'I don't mind your orders, and I am going as fast as I can.'

'Why, where are you going?'

'To hell,' replied the jester in a sepulchral tone.

'What are you going to do there?' asked the King, laughing.

To fetch back Oliver Cromwell, to take some care of the national affairs, for I am sure your Majesty takes none.'

And the King went to the Council.

Another famous comedian of that day was Joe Haines, who was an Oxford M.A., but a scamp of the first order, who managed to cheat even the rector of the Jesuit College in Paris out of £40 by a pretended note from the Duke of Monmouth. Not long after, meeting with a simple-minded clergyman, he told him that he was one of the patentees of Drury Lane, and appointed him his chaplain, instructing him at the same time to go to the theatre with a large bell, to ring it, and call out: 'Players, come to prayers!' Which the clergyman did, till he found he had been hoaxed. In the reign of James II., this Haines turned Roman Catholic, and told Sunderland that the Virgin Mary had appeared, and said to him: Joe, arise!' To this Sunderland dryly replied that she should have said Joseph,' if only out of respect for her husband.

The greatest actor at the time of Charles II. was undoubtedly Thomas Betterton. He joined the company of Sir William Davenant in 1662. Pepys frequently went to see him. In those days the pay of actors was not what it is now; Betterton, in spite of the position he held in public estimation, never had

more than £5 a week, including £1, by way of pension, to his wife, who retired in 1694. In 1709 he took a benefit, at which the money taken at the doors was £75, but he received also more than £450 in complimentary guineas; and in the following year he had another benefit, by which he netted about £1,000. Of course, according to modern notions, these are but small receipts; but they are better than what seems to have been the standard of theatrical payments in 1511-judging from a bill of that year, without name of place where the acting took place, but which states that it was performed on the feast of St. Margaret (July 20). According to legend, the devil, in the shape of a dragon, swallowed St. Margaret, but she speedily made her escape, and was thus considered to possess great powers of assisting women in childbirth. The bill runs thus:

"To musicians, for three nights, £0 5s. 6d. ; for players in bread and ale, £0 3s. 1d.; for decorations, dresses, and play-books, £1 Os. Od.; to John Hobbard, priest, and author of the piece, £0 2s. 8d.; for the place in which the presentation was held, £0 1s. Od. ; for furniture, £0 1s. 4d.; for fish and bread, £0 Os. 4d. ; for painting three phantoms and devils, £0 Os. 6d.; and for four chickens for the hero, £0 Os. 4d.' We see here the author received only 2s. 8d. for writing the play. Matters have improved since then; Sheridan realized £3,000 by the sale of his altered play of 'Pizarro. In the early part of this century authors of successful pieces received from the theatre from £250 to £500, and from the purchaser of the copyright for publication from £100 to £400. Then actors received

£30 a week; favourite performers-stars, as we should now call them—were paid £50 a night. Actors have at times found very generous friends. When, in 1808, Covent Garden Theatre, then under the management of John P. Kemble, was burnt down, the loss was immense, and the insurances did not exceed £50,000. The then Duke of Northumberland offered Kemble the sum of £10,000 as a loan on his simple bond. The offer was accepted, and the bond given. On the day appointed for laying the first stone, the bond was returned cancelled!

Italian opera-singers have made large fortunes in England. When Owen McSwiney was lessee of the Haymarket, circa 1708, he engaged one Nicolini, a Neapolitan, who really was a splendid actor and a magnificent-looking man, with a voice which won universal admiration, at a salary of eight hundred guineas for the season-at that time an enormous sum. Nicolini left the stage in 1712, and returned to Italy, where he built himself a fine villa, which, as a testimony of his gratitude to the nation which enriched him, he called the English Folly. In 1721 a company of French comedians occupied the Haymarket, to the disgust of native actors. Aaron Hill, the dramatic author and opera-manager, consequently had occasion to write to John Rich: 'I suppose you know that the Duke of Montague and I have agreed that I am to have that house half the week, and the "French vermin" the other half.” International courtesies were at some discount at the time!

A few theatrical anecdotes may close these lucubrations. Actors sometimes are strangely affected by

their own parts. Betterton, although his countenance was ruddy, when he performed Hamlet, through the violent and sudden emotion of horror at the presence of his father's spectre, instantly turned as white as his collar, whilst his whole body was affected by a strong tremor. When Booth the first time attempted the ghost, when Betterton acted Hamlet, that actor's look at him struck him with such horror that he became disconcerted to such a degree that he could not speak his part. Of Mrs. Siddons, it was said that by the force of fancy and reflection, she used to be so wrought up in preparing to play Lady Constance in King John,' that, when she set out from her own house to the theatre, she was already Constance herself.

Smith-better known as 'Gentleman Smith'-married a sister of Lord Sandwich. For some time the union was kept concealed, but an apt quotation of Charles Bannister elicited the truth:

"Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague!" said Bannister, when Foote bantered Smith on the subject. The latter was not proof against the sally, and acknowledged the marriage. 'Well,' said Bannister, 'I rejoice that you have got a Sandwich from the family; but if ever you get a dinner from them, I'll be hanged.' The prophecy proved true.

Michael Kelly was an English opera-singer, a musical composer, and at one time Sheridan's manager at Drury Lane. He then went into the wine trade, when Sheridan advised him to put over his door: 'Michael Kelly, composer of wine, and importer of music.'

VI.

OLD JUDGES AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS.

WHEN

HEN I was a little boy I drew most of my notions of life and mankind from the picturebooks for my use and instruction. I thought that Kings and Queens wore their crowns and sceptres all day long, and took them to bed with them, for I had thus seen them in the pictures in the books. One engraving, I remember, I saw of a severe-looking gentleman, who had thrown a gray doormat over his head, and sat behind a little desk everlastingly writing away with an enormous quill pen. It was this quill pen which specially riveted my attention. I was always given a steel pen in my writing-lessons. Why not a quill? I asked my mother who the man was, and was told he was a judge, and that what I took for a doormat was a wig which he wore to look dignified, and the great weight of which was, moreover, intended to prevent his great legal learning from evaporating through the pores of his skull, which was bald, but compelled it to come out through his mouth only.

He used a quill pen to take notes of what was said by the parties contending before him, because that,