begin by saying, that actors were, a few years ago, more respectable than nowI should have said more respected, for that is what I mean. The friends of the drama assign a variety of causes for this. Some will lay it upon the late dinners and routs-some upon the hard times-some upon the increased pride of the middle ranks-and some upon the methodists. For my part, I lay it upon them all together. Theatres have declined in many ways; and, according to the way of the world, actors have declined with their circumstances. Neither plays nor players are like what they were. An exotic from the hotbed of London, may sometimes draw a crowd of spectators, and a thunder of applause--but the taste itself is less intense.

Scarcely further back than five and twenty years, we had, season after season, noticed and known long enough to estimate their worth, Munden"little Munden," an all privileged favourite, who used, on his benefit night, to pack the gallery in propria persona, and just get down to dress, and make his bow in due time-to the boxes; Whitlock, Miss Duncan now Mrs Davison, Charles Kemble, Miss Smith, Miss Decamp, and Riley, the author of "The Itinerant," a theologian and controversialist, and more recently, Liston-a buck of the first water -going about in the day, in a light grass-green coat, then the rage-and huge half boots, with ridiculous tassels hanging "half way down, like one that gathers samphire"-and at night playing Banquo, and Nipperkin; besides, singing between play and farce. I am told, he plays Romeo, at Covent Garden, for his benefit, with great applause; and I dare say he has improved-but I must own, I never saw him look truly tragical, till he played Croaker, for his farewell benefit. How sorry we were to part with him! though many a shilling it saved me, at a time when a shilling was of fully more consequence than it is now. Many a time and oft have I given my last, at the gallery-door, for the "sweet sake" of Miss Bailey's ghost. Not that there was any extravagance in the matter, for the song was always encored, and so cost only sixpence, which was absolutely cheap. Yet Liston languished unnoticed for some months, and had actually, as I have been informed, offered himself as clerk to a printer;

who, luckily for the public, did not want a clerk. His talent, I believe, first broke out decidedly in playing Rundy, to Munden's crack part of Jimmy Jumps, with whom he divided the applause. It was the first brilliant exhibition of comic talent I ever saw, and I shall never forget it. I recolleet, Liston looked very blue, in his green coat, when the young Roscius humbug first took with the public. But then the tragedians looked ten times bluer, which took from the novelty of Liston's seriousness. After that, we had Conway, Terry, and a few other good actors-but theatricals have ever since been upon the decline. Every year has "knocked out a star" in our dramatic heaven. The actors are less thought about, and less known-though far be it from me to say, that they are really less respectable.

One proof of the "playermen," as the two chimney sweeps contemptuously called Garrick and Weston, being less known, is that they associate so much with each other-which seems to argue, that they are not much sought by other people. Let any one go on a Saturday night to the bar of the tavern, which they patronise; and, if he has never seen them before, he may almost, from their several appearances, assign their stations in the little fantastical world of the Drama; that is to say, if he knows any thing of theatrical matters-if he does not, he may as well turn over two leaves at once, and go to the next article. There will be found sitting, the first serious man—“ Tragedy Tom"-Then the gentleman, either very fair or very brown, with his hair twice as neat, and his neckcloth twice as well tied as the tragedian. The tragedian, however, is thinner and paler than the gentleman, and of a voice and manner probably much less heroic; the reason of which will perhaps appear afterwards. Then the comic actor, with a redder face than the gentleman, and more slovenly than the hero, and as rich as either of them, and more an epicure. He is happier too, and less given to laughter which looks like a paradox. He has this privilege beyond the other two, that he thinks less of the graces, and more of haut-gout; and pampers up his good humour with beef steaks, oysters, welchrabbits and porter, in felicitous impunity, which often excites the envy, and sometimes the contempt of his brethren

of the buskin and sock. He sits full to the table and enjoys himself, whilst the others fast, or sip and nibble diagonally from the fire side. Such sacrifices must be made to keep up the genteel, or even the heroic character. The Singer, is twice as heroic as the hero, twice as conceited as the gentleman, and twice as ugly as the comedian, and grimaces twice as much "looking like an angel, if he was'nt so black-a-vyzed."-On the stage he neglects talking for singing, and, off it, he is less fond of singing than talking, and rattles away with all the happy unconsciousness of his tribe, that people, having enjoyed their most sweet voices"-want nothing further with them. The inferior performers may be known by their faring worse, and looking worse, and talking worse than the rest, and yet always sitting with them. They are more in the shade. At their end of the table, brandy and water looks like bottled ale, and the shirt-ruffle is often invisible. Actors are generally a little singular in themselves, and contrasts to each other; how else, indeed, should they ever meet upon a provincial atage? Amongst them, you have all sorts of opposites of feature and voice-noses, as different as those of Father Shandy and the traveller at Strasburg, and tones from the top and bottom of the gamut. They enact humanity," according to Shakespeare, sometimes very "abominably" when upon the stage, and often very queerly elsewhere -but so do other humanity Professors. Nine out of ten of them cordially agree in complaining of the manager; and nine times out of ten, they are in the right. The tenth, dissentient, is the manager's favourite. That they should in general dress gaudily, is not to be wondered at. A claret-coloured surtout, and a pair of sky-blue pantaloons, in a morning, in a manner break the fall from the splendour of the preceding evening. Between this and slovenliness, there would seem, with them, to be no alternative.

Actors are pleasant, and not unprofitable associates. They see much of the landscape of life, and of the most instructive and picturesque parts of it -its ups and downs. They are, for the most part, stored with anecdote; and, moreover, most meritoriously ready to sing a catch. Some folks, to be sure, will say that such things are

in their way, and that they know it to be expected of them :-granted,-still, to say that they do what is expected of them, is an odd way of trying to depreciate people. They are decidedly good-natured men, and bear raillery much better than others;-not that there is any thing odd in this,-for what is the laugh of a companion to him, who, every other night in his life, is exposed to the risk of the ridicule of a whole audience. From submitting, every now and then, to be laughed at in assumed absurdity, many of them are cured of that morbid anxiety about personal dignity, which is the bane of so many worthy men. Nothing irritates a player but actually " getting a little of the goose," -as they call the catastrophe of being hissed; and this they are certainly sore enough about,as well they may. The common-place jokes, however, launched at their calling, they bear with laudable equanimity. Nay, the comedian is never in higher glee, on the stage, than when laughing at his own profession, in Sylvester Daggerwood, or O'Keefe's ragged Manager, with his Treasurer out at the elbows. This is no small praise. Only call a young physician " Thalaba the Destroyer;" or talk to a conceited lawyer's clerk about "the Devil's own," and you shall see the difference.

I have known those who came away disappointed from the company of a great actor, because he did not give a lecture on the philosophy of some passage of Shakespeare. This is very absurd. To expect a man, who lives upon a kind of diet-drink of spouting,-who has to rehearse his part in the morning and act it in the evening,-to swill supernumerary cups of dramatic Hippocrene, merely to please a company, is altogether unreasonable. Besides, no wise actor will let his critic go behind the scenes. This he soon attains to know by experience, if instinct does not teach him. It is a foolish thing to run the risk of spoiling "a good hit, by giving a wrong reason for it. The carper, who admires a fine histrionic effect, without knowing any reason for it at all, will despise it, should he happen to think the explanation insufficient, when given ;-and, ten to one, but he does think it so. Professors of the fine arts do well to philosophize to others as little as ever they can. It is ticklish work. They are constantly getting lost in the intricate labyrinths of

analysis; or caught, Milo-like, by the closing sides of some distinction, with out a difference; or tossed by the horns of some unlucky dilemma. No poet, or painter, or actor, ever gained by exposing the secrets of his mental process. The original MSS. of Pope's Homer, with all the erasures, only lower one's idea of the poetry; and the fame of Mr Kemble's elaborate acting probably suffered with many from his Essay on the characters of Macbeth and Richard the Third. The shallowness of his attempt to analyse the characters which he so successfully represented, naturally leads us to doubt the justice of our admiration. Had he let writing alone, all would have been well. Mrs Pritchard, the celebrated comic actress, could scarcely read her parts, and never could give any account of the knowledge which enabled her to act them as she did. It is not improbable, indeed, that she had no clear general idea of the complicated series of her perceptions. But it was not the less knowledge on that account. I have known persons who had the finest comprehension of the merits of a musical air when played, who yet could never retain it, or if retained, could never arrange and generalize their perceptions sufficiently, to be able to sing a decent resemblance of it. It would be as wise to object to the calculations of Jedediah Buxton, and the young American phenomenon, Zerah Colburn, because they could not give the rules by which they worked their questions. The necessity of making long-winded speeches on the stage, tends to preserve the player from a habit-which would be intolerable in Demosthenes himself-of declaiming in conversation. He will generally illustrate by an anecdote, rather than enforce by a harangue; and this is, perhaps, the source of the charm which pervades more or less almost every book which has been written by an actor. They never prose. Colley Cibber is delightful. Tate Wilkinson's life, and his "Wandering Patentee," are pleasant reading. Holcroft's "Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian," is still better. As for the green-room stories of and by Quin, they are as piquant as the celebrated sauce that bears his name; and "The Itinerant," by Riley, is full of genuine observation, and original description of human life. Some of his stories too, are chefs-d-œuvre in the ludicrous way.

Read his account of Prince Anamaboo, which, though the story has been familiar to me since I was a boy, I cannot even now read without a smile ;or, of the Lascars, and their song of "Bee-baw ;”—or, of the Humours of Manager Whitely, and you "shall laugh, till your face is like a wet cloak, ill laid up."-His history of Cuthill's company at Ambleside, is a Theatrical Pastoral, full of guileless and heartfelt cheerfulness that is wonderfully fasci→ nating.

The acquirements, as well as the vir→ tues and vices of actors, are of course affected by the peculiarities of their profession. I am afraid they are better read in Shakespeare, according to the Prompt-books, than according to Johnson and Stevens. The first time Garrick played Macbeth, he retained much of the dialogue, which the players had, time immemorial, omitted. Accordingly, when, in the last act, the trembling messenger came in with the news of the English army, he addressed him in the words of the text:

"The devil d-n thee black, thou creamfaced lown,

"Where got'st thou that goose-look ?"

a salutation, not exactly such as the ears of either audience or actors were accustomed to, at that day. On coming off the stage, he was stopped by Quin, who, with a face full of astonishment, inquired-" where, in the name of heaven, David, did you pick up that strange stuff!" and yet Quin was a scholar and a gentleman, as well as an actor. I have heard it told, as a good joke, against a theatrical club, that a member succeeded in palming upon them a line and a half of his own, as a quotation from the immortal bard, which their rules required.-Graver societies, however, have been quite as ridiculously hoaxed-even leaving antiquaries, who are the natural prey of practical quizzers, out of the question. It is time enough to twit the actors with their ignorance of some of the exquisite bursts of the great master, when the author of that piece of prudery in pasteboard, "The Family Shakespeare," shall have been sufficiently castigated for wilfully forgetting them.

Were a Frenchman to attempt so to castrate Corneille or Racine, they would mob him at Paris. They would indict him under Lord Ellenborough's act, if they had it. Ra

ther than have witnessed this, one would really have seen nipt in the bud the whole name and fame of Bowdler,from the blue-stocking spinster, who wrote the unreadable essays, upon the strength of which they seem to have been erected into a sort of soi-disant "Holy Family," down to the young gentleman, who has taken to rendering other people's works unreadable.

As the life of a player is a strange mixture of the real and the artificial, so his knowledge is often inconsistent with itself. All his worldly lore is often insufficient to keep down an imprudent generosity, too romantic and theatrical not to destroy its own credit. When, in a time of difficulty, the most celebrated actor of the day distributed the profits of his benefit amongst his humble fellow-performers, it was, to my knowledge, very generally put down to the account of ostentatious profusion. See," as Macbeth says, "the partiality of mankind." Had he given it for a mission to the Patagonians, it might have been different.

The failings of the actor are not only constantly exaggerated, but some of his most innocent actions misrepresented. Servant of the public, in the strictest sense of the word, any error of conduct, or eccentricity of disposi tion, is perpetually liable to observation. Hence our imaginations dwell upon the prodigal but magnificent Barry, the Marc-Antony of actors, as he has been called-the dissipated Cibber-the epicure Quin-and the debased, but, at bottom, good-hearted Cooke, in preference to less notorious, but equally confirmed, examples of profligacy and self-indulgence. Yet, strange as the assertion may seem, it would not be easy to shew that Cooke was much more addicted to conviviality than Addison, the great moralist of his time.-Nay, if Horace Walpole is to be credited, the essayist died more theatrically than the player, and equally the victim of artificial excite ment. But then, the imprudences of the one got him, every now and then, hissed off the boards of Drury-Lane, and paragraphed in the newspapers next day; whilst the other always sat snug, amongst his paragraph-writing companions, in the tavern in Russelstreet. Some of the circumstances, peculiar to the histrionic life, give rise to an appearance of extravagance, which

is only an appearance. Those who inveigh against the hot supper, and negus or mulled-ale of the player's family, do not reflect that he must come home exhausted with mental and bodily exertion, and with all that craving for food and stimulus, which is the na tural consequence of strong excitement. They do not reflect that his dinner is for the most part proportionately slender. What are called domestic habits, are, with him, unavoidably broken in upon; and it would be as wise to blame the lawyers, on the Circuit, for perpetually coming home after dark to a late dinner and tavern-wine. After the performance, refreshment is absolutely indispensable. The mental exertion, the wear and tear of the feelings, consequent to filling up a cha racter before an audience, are hardly to be calculated. It is a mistake to suppose that players are callous in their avocation. I know that an actress, of celebrity in her day, has more than once declared, that she never could step, even upon a provincial stage, where she was the first of favourites, without strong emotion. And I have been assured, from the best authority, that a celebrated actress, who lately retired from the stage, frequently shed tears during the performance even of those parts in which she was most accustomed to appear. No wonder that audiences were not found to resist such appeals to their sympathies :

"If you refuse To pity me, I'll never cease to weep; And, when mine eyes are out, I will be told How fast the tears I shed for you do fall And, if they do not flow abundantly, I'll fetch a sigh shall make 'em start and leap,

As if the fire were under."

lump, an extensive class of men. In the long interval between him" who lives to please" the fastidious metropolitan critic, and him who "gladdens" the winter evenings of the village, there must be much good-if there is some evil. Their vices, let it be remembered-such as they are-have been mainly occasioned by the very severity of the opinion which stigmatizes them."Non faciendo nocentes, sed patiendo.” The tombs of Garrick and of Oldfield are a poor atonement for a mass of prejudice, as indiscriminating as it is unphilosophical. That this prejudice is beginning to give way, some recent events, in high life, afford a pleasing proof. The sooner it disappears, the better for our reputation as a thinking and charitable people.

T. D.