r some such
institution.

The wonderful picture, given in "Nickleby," of the Portsmouth playhouse,
with all its characters and accessories and inner life, shows the most
intimate familiarity with all the ways and fashions of the old Provincial
Theatre. Every touch--Crummles, Folair, Lenville, Snivelicci--proves
clearly that he knew perfectly the life behind the scenes, and that he
wrote of it _con amore_. There was a firm belief at the Theatre Royal,
Portsmouth, that all the performers in "Nickleby" were personal sketches
of this corps. One actor told my friend, Mr. Walter Pollock, that they
could even identify Folair, Lenville & Co., and that there was a playbill
still extant in which either the names or the pieces corresponded. But
in this theory, however, little faith can be placed; for at the time the
family was at Portsmouth, Dickens was but a child not more than ten or
twelve years old, and not likely, therefore, to be taken behind the
scenes, or to pick up or observe much. It is certain that the whole
description of the Theatre and its company, with the minute and intimate
details of stage life, was drawn from this little house at Rochester. But
we can go beyond mere speculation.

In one of his retrospections, Boz tells us of a visit he paid to
Rochester in the fifties, "scenes among which my _early days_ were past."
The town he calls Dullborough, which is a little hard on the place. He
went to look at the old theatre, and reveals to us how it brought back to
him a number of reminiscences, which shows that he was much associated
with stage matters when a youth, for he describes Richard III. and
Macbeth all "cast" and mounted exactly as Mr. Crummles would have mounted
them. "There was Richard in a very uncomfortable wig, and sleeping in
war time on a sofa that was much too short for him, and his conscience
fearfully troubled his boots." There was the lovely young woman, "who
went out gleaning, in a narrow, white muslin apron, with five beautiful
bars of five different colours across it. The witches bore an awful
resemblance to the Thanes and other inhabitants of Scotland; while the
good King Duncan couldn't rest in his grave, but was constantly coming
out of it and calling himself somebody else." These are all Crummles
touches, only he refrained from going again over the old ground. But one
point further favours the theory--he recalls his alarm when Richard in
his terrific combat was "backing up again