Ensuite ils furent mis au
fond des troisieme loges, puis aux secondes, enfin entre le theatre et
la parterre, ou ils sont restes."

Theatres differ little save in regard to their dimensions. The minor
house is governed by the same laws, is conducted upon the same system,
as the major one. It is as a humbler and cheaper edition, but it
repeats down to minute particulars the example of its costly original.
The orchestra, or some form of orchestra, is always indispensable.
Even that street-corner tragedy which sets forth the story of Punch
and Judy, could not be presented without its pandean-pipe
accompaniment. The lowest vagrant theatre must, like the lady in the
nursery ballad, have music wherever it goes. No doubt this is often of
most inferior quality, suggestive of a return to very early musical
methods. But poverty constrains to primitiveness. Mr. Pepys,
comparing the state of the stage under Killigrew to what it had been
in earlier years, notes: "Then, two or three fiddlers; now, nine or
ten of the best," &c. The orchestra of a strolling theatre has been
known to consist of one fiddler only, and he has been required to
combine with his musical exertions the discharge of secretarial
duties, enlivened by occasional appearances on the stage to strengthen
casts, or help fill up the scene. The strollers' band is often of
uncertain strength. For when the travelling company meets with
misadventure, the orchestra are usually the first to prove unfaithful.
They are the Swiss of the troop. The receipts fail, and the musicians
desert. They carry their gifts elsewhere, and seek independent
markets. The fairs, the racecourses, the country inn-doors, attract
the fiddler, and he strolls on his own account, when the payment of
salaries is suspended. A veteran actor was wont to relate his
experiences of fifty years ago as a member of the Stratford-upon-Avon
company, when the orchestra consisted only of a fife and a tambourine,
the instrumentalists performing, as they avowed, "not from notes but
entirely by ear." Presently the company removed to Warwick for the
race week. But here the managerial difficulties increased--no band
whatever could be obtained! This was the more distressing in that the
performances were to be of an illegitimate character: a "famous
tight-rope dancer" had been engaged. The dancer at once declared that
his exhibition without music was not for a moment to be thought of.
One of the company thereupon obligingl