These big letters.  There is a want of respectability about it, or rather a notoriety, which gives one the feeling of an absconded felon, against whom a hue-and-cry is made public.  Or if there be really any advantage in it, why should I, or any single individual, take it over the rest of our brethren?  But it has a nasty disreputable look, and I have fancied the whole day the finger of the town pointed at me, as much as to say, ’That is he!  Now for the reward!’ Leave this expedient to the police officers, or to those who have a taste for it.  I have none.”

Macready, under date of 28th September, 1840, enters in his journal:  “Spoke to Webster on the subject of next year’s engagement.  He said that he understood I had said that while I was comfortable at the Haymarket I would stay. I mentioned the position of my name on the playbills; that it should not, on any occasion be put under any other person’s, as it had been; that I should have the right to a private box when they were not let,” &c.

O’Keeffe relates that once when an itinerant showman brought over to Dublin a trained monkey of great acquirements, Mossop engaged the animal at a large salary to appear for a limited number of nights at his theatre.  Mossop’s name in the playbill was always in a type nearly two inches long, the rest of the performers’ names being in very small letters.  But to the monkey were devoted capitals of equal size to Mossop’s; so that, greatly to the amusement of the public, on the playbills pasted about the town, nothing could be distinguished but the words, MOSSOP, MONKEY.  Under John Kemble’s management, “for his greater ease and the quiet of the theatre,” letters of unreasonable size were abandoned, and the playbills were printed after an amended and more modest pattern.

With the rise and growth of the press came the expediency of advertising the performances of the theatres in the columns of the newspapers.  To the modern manager advertisements are a very formidable expense.  The methods he is compelled to resort to in order to bring his plays and players well under the notice of the public, involve a serious charge upon his receipts.  But of old the case was precisely the reverse.  The theatres were strong, the newspapers were weak.  So far from the manager paying money for the insertion of his advertisements in the journals, he absolutely received profits on this account.  The press then suffered under severe restrictions, and was most jealously regarded by the governing powers; leading articles were as yet unknown; the printing of parliamentary debates was strictly prohibited; foreign intelligence was scarcely obtainable; of home news there was little stirring that could with safety be promulgated.  So that the proceedings of the theatres became of real importance to the newspaper proprietor, and it was worth his while to pay considerable sums for early information in this respect.  Moreover, in those days, not merely by reason of its own merits, but