from the weakest utterance.  All objects were thus drawn nearer to the sense; every painted scene was stronger; every grand scene and dance more extended; every rich or fine-coloured habit had a more lively lustre.  Nor was the minutest motion of a feature (properly changing from the passion or humour it suited) ever lost, as they frequently must be in the obscurity of too great a distance.  And how valuable an advantage the facility of hearing distinctly is to every well-acted scene, every common spectator is a judge.  A voice scarce raised above the tone of a whisper, either in tenderness, resignation, innocent distress, or jealousy suppress’d, often have as much concern with the heart as the most clamorous passions; and when on any of these occasions such affecting speeches are plainly heard, or lost, how wide is the difference from the great or little satisfaction received from them?  To all this the master of a company may say, I now receive ten pounds more than could have been taken formerly in every full house.  Not unlikely.  But might not his house be oftener full if the auditors were oftener pleas’d?  Might not every bad house, too, by a possibility of being made every day better, add as much to one side of his account as it could take from the other.”

The latter portion of Colley’s remarks will be echoed by our own audiences, which are so often doomed to see the most delicate of plays acted in barns of theatres where all the sensitive effects of dialogue and action are swallowed up in the immensity of stage and auditorium.  There is nothing more dispiriting, indeed, both to performers and spectators, than the presentation of some comedy like the “School for Scandal” in a house far better suited to the picturesque demands of the “Black Crook” or the “County Circus.”

The theatre in Drury Lane, as Oldfield knew it, had a not over-cheerful interior, the most noticeable features of which included the pit, provided with backless benches, and surrounded by what would now be called the Promenade.  The latter, as Misson informs us,[A] was taken up for the most part by ladies of quality.  In addition to these quarters and the boxes, there were two galleries reserved for the common herd, but into which, no doubt, impecunious beaux, down in the heels and at the mouth, would frequently stray.

[Footnote A:  Henre Misson’s “Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England.”]

The performances generally began at 5 o’clock, but that there were occasional lapses into unpunctuality, may be inferred from the following advertisement in the Daily Courant of October 5, 1703: 

“Her Majesty’s Servants of the Theatre Royal being return’d from the Bath, do intend, to-morrow, being Wednesday, the sixth of this instant October to act a Comedy call’d ’Love Makes a Man, or the Fop’s Fortune.’[A] With singing and dancing.  And whereas the audiences have been incommoded by the Plays usually beginning too late, the Company of the said Theatre do therefore give notice that they will constantly begin at Five a Clock without fail, and continue the same Hour all the Winter."[B]