[Footnote A:  Ben Johnson excelled greatly in all his namesake’s comedies, then frequently acted.  He was of all comedians the chastest and closest observer of nature.  Johnson never seemed to know that he was before an audience; he drew his character as the poet designed it.—­DAVIES.]

There was one story, at least, that this actor used to relate with much unction after a visit which he once paid to Dublin.  The hero of the affair was an Irishman, named Baker, who relieved the monotony of his work as a master pavior by acting Sir John Falstaff and other parts.  When he was in the streets, overseeing the labours of his men, this pavior-artist usually rehearsed one of his characters, muttering the lines, gesticulating, and almost forgetting that he was without the sacred walls of a theatre.  The workmen soon got accustomed to these out-of-door performances, and everything proceeded with the utmost smoothness, until one exciting day when Baker chanced to be alone with two new paviors.  These recruits (countrymen from Cheshire) were much alarmed at a sudden change in the demeanour of their master, whose eyes began to roll and lips to move under the pressure of some strange emotion.  Baker was merely rehearsing Falstaff; but the two men made up their little minds that he had lost his head, and they felt quite sure that their employer was a dangerous lunatic, when he gave them a piercing glance, and cried: 

“Soft! who are you?  Sir Walter Blunt:  there’s honour for you! here’s no vanity!  I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too.  God keep lead out of me!”

“Wauns!  I’se blunt enough to take care of you, I’se warrant you,” shouted one of the workmen, who had now recovered what he presumed to be his wits, and thereupon he and his companion laid violent hands on Baker.  A crowd soon gathered, and despite the indignant cries of the master-pavior, who declared he was never more sane, this son of Thespis was tied hand and foot, and carried home in triumph with a howling mob for attendants.  That ended Mr. Baker’s rehearsal for the nonce; and it is to be presumed that, when next he essayed the lusty Sir John, he made sure of an appreciative audience.

It is a seductive occupation to delve into the lives of these bygone players, and there is always temptation to tarry long and lovingly amid such chequered careers.  But, like poor Joe, of Dickens, we must keep moving on, and so leave Johnson and Baker for another actor who waits to strut across the stage of these “Palmy Days.”  Thomas Elrington is the new-comer; the same Elrington who sought to outshine the tragic Barton Booth, without possessing either the genius or the scholarship of that noble son of Melpomene.  As a boy, Thomas was apprenticed by an impecunious father to an upholsterer in Covent Garden, but he cared more for the theatre than for his trade, and was, no doubt, regarded by his employer as a future candidate for the gallows.

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