have burked it at once had he suspected its
existence. Nor was it fostered, like the former Oxford theatricals to
which we have alluded, by royal patronage; we could not, consistently
with decorum, request her Majesty to encourage an illegitimate.
Nevertheless--spite of its being thus born under the rose--it grew and
prospered. Our plan of rehearsal was original. We used to adjourn from
dinner to the rooms of one or other of the company; and there, over our
wine and dessert, instead of quizzing freshmen and abusing tutors, open
each our copy, and, with all due emphasis and intonation, go regularly
through the scenes of "She Stoops to Conquer." This was all the study we
ever gave to our parts: and even thus it was difficult to get a muster
of all the performers, and we had generally to play dummy for some one
or more of the characters, or "double" them, as the professionals call
it. The excuses for absenteeism were various. Mrs Hardcastle and Tony
were gone to Woodstock with a team, and were not to be waited for;
Diggory had a command to dine with the principal; and once an
interesting dialogue was cut short by the untoward event of Miss
Neville's being "confined"--in consequence of some indiscretion or
other--"to chapel." It was necessary in our management, as much as in Mr
Bunn's or Mr Macready's, to humour the caprices of the stars of the
company: but the lesser lights, if they became eccentric at all in their
orbits, were extinguished without mercy. Their place was easily
supplied; for the moment it became known that a play was in
contemplation, there were plenty of candidates for dramatic fame,
especially among the freshmen: and though we mortally offended one or
two aspiring geniuses by proffering them the vacant situations of Ralph,
Roger, and Co., in Mr Hardcastle's household, on condition of having
their respective blue dress coats turned up with yellow to represent the
family livery, there were others to whom the being admitted behind the
scenes, even in these humble characters, was a subject of laudable
ambition. Nay, unimportant as were some parts in themselves, they were
quite enough for the histrionic talent of some of our friends. Till I
became a manager myself, I always used to lose patience at the wretched
manner in which some of the underlings on the stage went through the
little they had to say and do: there seemed no reason why the "sticks"
should be so provokingly sticky; and it surprised me that a ma