But these are innovations of quite recent date.  In a reputable literary and critical journal,[6] of forty years back, appears an account of the production at the English Opera House (now the Lyceum Theatre) of the opera of “Nourjahad,” the work of the late Mr. E.J.  Loder, of Bath, then described as the leader of the theatrical orchestra there, and the son and successor of Mr. Loder, whose talents as a musician had been long known in that city, and at the Philharmonic and other concerts.  Much praise is awarded to the work, and then we find the following paragraph: 

     [6] The Athenaeum.

“The silly practice of calling for a favourite actor at the end of a play was upon this occasion, for the first time, extended to a composer; and Mr. E.J.  Loder was produced upon the stage to make his bow.  As the chance portion of the audience could not possibly be aware that a gentleman so little known in London was present, it would have betrayed less of the secrets of the prison-house if this bit of nonsense had not been preconcerted by injudicious and over-zealous friends.  The turn of successful authors will, we suppose, come next; and, therefore, such of them as are not actors had better take a few lessons in bowing over the lamps and be ready.  We know some half-dozen whom this process would cause to shake in their shoes more vehemently than even the already accumulated anxieties of a first night.”

The critic was, in some sort, a seer.  The turn of the authors arrived in due course, some years later, although history has not been careful to record the name of the first English dramatist who appeared before the curtain and bowed “over the lamps.”  How far the accomplishment of this proceeding is attended by shaking in the shoes, is preluded by lessons in the art of deportment, or adds to the anxieties of a first representation, must be left for some successful playwright to reveal.

It may be noted that this calling for the author is also of foreign origin.  The first dramatist called before the curtain in France was Voltaire, after the production of “Merope;” the second was Marmontel, after the representation of his tragedy of “Dionysius.”  More than a century ago the author of a “Letter to Mr. Garrick” observed that it was then usual in France for the audience of a new and well-approved tragedy to summon the author before them that he might personally receive the tribute of public approbation due to his talents.  “Nothing like this,” he writes, “ever happened in England.”  “And I may say, never will,” commented the author of a reply to the letter, with more confidence than correctness of prophecy.  Further, he writes, “I know not how far a French audience may carry their complaisance, but, were I in the author’s case, I should be unwilling to trust to the civility of an English pit or gallery....  Suppose that every play that is offered should be received, and suppose that some one of them should happen to be damned, might not an English