his head can be permitted to emerge from the hole cut for him in the stage.  But his situation has its advantages.  He cannot possibly be seen by the audience; he can conveniently instruct the performers without requiring them “to look off” appealingly, or to rush desperately to the wing to be reminded of their parts; while the sloping roof of his temporary abode has the effect of directing his whispers on to the stage, and away from the spectators.  It seems strange that this system of posting the prompter in the van instead of on the flank of the actors has never been permanently adopted in this country.  But a change of the kind indicated would certainly be energetically denounced by a number of very respectable and sensible people as “un-English,” an objection that is generally regarded as quite final and convincing, although it is conceivable, at any rate, that a thing may be of fair value and yet of foreign origin.  “Gad, sir, if a few very sensible persons had been attended to we should still have been champing acorns!” observed Luttrell the witty, when certain enlightened folk strenuously opposed the building of Waterloo Bridge on the plea that it would spoil the river!

It is certain, however, that with the first introduction here of operatic performances came the gipsy-tent, or hut, of the prompter.  The singers voted it quite indispensable.  It was much ridiculed, of course, by the general public.  It was even made the special subject of burlesque on a rival stage.  A century ago the imbecility was indulged in of playing “The Beggar’s Opera” with “the characters reversed,” as it was called; that is to say, the female characters were assumed by the actors, the male by the actresses.  This was at the Haymarket Theatre, under George Colman’s management.  The foolish proceeding won prodigious applause.  A prologue or preliminary act in three scenes was written for the occasion.  The fun of this introduction seems now gross and flat enough.  Towards the conclusion of it, we read, a stage-carpenter raised his head through a trap in the centre of the stage.  He was greeted with a roar of laughter from the gallery.  The prompter appears on the scene and demands of the carpenter what he means by opening the trap?  The carpenter explains that he designs to prompt the performers after the fashion of the Opera House on the other side of the Haymarket.  “Psha!” cries the prompter, “none of your Italian tricks with me!  Shut up the trap again!  I shall prompt in my old place; for we won’t do all they do on the other side of the way till they can do all we do on ours.”  So soundly English a speech is received with great cheering—­the foreigners and their new-fangled ways are laughed to scorn, and the performance is a very complete success.