prevail to send us the furniture you forbid at the playhouse, the heroes appear only like sturdy beggars, and the heroines gypsies.  We have had but one part which was performed and dressed with propriety, and that was Justice Clodpate.  This was so well done, that it offended Mr. Justice Overdo, who, in the midst of our whole audience, was (like Quixote in the puppet show) so highly provoked, that he told them, if they would move compassion, it should be in their own persons and not in the characters of distressed princes and potentates.  He told them, if they were so good at finding the way to people’s hearts, they should do it at the end of bridges or church porches, in their proper vocation as beggars.  This, the justice says, they must expect, since they could not be contented to act heathen warriors, and such fellows as Alexander, but must presume to make a mockery of one of the Quorum.”

[Footnote A:  It must be remembered that theatrical costumes, as we see them to-day, did not exist.  The art of dressing correctly, according to the nature of the character and the period in which the play was supposed to occur, was practically unknown.  Even in after years we hear of Spranger Barry playing Othello in a gold-laced scarlet suit, small cocked hat, and knee-breeches, with silk stockings.  Think of it, ye sticklers for realism!  Dr. Doran narrates how Garrick dressed Hamlet in a court suit of black coat, “waistcoat and knee-breeches, short wig with queue and bag, buckles in the shoes, ruffles at the wrists, and flowing ends of an ample cravat hanging over his chest.”  Barton Booth’s costume for Cato was even more of an anachronism.  “The Cato of Queen Anne’s day wore a flowered gown and an ample wig.”]

Poor strollers.  There was a bit of stern philosophy in the advice of the justice, for they would probably have led a merrier and more luxurious life had they deserted the barns for the bridges and church-porches.  Perhaps the same change would suit the wandering players who are to be found in these last years of the nineteenth century, travelling from one third-class hotel to another, and wondering whether they will ever make enough money to return home and sun themselves on the New York Rialto.

Humble as they were in the time of Queen Anne, her Government saw fit to subject the strollers to what might be called police regulation, and the Master of the Revels, who was a censor of plays and a supervisor-in-general of theatrical matters, had to issue an imposing order setting forth that whereas “several Companies of Strolling Actors pretend to have Licenses from Noblemen,[A] and presume under that pretence to avoid the Master of the Revels, his Correcting their Plays, Drolls, Farces, and Interludes:  which being against Her Majesty’s Intentions and Directions to the said Master:  These are to signifie That such Licenses are not of any Force or authority.  There are likewise several Mountebanks Acting upon Stages, and Mountbanks on Horseback, Persons that keep Poppets, and others that make Shew of Monsters, and strange Sights of Living Creatures, who presume to Travel without the said Master of the Revels’ Licence,” &c. &c.  The whole pronunciamento went to show that the despised strollers were not beneath the notice of a lynx-eyed Government.