"he gives a lustre and brilliance which dazzle the sight, that the shortcomings in the poetry cannot be perceived." When he appeared in his great parts, Arbaces ("King and No King") Amintor, Othello, Rollo ("Bloody Brother,") Brutus, Alexander, the theatre was always crammed. He was equally fine in comedy. "In all comedies and tragedies," remarks another writer of the age, "he was concerned in, he performed with that exactness and perfection that not any of his successors have equalled him." "Mrs. Knipp tells me," writes Pepys, "that my Lady Castlemaine is mightily in love with Hart of their house; and he is much with her in private, and she goes to him and do give him many presents." Hart's salary never exceeded £3 a week; but when he became a sharer he realised a thousand a year, a very fine income in those days. Upon his retirement in 1682 he was allowed forty shillings a week, but he died in the following year.

JOE HAINES was an excellent comic actor, a wit and a practical jester, whose society was sought by the best people of the time. He was a scholar, had been educated at Oxford, and had been Latin Secretary to Sir Joseph Williamson before he took to the stage. There are enough good stories told of his impudent and mischievous disposition to fill a small volume. Once he served Hart a cruel trick. The great tragedian rather arbitrarily insisted upon his going on one night for a senator in "Catiline,"

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although his position in the theatre, and his salary being fifty shillings a week, exempted him from such service. Joe resolved to be revenged; he put on a Scaramouch's dress, a large ruff, huge whiskers and a Merry Andrew's cap, and thus attired, with a short pipe in his mouth and a three-legged stool in his hand, followed Catiline on to the stage. Hart was always so absorbed in the part he was acting, that he had no eyes or ears for anything else, and, no matter what occurred, would never suffer his attention to be for a moment distracted. When Joe entered, seated himself upon his stool, and began laughing and grinning behind the tragedian's back, the house was in a roar; but although he wondered what was amiss, he went on acting, without once turning his head, until a movement in the part revealed to him the ludicrous Haines was immediately turned out of the theatre. Soon afterwards he met with a naval chaplain who was seeking a living, and succeeded in persuading the credulous parson that he could procure him the appointment of chaplain of the theatre, with a handsome salary. All he would have to do would be to summon the company to prayers every morning by ringing a bell and repeating the formula, "Players, players, come to prayers!" "But," he added, "there's a terrible man there, named Hart, who will rush out and abuse you; but take no notice of him, he's either mad or an

scene.

atheist." The next morning he introduced the clergyman behind the scenes, placed a bell in his hand, and disappeared to watch the joke. The victim began ringing his bell and shouting in a very sonorous voice, "Players, players, come to prayers!" and all the company gathered round, highly amused, thinking he was insane, until Hart succeeded in obtaining an explanation. Upon which he very quickly opened his eyes to the trick that had been put upon his credulity, and, very indignant himself at it, invited the chaplain to dine with him. But this jest might have had serious consequences for the inventor, had not his ready wit been equal to any occasion; for the victim had a choleric son, who sought him out and insisted upon his fighting upon the spot. "Give me only a few minutes to pray," said Haines, "and I am at your service." Upon which he fell upon his knees and supplicated in a loud voice for pardon for having previously killed seventeen men in duels, and for the eighteenth he was about to add to their number, which so cooled the challenger's courage that he took to his heels. Once, when Joe was arrested in the street for debt, he saw the Bishop of Ely's carriage coming along. Struck by an audacious idea, he said to the bailiffs, "That is my cousin, and if you will let me speak to him he will settle your demands." The bailiffs assented. Joe stopped the carriage, and, hat in hand, thrust his head through the window. "My

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lord,” he said, in a tone of great emotion, "here are two poor Catholic fellows who are so troubled by doubts and scruples of conscience that I'm afraid they'll hang themselves." "Come to me to-morrow morning and I'll satisfy you," said the bishop, addressing the bailiffs. Joe went free, and next morning the two men waited upon his lordship. "Now, what are these scruples of conscience you have ?" inquired the bishop. "Please, your lordship, we have no scruples of conscience," answered one of the fellows, "we are bailiffs, who yesterday arrested your cousin, Joe Haines, for £20, and you said you would satisfy us." would satisfy us." And the bishop thought it best to do so. In James II's reign Joe pretended to be a convert to the Catholic faith, and declared that the Virgin had appeared to him. Lord Sunderland sent for him, and asked him if this was really true. "Yes, my lord," replied Haines, "I assure you 'tis a fact." "How was it, pray ?" inquired my lord. "Why, as I was lying in my bed, the Virgin appeared to me and said, Arise, Joe!'” "You lie, you rogue," retorted Sunderland, "for if it had been the Virgin herself, she would have said Joseph, if it had only been out of respect for her husband." After the Revolution he appeared upon the stage in a white sheet, with a taper in his hand, and delivered some doggrel rhymes in sign of recantation. He died in 1701.

In 1629, as I have recorded in a previous page, theatre-goers were so shocked by the appearance of women upon the public stage, that they hissed and pelted them off. In Davenant's patent, issued thirtyone years afterwards, occurs this clause: "Whereas the women's parts in plays have hitherto been acted by men, at which some have taken offence, we do permit and give leave for the time to come that all women's parts be acted by women." What a change in public opinion in so short a period! Yet boys continued to share in the performance of female characters for some years after the Restoration. In 1672, "Philaster" and other pieces were acted at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields entirely by women, and Dryden wrote two very indecent prologues for the occasion. Desdemona was the first English part sustained by a lady, and that important event in stage history took place on the 8th of December, 1660, at the Red Bull. A prologue, still extant, was written by one Thomas Jordan for the occasion, and entitled, "A Prologue to introduce the first woman that came to act on the stage, in the tragedy called The Moor of Venice.' half-apologetic tone of the composition shows the experiment was approached with some misgivings. How it was received on that occasion has not been recorded, neither do we know the name of the person who had the honour to be the mother of the English stage. It lies between Mrs. Sanderson,

The