Addison’s paper doubtless possessed an element of fact and truth, enriched by the fancifulness peculiar to the writer.  It was his manner thus to embroider commonplace; to enhance the actual by large additions of the ideal.  There probably existed such a personage as the trunkmaker; some visitor to the upper gallery was in the habit of expressing approval by strokes of his cudgel upon the wainscot; and his frequent presence had obtained the recognition of the other patrons of the theatre.  It was an easy and a pleasant task to Addison to invest this upper-gallery visitor with special critical qualities to attribute to his “oaken plant” almost supernatural powers.  In any case, the trunkmaker was a sort of foreshadowing of the claqueur.  It was reserved for later times to organise applause and reduce success to a system.  Of old, houses were sometimes “packed” by an author’s friends to ensure a favourable result to the first representation of his play.  When, for instance, Addison’s “Cato” was first produced, Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience, and accordingly filled the pit with frequenters of the Whig coffee-houses, with students from the Inns of Court, and other zealous partisans.  “This,” says Pope, “had been tried for the first time in favour of ‘The Distressed Mother’ (by Ambrose Phillips), and was now, with more efficacy, practised for ‘Cato.’” But this was only an occasional claque.  The “band of applauders” dispersed after they had cheered their friend and achieved their utmost to secure the triumph of his play.  And they were unconnected with the manager of the theatre; they were not his friends, still less were they his servants, receiving wages for their labours, and bound to raise their voices and clap their hands in accordance with his directions.  For such are the genuine claqueurs of to-day.

Dr. Veron, who has left upon record a sort of secret history of his management of the Paris Opera House, has revealed many curious particulars concerning les claqueurs, adding a serious defence of the system of artificial applause.  The artistic nature, the doctor maintains, submitting its merits to the judgment of the general public, has great need of the exhilaration afforded by evidence of hearty approval and sympathy; the singer and the dancer are thus inspired with the courage absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of their professional feats; and it is the doctor’s experience that whenever a song or a dance has been redemanded by the audience, the dance has been better danced, and the song better sung, the second time of performance than the first.  Hence there is nothing harmful, but rather something beneficial, in the proceedings of les claqueurs.  Every work produced at the theatre cannot be of the first class, and legitimately rouse the enthusiasm of the public; every dramatic or lyrical artist cannot invariably, by sheer force of talent, overcome the coldness, the