ay, for
the itinerant theatre afforded no copyist then to write neatly out
each actor's share in the dialogues and speeches. Night brought the
performance, and, for the player engaged as "utility," infinite change
of dress and "making-up" of his face to personate a variety of
characters. The company would, probably, be outnumbered by the
_dramatis personae_, in which case it would devolve upon the actor to
assume many parts in one play. Thus, supposing Hamlet to be announced
for representation, the stroller of inferior degree might be called
upon to appear as Francisco, afterwards as a lord-in-waiting in the
court scenes, then as Lucianus, "nephew to the king," then as one of
the grave-diggers, then as a lord again, or, it might be, Osric, the
fop, in the last act. Other duties, hardly less arduous, would fall to
him in the after-pieces. "I remember," said King, the actor famous as
being the original Sir Peter Teazle and Lord Ogleby, "that when I had
been but a short time on the stage, I performed one night King
Richard, sang two comic songs, played in an interlude, danced a
hornpipe, spoke a prologue, and was afterwards harlequin, in a sharing
company; and after all this fatigue my share came to threepence and
three pieces of candle!" A strolling manager of a later period was
wont to boast that he had performed the complete melodrama of "Rob
Roy" with a limited company of five men and three women. Hard-worked,
ill-paid, and, consequently, ill-fed, the stroller must have often led
a dreary and miserable life enough. The late Mr. Drinkwater Meadows
used to tell of his experiences with a company that travelled through
Warwickshire, and their treasury being empty, depended for their
subsistence upon their piscatorial skill. They lived for some time,
indeed, upon the trout streams of the county. They plied rod and line,
and learned their parts at the same time. "We could fish and study,
study and fish," said the actor. "I made myself perfect in Bob Acres
while fishing in the Avon, and committed the words to my memory quite
as fast as I committed the fish to my basket."

The straits and necessities of the strollers have long been a source
of entertainment to the public. In an early number of the "Spectator,"
Steele describes a company of poor players then performing at Epping.
"They are far from offending in the impertinent splendour of the
drama. Alexander the Great was acted by a fellow in a paper cravat.
The next day the