was still far from pure, in spite of the improvement which was going on steadily enough, and there is no denying the fact that several of the worst plays of the Restoration could still claim admirers.  Even “Sir Courtly Nice,” wherein occurs one of the most indecent passages ever penned, and one of the most suggestive of songs, was received without a murmur.  Congreve was pardoned for his breaches of decorum, and Dryden was looked upon as quite proper enough for all purposes.

The morale of the players could hardly be called unimpeachable, at least in some instances, but the violations of social rules were not so open as they had been in the old days.  Here and there a frail actress might depart from the stony path of virtue, or an actor give himself up to wine and the dodging of bailiffs, yet the attending scandals were not flaunted in the face of the public.  In other words, there were Thespians of doubtful reputation then, just as there are now, and these black sheep helped materially to keep up against their white brethren that remarkable prejudice which has endured even unto the present decade.

As a class, the players had no social position of any kind, although the great ones of the earth, the men of rank, never hesitated to hobnob with them when, like Mrs. Gamp, they felt “so dispoged.”  Even in the enlightened reign of Queen Anne, there existed among many intelligent persons the vague idea that one who trod the boards was nothing more or less than a vagabond, and we are not surprised to learn, therefore, that in a royal proclamation of the period, “players and mountebanks” are mentioned in the same sentence, as though there was little difference between them.

Perhaps, the “artists” to whom the title of vagabond might be applied with a certain degree of justice were the strolling players, who seem to have been much after the fashion of others of their ilk, before and since.  Good-natured, poverty-stricken barnstormers they doubtless were, living from-hand-to-mouth, and quite willing to go through the whole gamut of tragedy, from Shakespeare to Dryden, for the sake of a good supper.  Here is a graphic picture of such a band of dramatic ne’er-do-wells, drawn by Dick Steele in the forty-eighth issue of the Spectator: 

“We have now at this place [this is a letter of an imaginary correspondent to ‘Mr. Spectator’] a company of strollers, who are very far from offending in the impertinent splendor of the drama.  They are so far from falling into these false gallantries, that the stage is here in his original situation of a cart.  Alexander the Great was acted by a fellow in a paper cravat.  The next day, the Earl of Essex seemd to have no distress but his poverty; and my Lord Foppington the same morning wanted any better means to show himself a fop than by wearing stockings of different colours.[A] In a word, though they have had a full barn for many days together, our itinerants are still so wretchedly poor, that without you can