three per cent., sometimes without receiving any interest whatever, but merely with a view to the safer custody of her resources.  It was with exceeding difficulty that she was eventually persuaded to become a fundholder.  She handed over her store of gold to her stockbroker with extraordinary trepidation.  It is satisfactory to be assured that at last she accorded perfect confidence to the Old Lady in Threadneedle Street, increased her investments from time to time, and learned to find pleasure in visiting London half-yearly to receive her dividends.

Altogether Mrs. Baker appears to have been a thoroughly estimable woman, cordially regarded by the considerate members of the theatrical profession with whom she had dealings.  While recording her eccentricities, and conceding that occasionally her language was more forcible and idiomatic than tasteful or refined, Dibdin hastens to add that “she owned an excellent heart, with much of the appearance and manners of a gentlewoman.”  Grimaldi was not less prompt in expressing his complete satisfaction in regard to his engagements with “the manageress.”  Dibdin wrote the epitaph inscribed above her grave in the cathedral yard of Rochester.  A few lines may be extracted, but it must be said that the composition is of inferior quality: 

                                   Alone, untaught,
    And self-assisted (save by Heaven), she sought
    To render each his own, and fairly save
    What might help others when she found a grave;
    By prudence taught life’s troubled waves to stem,
    In death her memory shines, a rich, unpolished gem.

It is conceivable—­so much may perhaps be added by way of concluding note—­that Mrs. Baker unconsciously posed as a model, and lent a feature or two, when the portrait came to be painted of even a more distinguished “manageress,” whose theatre was a caravan, however, whose company consisted of waxen effigies, and who bore the name of—­Jarley.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE PIT.

There is something to be written about the rise and fall of the pit:  its original humility, its possession for a while of great authority, and its forfeiture, of late years, of power in the theatre.  We all know Shakespeare’s opinion of “the groundlings,” and how he held them to be, “for the most part, capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.”  The great dramatist’s contemporaries entertained similar views on this head.  They are to be found speaking with supreme contempt of the audience occupying the yard; describing them as “fools,” and “scarecrows,” and “understanding, grounded men.”