n the way of certificates, passes,
examinations, and diplomas. There was no need of ticket, or voucher,
or preparation of any kind to obtain admission to the ranks of the
players. "Can you shout?" a manager once inquired of a novice. "Then
only shout in the right places, and you'll do." No doubt this implied
that even in the matter of shouting some science is involved. And
there may be men who cannot shout at all, let the places be right or
wrong. Still the stage can find room and subsistence of a sort for
all, even for mutes. But carry a banner, walk in a procession, or form
one of a crowd, and you may still call yourself actor, though not an
actor of a high class, certainly. The histrionic calling is a ladder
of many rungs. Remain on the lowest or mount to the highest--it is
only a question of degree--you are a player all the same.

The Thespian army had no need of a recruiting-sergeant or a press-gang
to reinforce its ranks. There have always been amateurs lured by the
mere spectacle of the foot-lights, as moths by a candle. Crabbe's
description of the strollers in his "Borough" was a favourite passage
with Sir Walter Scott, and was often read to him in his last fatal
illness:

Of various men these marching troops are made,
Pen-spurning clerks and lads contemning trade;
Waiters and servants by confinement teased,
And youths of wealth by dissipation eased;
With feeling nymphs who, such resource at hand,
Scorn to obey the rigour of command, &c. &c.

And even to the skilled and experienced actors a wandering life
offered potent attractions. Apart from its liberty and adventure, its
defiance of social convention and restraint, ambition had space to
stir, and vanity could be abundantly indulged in the itinerant
theatre. Dekker speaks of the bad presumptuous players, who out of a
desire to "wear the best jerkin," and to "act great parts, forsake the
stately and more than Roman city stages," and join a strolling
company. By many it was held better to reign in a vagrant than to
serve in an established troop--preferable to appear as Hamlet in the
provinces than to play Horatio or Guildenstern in town. And then, in
the summer months, when the larger London houses were closed,
strolling became a matter of necessity with a large number of actors;
they could gain a subsistence in no other way. "The little theatre in
the Haymarket," as it was wont to be called, which opened its doors in
summer, when it