Monmouth Street, St. Giles’s, is now known by another name; but for many years its dealers in cast clothes rendered important aid to the actors and managers.  It was to Monmouth Street, as he confesses, that Tate Wilkinson hastened, when permitted to undertake the part of the Fine Gentleman in Garrick’s farce of “Lethe,” at Covent Garden.  For two guineas he obtained the loan, for one night only, of a heavy embroidered velvet spangled suit of clothes, “fit,” he says, “for the king in ‘Hamlet.’” Repeating the character, he was constrained to depend upon the wardrobe of the theatre, and appeared in “a very short old suit of clothes, with a black velvet ground and broad gold flowers, as dingy as the twenty-four letters on a piece of gilded gingerbread”—­the dress, indeed, which Garrick had worn when playing Lothario, in “The Fair Penitent,” ten years before.  And it was to Monmouth Street that Austin repaired, when cast for a very inferior part—­a mere attendant—­in the same tragedy, in order to equip himself as like to Garrick as he could—­for Garrick was to reappear as Lothario in a new suit of clothes.  “Where did you get that coat from, Austin?” asked the great actor, surveying his subordinate.  “Sir!” replied Austin boldly, “it is part of my country wardrobe.”  The manager paused, frowned, reflected.  Soon he was satisfied that the effect of Austin’s dress would be injurious to his own, especially as Austin was of superior physical proportions.  “Austin,” he said at length, “why, perhaps you have some other engagement—­besides, the part is really beneath you.  Altogether, I will not trouble you to go on with me.”  And not to go on as an attendant upon Lothario was precisely what Austin desired.

O’Keeffe, in his “Memoirs,” has related a curious instance of the prompt bestowal of an article of apparel upon an actor attached to the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin.  Macklin’s farce of “The True-born Irishman” was in course of performance for the first time.  During what was known as “the Drum Scene” ("a ‘rout’ in London is called a ‘drum’ in Dublin,” O’Keeffe explains),—­when an actor, named Massink, had entered as the representative of Pat FitzMongrel—­a gentleman, who with a large party occupied the stage-box, was seen to rise from his chair, with the view, as it seemed, of interrupting the performance.  It should be stated that the gentleman was known to have recently inherited a large fortune, and had evinced a certain eccentricity of disposition.  He was now of opinion that an attempt was being made to personate him on the stage.  “Why, that’s me!” he cried aloud, pointing to the figure of Pat FitzMongrel.  “But what sort of a rascally coat is that they’ve dressed me in!  Here, I’ll dress you, my man!” So saying he stood up, divested himself of the rich gold-laced coat he wore, and flung it on to the stage.  “Massink took it up smiling, stepped to the wing, threw off his own, and returned upon the stage in the gentleman’s fine coat, which produced the greatest amount of applause and pleasure among the audience.”