me that she never saw such a set of slovenly, unmannerly footmen sent to keep places in her life, when, to her great surprise, she saw those fellows, at the end of the act, pay the box-keeper for their places.”

In 1730 the “Universal Spectator” notes:  “The wearing of swords, at the Court end of the town, is, by many polite young gentlemen, laid aside; and instead thereof they carry large oak sticks, with great heads and ugly faces carved thereon.”

Elliston was, in 1827, lessee and manager of the Surrey Theatre.  “Quite an opera pit,” he said to Charles Lamb, conducting him over the benches of that establishment, described by Lamb as “the last retreat of his every-day waning grandeur.”  The following letter—­the authenticity of which seems to be vouched for by the actor’s biographer—­supplies a different view of the Surrey audience of that date: 

     “August 10th, 1827.

“Sir,—­I really must beg to call your attention to a most abominable nuisance which exists in your house, and which is, in a great measure, the cause of the minor theatres not holding the rank they should amongst playhouses.  I mean the admission of sweeps into the theatre in the very dress in which they climb chimneys.  This not only incommodes ladies and gentlemen by the obnoxious odour arising from their attire, but these sweeps take up twice the room of other people because the ladies, in particular, object to their clothes being soiled by such unpleasant neighbours.  I have with my wife been much in the habit of visiting the Surrey Theatre, and on three occasions we have been annoyed by these sweeps.  People will not go, sir, where sweeps are; and you will find, sooner or later, these gentlemen will have the whole theatre to themselves unless an alteration be made.  I own, at some theatres, the managers are too particular in dress; those days are passed, and the public have a right to go to theatrical entertainments in their morning costumes; but this ought not to include the sweeps.  It is not a week ago since a lady in a nice white gown sat down on the very spot which a nasty sweep had just quitted, and, when she got up, the sight was most horrible, for she was a very heavy lady and had laughed a good deal during the performance; but it was no laughing matter to her when she got home.  I hope I have said quite enough, and am your

     “Well-Wisher.”

     “R.W.  Elliston, Esq.”

No doubt some reform followed upon this urgent complaint.

Regulations as to dress are peculiar to our Italian opera-houses, are unknown, as Mr. Sutherland Edwards writes in his “History of the Opera,” “even in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where, as the theatres are directed by the Imperial Government, one might expect to find a more despotic code of laws in force than in a country like England.  When an Englishman goes to a morning or evening concert, he does not present himself in the attire of a scavenger,