ceship, and for whose talent they had encouraged a preference.

I am not of those who look upon the bond linking audience and actor as
a mercenary contract, for the hours during which the latter yields his
quantum of strength and spirit to the former for so much coin, and there
is an end. Were I, unhappily, possessed by such a morbid feeling, I
could no longer act, the spell would be broken. It is true, I might
constrain bone and sinew to administer to my necessities, and continue
to barter these with the public for bread; but the inspiring spirit
would be away, sunk past recall. Severed from the sympathies of those it
wrought for, it would cease to lighten upon the scene, which the power
of enlisting those sympathies alone redeems from contempt.

But it is not so, as every well-constituted mind will avouch.
Preference, and a constant expression of favour from his auditory,
necessarily beget a kind feeling in return: the actor is aware also that
he is not always in a condition to fulfil his part of the bond; illness,
low spirits, crosses, losses, or any of "the thousand ills that flesh is
heir to," rob the mind of its elasticity, and the body of its power; yet
rarely does the disappointed auditor turn on the favourite and act the
clamorous creditor.

Even in very extreme cases, what a spirit of forbearance have we seen
exhibited, what positive sympathy have we felt extended in our own time
to cherished players! It is at such moments that, more exposed, as he
is, to immediate censure, and more helpless than any other of the
servants of the public, he also feels himself more especially, more
kindly considered, and, if possessed of a kindly heart, cannot fail to
be touched by the feeling.

After illness or prolonged absence too, it is in the electric burst of
welcome, the enthusiastically prolonged cheer of gratulation, and in the
genuine pleasure sparkling from hundreds of uplifted ardent eyes, that
the man who devotes himself to win the player's meed receives his brief,
his shadowy it may be, but his inspiring triumph, accompanied by the
assurance that he is closely linked with the kindest feelings of those
who for the scene are subject to his thrall.

And when at length the hour of farewell comes, it is in the anxious
pause, the breathless attention, yet more impressive than all other
species of homage, that "the poor player," about to be "heard no more,"
reads the assurance that on the many young fresh hearts now s