ted
entertainment, or the catalogue of a past auction of books or
pictures. It has been noted that, notwithstanding the enormous
circulation it enjoyed, the catalogue of our Great Exhibition of a
score of years ago is already a somewhat rare volume. Complete sets of
the catalogues of the Royal Academy's century of exhibitions are
possessed by very few. And of playbills of the English stage from the
Restoration down to the present time, although the British Museum can
certainly boast a rich collection, yet this is disfigured here and
there by gaps and deficiencies which cannot now possibly be supplied.

The playbill is an ancient thing. Mr. Payne Collier states that the
practice of printing information as to the time, place, and nature of
the performances to be presented by the players was certainly common
prior to the year 1563. John Northbrooke, in his treatise against
theatrical performers, published about 1579, says: "They used to set
up their bills upon posts some certain days before, to admonish people
to make resort to their theatres." The old plays make frequent
reference to this posting of the playbills. Thus, in the Induction to
"A Warning for Fair Women," 1599, Tragedy whips Comedy from the stage,
crying:

'Tis you have kept the theatre so long
Painted in playbills upon every post,
While I am scorned of the multitude.

Taylor, the water-poet, in his "Wit and Mirth," records the story of
Field the actor's riding rapidly up Fleet Street, and being stopped by
a gentleman with an inquiry as to the play that was to be played that
night. Field, "being angry to be stayed upon so frivolous a demand,
answered, that he might see what play was to be played upon every
post. 'I cry you mercy,' said the gentleman. 'I took you for a post,
you rode so fast.'"

It is strange to find that the right of printing playbills was
originally monopolised by the Stationers' Company. At a later period,
however, the privilege was assumed and exercised by the Crown. In
1620, James I. granted a patent to Roger Wood and Thomas Symcock for
the sole printing, among other things, of "all bills for playes,
pastimes, showes, challenges, prizes, or sportes whatsoever." It was
not until after the Restoration that the playbills contained a list of
the _dramatis personae_, or of the names of the actors. But it had been
usual, apparently, with the title of the drama, to supply the name of
its author, and its description as a tragedy