ate
paper of rules for rehearsals, which I have found in his handwriting, I
quote the opening and the close. "Remembering the very imperfect
condition of all our plays at present, the general expectation in
reference to them, the kind of audience before which they will be
presented, and the near approach of the nights of performance, I hope
everybody concerned will abide by the following regulations, and will
aid in strictly carrying them out." Elaborate are the regulations set
forth, but I take only the three last. "Silence, on the stage and in the
theatre, to be faithfully observed; the lobbies &c. being always
available for conversation. No book to be referred to on the stage; but
those who are imperfect to take their words from the prompter. Everyone
to act, as nearly as possible, as on the night of performance; everyone
to speak out, so as to be audible through the house. And every mistake
of exit, entrance, or situation, to be corrected _three times_
successively." He closes thus. "All who were concerned in the first
getting up of _Every Man in his Humour_, and remember how carefully the
stage was always kept then, and who have been engaged in the late
rehearsals of the _Merry Wives_, and have experienced the difficulty of
getting on, or off: of being heard, or of hearing anybody else: will, I
am sure, acknowledge the indispensable necessity of these regulations."

[150] I give the sums taken at the several theatres. Haymarket, L319
14_s._; Manchester, L266 12_s._ 6_d._; Liverpool, L467 6_s._ 6_d._;
Birmingham, L327 10_s._, and L262 18_s._ 6_d._; Edinburgh, L325 1_s._
6_d._; Glasgow, L471 7_s._ 8_d._, and (at half the prices of the first
night) L210 10_s._

[151] "Those Rabbits have more nature in them than you commonly find in
Rabbits"--the self-commendatory remark of an aspiring animal-painter
showing his piece to the most distinguished master in that line--was
here in my friend's mind.

[152] Mr. Tonson was a small part in the comedy entrusted with much
appropriateness to Mr. Charles Knight, whose _Autobiography_ has this
allusion to the first performance, which, as Mr. Pepys says, is "pretty
to observe." "The actors and the audience were so close together that as
Mr. Jacob Tonson sat in Wills's Coffee-house he could have touched with
his clouded cane the Duke of Wellington." (iii. 116.)

CHAPTER XVIII.

SEASIDE HOLIDAYS.

1848-1851.

Louis Philippe dethroned--French Missive from