general company of which he was a member and the manager whom he served, would probably have been deemed guilty of a most unpardonable impertinence.  Gradually, however, the status of the actor improved; people began to concede that he was not necessarily or invariably a mountebank, and that certain of the qualities and dignities of an art might attach now and then to his achievements.  The famous Mrs. Barry was, according to Cibber, “the first person whose merit was distinguished by the indulgence of having an annual benefit play, which was granted to her alone,” he proceeds, “if I mistake not, first in King James II.’s time, and which became not common to others until the division of the company, after the death of King William’s Queen Mary.”  However, in the preceding reign, in the year 1681, it appears by an agreement made between Davenant, Betterton, and others, that Charles Hart and Edward Kynaston were to be paid “five shillings apiece for every day there shall be any tragedies or comedies or other representations at the Duke’s Theatre, in Salisbury Court, or wherever the company shall act during the respective lives of the said Charles Hart and Edward Kynaston, excepting the days the young men or young women play for their own profit only.”  Benefits would certainly seem to be here referred to, unless we are to understand the performances to be of a commonwealth kind, carried on by the players at their own risk, and independently of the managers.  Still, to King James’s admiring patronage of Mrs. Barry, the benefit system, as it is at present known to us, has been generally ascribed; and clearly the monarch’s memory deserves to be cherished on this account by our players.  He can ill afford to forego the smallest claim to esteem, and undoubtedly he entertained a friendly regard for the stage and its professors.  Indeed, the Stuarts generally were well disposed towards the arts, and a decidedly playgoing family.

For some years, however, actors’ benefits did not extend beyond the case of Mrs. Barry.  But in 1695 the patentees of the theatres were so unfortunately situated that they could not satisfy the claims of their actors, and were compelled to pay them “half in good words and half in ready money.”  Under these circumstances certain of the players compounded for the arrears of salary due to them by taking the risk of benefit performances.  After a season or two these benefits were found to be so advantageous to the actors that they were expressly stipulated for in their agreements with the managers.  On the other hand, the managers, jealous of the advantages secured in this wise by the players, took care to charge very fully for the expenses of the house, which were of course deducted from the gross receipts of the benefit-night, and further sought to levy a percentage upon the profits obtained by the actors.  In 1702 the ordinary charge for house expenses, on the occasion of a benefit at Drury Lane, was about L34.  In Garrick’s time the charge rose to L64, and was