The juvenile patron of the drama will, of course, in due time become less absorbed in his own view of the situation, and learn that just as one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so the pleasures of some are the pains of others.  He will cease to search the faces of the orchestra for any evidence of “pride of place,” or enjoyment of performances they witness, not as volunteers, but as pressed men.  He will understand that they are at work, and are influenced by a natural anxiety to escape from work as soon as may be.  So, the overture ended, they vanish, and leave the actors to do their best or their worst, as the case may be.  But our young friend’s sentiments are not peculiar to himself—­have been often shared, indeed, by very experienced persons.  We have heard of comic singers and travelling entertainment givers who have greatly resented the air of indifference of their musical accompanist.  They have required of him that he should feel amused, or affect to feel amused, by their efforts.  He has had to supplement his skill as a musician by his readiness as an actor.  It has been thought desirable that the audience should be enabled to exclaim:  “The great So-and-So must be funny!  Why, see, the man at the piano, who plays for him every night, who has, of course, seen his performances scores and scores of times, even he can’t help laughing, the great So-and-So is so funny.”  The audience, thus convinced, find themselves, no doubt, very highly amused.  Garrick himself appears, on one occasion at any rate, to have been much enraged at the indifference of a member of his band.  Cervetto, the violoncello player, once ventured to yawn noisily and portentously while the great actor was delivering an address to the audience.  The house gave way to laughter.  The indignation of the actor could only be appeased by Cervetto’s absurd excuse, that he invariably yawned when he felt “the greatest rapture,” and to this emotion the address to the house, so admirably delivered by his manager, had justified him in yielding.  Garrick accepted the explanation, perhaps rather on account of its humour than of its completeness.

Music and the drama have been inseparably connected from the most remote date.  Even in the cart of Thespis some corner must have been found for the musician.  The custom of chanting in churches has been traced to the practice of the ancient and pagan stage.  Music pervaded the whole of the classical drama, was the adjunct of the poetry:  the play being a kind of recitation, the declamation composed and written in notes, and the gesticulations even being accompanied.  The old miracle plays were assisted by performers on the horn, the pipe, the tabret, and the flute—­a full orchestra in fact.  Mr. Payne Collier, in his “Annals of the Stage,” points out that at the end of the prologue to “Childermas Day,” 1512, the minstrels are required to “do their diligence,” the same expression being employed at the close of the performance, when they are besought either themselves to dance, or to play a dance for the entertainment of the company: