Beggar's Opera,' but within the space of two months they buried their third Polly and two of their men. The gentlemen of the island for some time took their turns upon the stage to keep up the diversion; but this did not hold long; for in two months more there were but one old man, a boy, and a woman of the company left. The rest died either with the country distemper or the common beverage of the place, the noble spirit of rum-punch, which is generally fatal to new-comers. The shattered remains, with upwards of two thousand pistoles in bank, embarked for Carolina, to join another company at Charlestown, but were cast away in the voyage. Had the company been more blessed with the virtue of sobriety, &c., they might perhaps have lived to carry home the liberality of those generous islanders."

It is to be observed that the strolling profession had its divisions and grades. The "boothers," as they are termed, have to be viewed as almost a distinct class. These carry their theatre, a booth, about with them, and only pretend to furnish very abridged presentments of the drama. With them "Richard III.," for instance, is but an entertainment of some twenty minutes' duration. They are only anxious to give as many performances as possible before fresh assemblies of spectators in as short a time as may be. "Boothers" have been known to give even six distinct exhibitions on Saturday nights. And they certainly resort to undignified expedients to lure their audiences. They parade in their theatrical attire, dance quadrilles and hornpipes, fight with broadswords, and make speeches on the external platform of their booth. Histrionic art is seen to little advantage under these conditions, although it should be said that many notable players have commenced the study of their profession among the "boothers." The travelling circus is again a distinct institution, its tumblers and riders only in a very distant and illegitimate way connected with even the humblest branches of the great Thespian family.

But strolling, in its old sense, is fast expiring. Barns have ceased to be temples of the drama. The railways carry the public to the established theatres; London stars and companies travelling in first-class carriages, with their secretary and manager, visit in turn the provincial towns, and attract all the playgoers of the neighbourhood. The country manager, retaining but a few "utility people," is well content to lend his stage to these dignified players, who stroll only nominally, without "padding the hoof," or the least chance of hardship or privation attending their rustical wanderings. Their travels are indeed more in the nature of royal progresses. Even for the "boothers" times have changed. Waste lands on which to "pitch" their playhouses are now hard to find; the "pleasure fairs," once their chief source of profit, become more and more rare; indeed, there is a prevalent disposition nowadays to abolish altogether those old-fashioned celebrations. And worse than all, perhaps, the audiences have become sophisticated and critical, and have not so much simple faith and hearty goodwill to place at the disposal of the itinerants. Centralisation has now affected the stage. The country is no longer the nursery and training-school of the player. He commences his career in London, and then regales the provinces with an exhibition of his proficiency. The strollers are now merged in the "stars." The apprentice has become the master, which may possibly account for the fact, that the work accomplished is not invariably of first-rate quality.



CHAPTER VII.

"PAY HERE."

Acting, as a distinct profession, seems to have been known in England at least as far back as the reign of Henry VI. There had been theatrical exhibitions in abundance, however, at a much earlier period. Stow, in his "Survey of London," in 1599, translates from the "Life of Thomas a Becket," by Fitzstephen, who wrote about 1182, mention of "the shews upon theatres and comical pastimes" of London, "its holy playes, representations of miracles which holy confessors have wrought, or representations of tormentes wherein the constancie of martirs appeared." As Mr. Payne Collier observes, "no country in Europe, since the revival of letters, has been able to produce any notice of theatrical performances of so early a date as England." But our primitive stage was a chapel-of-ease, as it were, to the Church. The plays were founded upon the lives of the saints, or upon the events of the Old and New Testaments, and were contrived and performed by the clergy, who borrowed horses, harness, properties, and hallowed vestments from the monasteries, and did not hesitate even to paint and disguise their faces, in order to give due effect to their exhibitions, which were presented not only in the cathedrals, churches, and cemeteries, but also "on highways or greens," as might be most convenient. In 1511, for instance, the miracle-play of "St. George of Cappadocia" was acted in a croft, or field, at Basingborne, one shilling being paid for the hire of the land. The clergy, however, were by no means unanimous as to the propriety and policy of these dramatic representations. They were bitterly attacked in an Anglo-French poem, the "Manuel de Peche," written about the middle of the thirteenth century, and ascribed to Robert Grossetete, who became Bishop of Lincoln in 1235. Gradually the kind of histrionic monopoly which the Church had long enjoyed was invaded. Education spread, and many probably found themselves as competent to act as the clergy. Still, the ecclesiastical performers for some time resisted all attempts to interfere with what they viewed as their especial privileges and vested interests. In 1378 the scholars or choristers of St. Paul's petitioned Richard II. to prohibit certain ignorant and inexperienced persons from acting the history of the Old Testament, to the prejudice of the clergy of the Church, who had expended large sums in preparing plays founded upon the same subject. But some few years later the parish clerks of London, who had been incorporated by Henry III., performed at Skinner's Well, near Smithfield, in the presence of the king, queen, and nobles of the realm, a play which occupied three days in representation. As Warton remarks, however, in his "History of English Poetry," the parish clerks of that time might fairly be regarded as a "literary society," if they did not precisely come under the denomination of a religious fraternity.

The religious or miracle plays soon extended their boundaries, became blended with "mummings," or "disguisings," and entertainments of pageantry. Morals, interludes, and masques were gradually brought upon the scene. Dancers, singers, jugglers, and minstrels became indispensable to the performances. The Church and the Theatre drifted apart; were viewed in time as wholly independent establishments. The actor asserted his individuality; his profession was recognised as distinct and complete in itself; companies of players began to stroll through the provinces. The early moral-play of the "Castle of Perseverance," which is certainly as old as the reign of Henry VI., was represented by itinerant actors, who travelled round the country for that purpose, preceded by their standard-bearers and trumpeters, to announce on what day, and at what hour, the performance would take place. It would seem that the exhibition concluded at nine o'clock in the morning, so that the playgoers of the period must probably have assembled so early as six. In the reign of Edward IV. the actors first obtained parliamentary recognition. The Act passed in 1464, regulating the apparel to be worn by the different classes of society, contains special exception in favour of henchmen, pursuivants, sword-bearers to mayors, messengers, minstrels, and "players in their interludes." The first royal personage who entertained a company of players as his servants was probably Richard III. when Duke of Gloucester, who seems, moreover, to have given great encouragement to music and musicians. In the reign of Henry VII. dramatic representations were frequent in all parts of England. The king himself had two companies of players, the "gentlemen of the chapel," and his "players of interludes."

The early actors, whose performances took place in the open air or in public places, doubtless obtained recompense for their labours much after the manner of our modern street exhibitors: by that system of "sending round the hat," which too many lookers-on nowadays consider as an intimation to depart about their business, leaving their entertainment unpaid for. The companies of players in the service of any great personage were in the receipt of regular salaries, were viewed as members of his household, and wore his livery. They probably obtained, moreover, largess from the more liberally disposed spectators of their exertions. But as the theatre became more and more a source of public recreation, it was deemed necessary to establish permanent stages, and a tariff of charges for admission to witness the entertainments. For a long time the actors had been restricted to the mansions of the nobility, and to the larger inn-yards of the city. In 1574, however, the Earl of Leicester, through his influence with Queen Elizabeth, obtained for his company of players, among whom was included James Burbadge, the father of the famous Shakespearean actor, Richard Burbadge, a patent, under the Great Seal, empowering the actors, "during the queen's pleasure, to use, exercise, and occupy the art and faculty of playing tragedies, comedies, interludes, and stage plays, as well for the recreation of the queen's subjects as for her own solace and pleasure, within the city of London and its liberties, and within any cities, towns, and boroughs throughout England." This most important concession to the players was strenuously opposed by the Lord Mayor and Corporation, who maintained that "the playing of interludes and the resort to the same" were likely to provoke "the infection of the plague," were "hurtfull in corruption of youth," were "great wasting both of the time and thrift of many poor people," and "great withdrawing of the people from publique prayer and from the service of God." At last they proposed, as a compromise, that the players of the queen, or of Lord Leicester—for these titles seem to have been bestowed upon the actors indifferently—should be permitted to perform within the city boundaries upon certain special conditions, to the effect that their names and number should be notified to the Lord Mayor and the Justices of Middlesex and Surrey, and that they should not divide themselves into several companies; that they should be content with playing in private houses, at weddings, &c., without public assemblies, or "if more be thought good to be tolerated," that they should not play openly till the whole deaths in London had been for twenty days under fifty a week; that they should not play on the Sabbath or on holy days until after evening prayer; and that no playing should be in the dark, "nor continue any such time but as any of the auditoire may returne to their dwellings in London before sonne-set, or at least before it be dark." These severe restrictions so far defeated the objects of the civic powers, that they led in truth to the construction of three theatres beyond the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction, but sufficiently near to its boundaries to occasion him grave disquietude. About 1576 Burbadge built his theatre in the Liberty of the Blackfriars—a precinct in which civic authority was at any rate disputed. Within a year or so The Curtain and The Theatre, both in Shoreditch, were also opened to the public. The Mayor and Corporation persistently endeavoured to assert authority over these establishments, but without much practical result. It may be added that the Blackfriars Theatre was permanently closed in 1647, part of the ground on which it stood, adjoining Apothecaries' Hall, still bearing the name of Playhouse Yard; that The Theatre in Shoreditch was abandoned about 1598 (it was probably a wooden erection, and in twenty years might have become untenantable); and that The Curtain fell into disuse at the beginning of the reign of Charles I.

The prices of admission to the theatres varied according to the estimation in which they were held, and were raised on special occasions. "Twopenny rooms," or galleries, were to be found at the larger and more popular theatres. In Goffe's "Careless Shepherdess," 1656, acted at the Salisbury Court Theatre, appear the lines:

I will hasten to the money-box And take my shilling out again; I'll go to the Bull or Fortune, and there see A play for twopence and a jig to boot.

The money received was placed in a box, and there seems to have been one person specially charged with this duty. Dekker, dedicating one of his plays to his "friends and fellows," the queen's servants, wishes them "a full audience and one honest doorkeeper." Even thus early the absolute integrity of the attendants of the theatre would appear to have been a subject of suspicion. "Penny galleries" are referred to by some early writers, and from a passage in the "Gull's Horn Book," 1609—"Your groundling and gallery commoner buys his sport for a penny"—it is apparent that the charges for admission to the yard, where the spectators stood, and to the galleries, where they sat on benches, were the same. In Dekker's "Satiromastix," one of the characters speaks scornfully of "penny bench theatres," where a gentleman or an honest citizen "might sit with his squirrel by his side cracking nuts." But according to the Induction to Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," first acted in 1614, at the Hope, a small dirty theatre on the Bankside, which had formerly been used for bear-baiting, the prices there ranged from sixpence to half-a-crown. "It shall be lawful for any man to judge his six pen'worth, his twelve pen'worth, so to his eighteen pence, two shillings, half-a-crown, to the value of his place; provided always his place get not above his wit ... Marry, if he drop but sixpence at the door, and will censure a crown's worth, it is thought there is no conscience or justice in that." It is probable, however, that the dramatist was referring to the prices charged at the first representation of his play. Sixpence might then be the lowest admission; on other occasions, twopence, or even one penny. The prologue to "Henry VIII." states:

Those that come to see Only a show or two, and so agree, The play may pass; if they be still and willing, I'll undertake, may see away their shilling Richly in two short hours.

And there is evidence that in Shakespeare's time one shilling was the price of admission to the best rooms or boxes. Sir Thomas Overbury writes in his "Characters," published in 1614: "If he have but twelve pence in his purse he will give it for the best room in a playhouse." And the "Gull's Horn Book," 1609, counsels, "At a new play you take up the twelvepenny room next the stage, because the lords and you may seem to be hail-fellow well met!"

But it is plain that the tariff of admission was subject to frequent alterations, and that as money became more abundant, the managers gradually increased their charges. In the "Scornful Lady" "eighteen pence" is referred to as though it were the highest price of admission to the Blackfriars Theatre. Sir John Suckling writes, about the middle of the seventeenth century:

The sweat of learned Jonson's brain, And gentle Shakespeare's easier strain, A hackney-coach conveys you to, In spite of all that rain can do, And for your eighteenpence you sit, The lord and judge of all fresh wit.

It must always be doubtful, however, as to the precise portion of the theatre these writers intended to designate. As Mr. Collier suggests, the discordances between the authorities on this question arise, probably, from the fact that "different prices were charged at different theatres at different periods."

In our early theatres, the arrangements for receiving the money of the playgoers were rather of a confused kind. There would seem to have been several doors, one within the other, at any of which visitors might tender their admission money. It was understood that he who, disapproving the performance, withdrew after the termination of the first act of the play, was entitled to receive back the amount he had paid for his entrance. This system led to much brawling and fraud. The matter was deemed important enough to justify royal intervention. An order was issued in 1665, reciting that complaints had been made by "our servants, the actors in the Royal Theatre," of divers persons refusing to pay at the first door of the said theatre, thereby obliging the doorkeepers to send after, solicit, and importune them for their entrance-money, and stating it to be the royal will and pleasure, for the prevention of these disorders, and so that such as are employed by the said actors might have no opportunity of deceiving them, that all persons thenceforward coming to the said theatre should at the first door pay their entrance-money, which was to be restored to them again in case they returned the same way before the end of the act. The guards attending the theatre, and all others whom it might concern, were charged to see that this order was obeyed, and to return to the Lord Chamberlain the names of such persons as offered "any violence contrary to this our pleasure."

Apparently the royal decree was not very implicitly obeyed by the playgoers. At any rate we find, under date January 7th, 1668, the following entry in Mr. Pepys's "Diary" bearing upon the matter: "To the Nursery, but the house did not act to-day; and so I to the other two playhouses, into the pit to gaze up and down, and there did by this means for nothing see an act in the 'School of Compliments,' at the Duke of York's house, and 'Henry IV.' at the King's House; but not liking either of the plays, I took my coach again and home." At the trial of Lord Mohun, in 1692, for the murder of Mountford, the actor, John Rogers, one of the doorkeepers of the theatre, deposes that he applied to his lordship and to Captain Hill, his companion, "for the overplus of money for coming in, because they came out of the pit upon the stage. They would not give it. Lord Mohun said if I brought any of our masters he would slit their noses." It was the fashion for patrons of the stage at this time to treat its professors with great scorn, and often to view them with a kind of vindictive jealousy, "I see the gallants do begin to be tired with the vanity and pride of the theatre actors, who are indeed grown very proud and rich," noted Pepys, in 1661. In the second year of her reign, Queen Anne issued a decree "for the better regulation of the theatres," the drama being at this period the frequent subject of royal interference, and strictly commanded that "no person of what quality soever should presume to go behind the scenes, or come upon the stage, either before or during the acting of any play; that no woman should be allowed, or presume to wear, a vizard mask in either of the theatres; and that no person should come into either house without paying the price established for their respective places."

As the stage advanced more and more in public favour, the actors ceased to depend for existence upon private patronage and found it unnecessary to be included among the retinue and servants of the great. After the Restoration patents were granted to Killigrew and Davenant, and their companions were described as the servants of the king and of the Duke of York respectively; but individual noblemen no longer maintained and protected "players of interludes" for their own private amusement. And now the court began to come to the drama instead of requiring that the drama should be carried to the court. Charles II. was probably the first English monarch who habitually joined with the general audience and occupied a box at a public theatre. In addition, he followed the example of preceding sovereigns, and had plays frequently represented before him at Whitehall and other royal residences. These performances took place at night, and were brilliantly lighted with wax candles. With the fall of the Stuart dynasty the court theatricals ceased almost altogether. Indeed, in Charles's time there had been much decline in the dignity and exclusiveness of these entertainments; admission seems to have been obtainable upon payment at the doors, as though at a public theatre. Evelyn writes in 1675: "I saw the Italian Scaramuccio act before the king at Whitehall, people giving money to come in, which was very scandalous, and never so before at court diversions. Having seen him act in Italy many years past, I was not averse from seeing the most excellent of that kind of folly."

It is to be observed that in Pepys's time, and long afterwards, the prices of admission to the theatres were: Boxes, four shillings; pit, two shillings and sixpence; first gallery, one shilling and sixpence; and upper gallery, one shilling. It became customary to raise the prices whenever great expenses had been incurred by the manager in the production of a new play or of a pantomime. As the patent theatres were enlarged or rebuilt, however, the higher rate of charges became permanently established. After the famous O.P. riots the scale agreed upon was: Boxes, seven shillings; pit, three shillings; galleries, two shillings and one shilling; with half-price at nine o'clock. In later times these charges have been considerably reduced. Half price has been generally abolished, however, and many rows of the pit have been converted into stalls at seven or ten shillings each. Altogether, it may perhaps be held that in Western London, although theatrical entertainments have been considerably cheapened, they still tax the pockets of playgoers more severely than need be.

Country managers would seen to have ruled their scale of charges in strict accordance with the means of their patrons; to have been content, indeed, with anything they could get from the provincial playgoers. Mr. Bernard, the actor, in his "Retrospections," makes mention of a strolling manager, once famous in the north of England and in Ireland, and known popularly as Jemmy Whitely, who, in impoverished districts, was indifferent as to whether he received the public support in money or "in kind." It is related of him that he would take meat, fowl, vegetables, &c., and pass in the owner and friends for as many admissions as the food was worth. Thus very often on a Saturday his treasury resembled a butcher's warehouse, rather than a banker's. At a village on the coast the inhabitants brought him nothing but fish; but as the company could not subsist without its concomitants of bread, potatoes, and spirits, a general appeal was made to his stomach and sympathies, and some alteration in the terms of admission required. Jemmy, accordingly, after admitting nineteen persons one evening for a shad apiece, stopped the twentieth, and said, "I beg your pardon, my darling, I am extremely sorry to refuse you; but if we eat any more fish, by the powers, we shall all be turned into mermaids!"

A famous provincial manager, or "manageress," was one Mrs. Baker, concerning whom curious particulars are related in the "Memoirs of Thomas Dibdin," and in the "Life of Grimaldi, the Clown." The lady owned theatres at Canterbury, Rochester, Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells, Faversham, Deal, and other places, but was understood to have commenced her professional career in connection with a puppet-show, or even the homely entertainment of Punch and Judy. But her industry, energy, and enterprise were of an indomitable kind. She generally lived in her theatres, and rising early to accomplish her marketing and other household duties, she proceeded to take up her position in the box-office, with the box-book open before her, and resting upon it "a massy silver inkstand, which, with a superb pair of silver trumpets, several cups, tankards, and candlesticks of the same pure metal, it was her honest pride to say she had paid for with her own hard earnings." While awaiting the visits of those desirous to book their places for the evening, she arranged the programme of the entertainments. Her education was far from complete, however, for although she could read she was but an indifferent scribe. By the help of the scissors, needle, thread, and a bundle of old playbills, she achieved her purpose. She cut a play from one bill, an interlude from another, a farce from a third, and sewing the slips neatly together avoided the use of pen and ink. When the name of a new performer had to be introduced she left a blank to be filled up by the first of her actors she happened to encounter, presuming him to be equal to the use of a pen. She sometimes beat the drum, or tolled the bell behind the scenes, when the representation needed such embellishments, and occasionally fulfilled the duties of prompter. In this respect it was unavoidable that she should be now and then rather overtasked. On one special evening she held the book during the performance of the old farce of "Who's the Dupe?" The part of Gradus was undertaken by her leading actor, one Gardner, and in the scene of Gradus's attempt to impose upon the gentleman of the story, by affecting to speak Greek, the performer's memory unfortunately failed him. He glanced appealingly towards the prompt-side of the stage. Mrs. Baker was mute, examining the play-book with a puzzled air. "Give me the word, madam," whispered the actor. "It's a hard word, Jem," the lady replied. "Then give me the next." "That's harder." The performer was at a stand-still; the situation was becoming desperate. "The next!" cried Gardner, furiously. "Harder still!" answered the prompter, and then, perplexed beyond bearing, she flung the book on the stage, and exclaimed aloud: "There, now you have them all; take your choice."

The lady's usual station was in front of the house, however She was her own money-taker, and to this fact has been ascribed the great good fortune she enjoyed as a manager. "Now then, pit or box, pit or gallery, box or pit!" she cried incessantly. "Pit! Pit!" half-a-dozen voices might cry. "Then pay two shillings. Pass on, Tom Fool!" for so on busy nights she invariably addressed her patrons of all classes. To a woman who had to quit the theatre, owing to the cries of the child she bore in her arms disturbing the audience, Mrs. Baker observed, as she returned the entrance-money, "Foolish woman! Foolish woman! Don't come another night till half-price, and then give your baby some Dalby's Carminative." "I remember," writes Dibdin, "one very crowded night patronised by a royal duke at Tunbridge Wells, when Mrs. Baker was taking money for three doors at once, her anxiety and very proper tact led her, while receiving cash from one customer, to keep an eye in perspective on the next, to save time, as thus: 'Little girl! get your money ready, while this gentleman pays. My lord! I'm sure your lordship has silver. Let that little boy go in while I give his lordship change. Shan't count after your ladyship. Here comes the duke! Make haste! His royal highness will please to get his ticket ready while my lady—now, sir! Now your royal highness!' 'Oh dear, Mrs. Baker, I've left my ticket in another coat-pocket!' 'To be sure you have! Take your royal highness's word! Let his royal highness pass! His royal highness has left his ticket in his other coat-pocket.' Great laughter followed, and I believe the rank and fashion of the evening found more entertainment in the lobby than on the stage."

On the occasion of Grimaldi's engagement, "for one night only," it was found necessary to open the doors of the Maidstone Theatre at a very early hour, to relieve the thoroughfare of the dense crowd which had assembled. The house being quite full, Mrs. Baker locked up the box in which the receipts of the evening had been deposited, and, going round to the stage, directed the performances to be commenced forthwith, remarking, reasonably enough, "that the house could but be full, and being full to the ceiling now, they might just as well begin at once, and have business over so much the sooner." Greatly to the satisfaction of the audience, the representation accordingly began without delay, and terminated shortly after nine o'clock.

It should be added that Mrs. Baker had been a dancer in early life, and was long famed for the grace of her carriage and the elegance of her curtsey. Occasionally she ventured upon the stage dressed in the bonnet and shawl she had worn while receiving money and issuing tickets at the door, and in audible tones announced the performances arranged for future evenings, the audience enthusiastically welcoming her appearance. A measure of her manifold talents was shared by other members of her family. Her sister, Miss Wakelin, was principal comic dancer to the theatre, occasional actress, wardrobe keeper, and professed cook, being, rewarded for her various services by board and lodging, a salary of L1 11s. 6d. per week, and a benefit in every town Mrs. Baker visited, with other emoluments by way of perquisites. Two of Mrs. Baker's daughters were also members of her company, and divided between them the heroines of tragedy and comedy. One Miss Baker subsequently became the wife of Mr. Dowton, the actor.

A settled distrust of the Bank of England was one of Mrs. Baker's most marked peculiarities. At the close of the performance she resigned the position she had occupied for some five hours as money-taker for pit, boxes, and gallery, and retired to her chamber, carrying the receipts of the evening in a large front pocket. This money she added to a store contained in half-a-dozen large china punch-bowls, ranged upon the top shelf of an old bureau. For many years she carried her savings about with her from town to town, sometimes retaining upon her person gold in rouleaux to a large amount. She is even said to have kept in her pocket for seven years a note for L200. At length her wealth became a positive embarrassment to her. She deposited sums in country banks and in the hands of respectable tradesmen, at three per cent., sometimes without receiving any interest whatever, but merely with a view to the safer custody of her resources. It was with exceeding difficulty that she was eventually persuaded to become a fundholder. She handed over her store of gold to her stockbroker with extraordinary trepidation. It is satisfactory to be assured that at last she accorded perfect confidence to the Old Lady in Threadneedle Street, increased her investments from time to time, and learned to find pleasure in visiting London half-yearly to receive her dividends.

Altogether Mrs. Baker appears to have been a thoroughly estimable woman, cordially regarded by the considerate members of the theatrical profession with whom she had dealings. While recording her eccentricities, and conceding that occasionally her language was more forcible and idiomatic than tasteful or refined, Dibdin hastens to add that "she owned an excellent heart, with much of the appearance and manners of a gentlewoman." Grimaldi was not less prompt in expressing his complete satisfaction in regard to his engagements with "the manageress." Dibdin wrote the epitaph inscribed above her grave in the cathedral yard of Rochester. A few lines may be extracted, but it must be said that the composition is of inferior quality:

Alone, untaught, And self-assisted (save by Heaven), she sought To render each his own, and fairly save What might help others when she found a grave; By prudence taught life's troubled waves to stem, In death her memory shines, a rich, unpolished gem.

It is conceivable—so much may perhaps be added by way of concluding note—that Mrs. Baker unconsciously posed as a model, and lent a feature or two, when the portrait came to be painted of even a more distinguished "manageress," whose theatre was a caravan, however, whose company consisted of waxen effigies, and who bore the name of—Jarley.