Street Theatre, could boast descent from Shakespeare’s sister Joan, and described himself as the poet’s great-nephew.  He, too, fought for the king in the great Civil War, serving as a lieutenant of horse under Sir Thomas Dallison in Prince Rupert’s regiment.  He had been apprenticed to Robinson the actor, and had played women’s parts at the Blackfriars Theatre, winning special renown by his performance of the Duchess in Shirley’s tragedy of “The Cardinal.”  As an actor Hart won extraordinary admiration; he soon took the lead of Burt, and from his physical gifts and graces was enabled even to surpass Mohun in popularity.  He introduced Nell Gwynne to the stage, and became one of the sharers in the management and profits of the theatrical company to which he was attached.

There was soon an ample supply of actresses, and a decline altogether in the demand for boy-performers of female characters.  There was an absolute end, indeed, of that industry; the established actors had no more apprentices, now to serve as their footboys and pages, and now as heroines of tragedy and comedy.  A modern playgoer may well have a difficulty in believing that these had ever any real existence, sharing Lamb’s amazement at a boy-Juliet, a boy-Desdemona, a boy-Ophelia.  There must have been much skill among the players; much simple good faith, contentment, and willingness to connive at theatrical illusion on the part of the audience.  It must have been hard to tolerate a heroine with too obvious a beard, or of very perceptible masculine breadth of shoulders, length of limb, and freedom of gait.  Let us note in conclusion that there is clearly a “boy-actress” among the players welcomed by Hamlet to Elsinore, although the modern stage has rarely taken note of the fact.  The player-queen, when not robed for performance in the tragedy of “The Mousetrap,” should wear a boy’s dress.  “What, my young lady and mistress!” says Hamlet jestingly to the youthful apprentice; and he adds allusion to the boy’s increase of stature:  “By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine!”—­in other words:  “How the boy has grown!”—­a chopine being a shoe with a heel of inordinate height.  And then comes reference to that change of voice from alto to bass which attends advance from boyhood to adolescence.

CHAPTER XVII.

STAGE WHISPERS.

When the consummate villain of melodrama mysteriously approaches the foot-lights, and, with a scowl at the front row of the pit, remarks:  “I must dissemble,” or something to that effect, it is certain that he is perfectly audible in all parts of the theatre in which he performs; and yet it is required of the personages nearest to him on the stage—­let us say, the rival lover he has resolved to despatch and the beauteous heroine he has planned to betray—­that they should pretend to be absolutely deaf to his observation,