that industry; the established actors had no
more apprentices, now to serve as their footboys and pages, and now as
heroines of tragedy and comedy. A modern playgoer may well have a
difficulty in believing that these had ever any real existence,
sharing Lamb's amazement at a boy-Juliet, a boy-Desdemona, a
boy-Ophelia. There must have been much skill among the players; much
simple good faith, contentment, and willingness to connive at
theatrical illusion on the part of the audience. It must have been
hard to tolerate a heroine with too obvious a beard, or of very
perceptible masculine breadth of shoulders, length of limb, and
freedom of gait. Let us note in conclusion that there is clearly a
"boy-actress" among the players welcomed by Hamlet to Elsinore,
although the modern stage has rarely taken note of the fact. The
player-queen, when not robed for performance in the tragedy of "The
Mousetrap," should wear a boy's dress. "What, my young lady and
mistress!" says Hamlet jestingly to the youthful apprentice; and he
adds allusion to the boy's increase of stature: "By'r lady, your
ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude
of a _chopine!_"--in other words: "How the boy has grown!"--a chopine
being a shoe with a heel of inordinate height. And then comes
reference to that change of voice from alto to bass which attends
advance from boyhood to adolescence.

CHAPTER XVII.

STAGE WHISPERS.

When the consummate villain of melodrama mysteriously approaches the
foot-lights, and, with a scowl at the front row of the pit, remarks:
"I must dissemble," or something to that effect, it is certain that he
is perfectly audible in all parts of the theatre in which he performs;
and yet it is required of the personages nearest to him on the
stage--let us say, the rival lover he has resolved to despatch and the
beauteous heroine he has planned to betray--that they should pretend
to be absolutely deaf to his observation, the manifest gravity of its
bearing upon their interests and future happiness notwithstanding.
Moreover, we who are among the spectators are bound to credit this
curious auricular infirmity on the part of the lover and the lady. We
can of course hear perfectly well the speech of their playfellow, and
are thoroughly aware that from their position they must of necessity
hear it at least as distinctly as we do. Yet it is incumbent upon us
to ignore our convictions and perceptions on this head