it, partly on account of incapacity and partly discouraged by the poverty, privations and hardships they encountered. Warren felt so confident of success, that he resolved to take advantage of the first opportunity that should present itself of applying for admission into some of those itinerant companies of players who travel up and down acting plays through all parts of England.

He was not yet seventeen years of age when the opportunity for which he so ardently panted fell in his way. At a town called Chippenham, thirteen miles from Bath, on the London road, a company was collected, under the direction of one of those who, by the courtesy of their own profession, are styled " Country Managers;" but by the sneering licentiousness of the vulgar and illiberal are denominated Strollers. Our Chippenham manager was one who contrived to render himself, during his lifetime, rather notorious than conspicuous by his conduct to his actors, and was the same who has, since his death, been gibetted up to execration by Riley in that curious medley of fact, borrowed anecdote, and invented incident, called "The Itinerant." The name of this extraordinary character, whom Riley has skewered, spitted and roasted with such address under the name of Riggs, was Biggs, and he was the father of a brood of histrions, three of whom were at that time performing in his company; to wit, James, a tolerable low comedian; Binny (we suppose Albina) now Mrs. Grove; and Anne, who first as Miss Biggs, and now as Mrs. Young, has for several years been one of the prime favorites of the 'London audience, and is unquestionably a conspicuous ornament to the stage.

There being no newspaper published at Chippenham, Biggs advertised his performances in the Bath papers; some of which falling into the hands of Warren and his associates, they formed the resolution of setting off for Chippenham and offering themselves to the manager. They did so. Warren being desired by Biggs to give him a specimen of his qualifications, spoke one of the speeches of young Norval, to which the other having listened very attentively, declared it to be admirable; and expressed the most perfect satisfaction not only at the delivery but the action of our youngster. "I should have had no great cause to plume myself upon his approbation," said Warren, "if I had then known as much as I did afterwards; for Biggs knew no more whether I was right or wrong than the meanest candlesnuffer in his employment." Whatever foundation there was for Biggs's favorable

opinion, it had at least the happy effect of procuring our youth a welcome reception into the company; and might have been also, in some respect, an inducement with Biggs to receive on trial Warren's companions, who were not equally intitled to approbation.

The night for taking his more awful trial before the tribunal of the public being appointed, Warren appeared, for the first time in his life on a public stage, in the character of young Norval. One of his companions of the name of Smith was put forward at the same time in the character of Glenalvon. Smith completely failed-but Warren succeeded far beyond his own expectations; and Biggs was not only highly pleased with his new acquisition, but extremely proud of his own sagacity and penetration in discovering so soon the young man's talents. Had our young adventurer received such warm testimonials of satisfaction from a judicious critical audience, he would have had just cause to exult; the plaudits bestowed upon him being loud, frequent, and repeated from the first to the last. But," to tell the truth," says he, "I have often since been astonished at the obtuseness of faculties of our small country town audiences in England, and have wondered not only how they could enjoy and applaud, but how they could endure such wretched performers and performances as they frequently have served up to them."

Before we go farther it may be as well to bring the reader a little acquainted with this Mr. Biggs, or Riggs as Riley calls him. Biggs in person, face, intellect and education was perhaps less fitted for the profession of a player than any man that ever stept upon a stage. He was broad, fat and unwieldy. His large face, fleshy, bloated, circular, unmarked by muscle, and destitude of shade, because utterly colorless, was naturally incapable of any expression but that of gluttony, or stupid phlegm: if it could be said to display an outward sign of any inward emotion, it was that of purseproud exultation, or occasionally of anger. The gifts of nature to this pretty child of hers were highly improved for the profession by accident and habit,-for by the former he was crippled and had a bowed iron supplement to one of his legs; and by the latter he had acquired the most absurd and ridiculous deportment and gesticulation imaginable. Nor did this curious assemblage of personal beauties want any advantage it could derive from dress, which generally looked as if it had been culled, article

by article, with the most scrupulous regard to the setting off such a person, from the cast wardrobe of a theatre. Such a ludicrous composition of old and new fashions, of grave and gay, of tawdry finery and beastly slovenliness, has seldom been seen out of the farcery of the stage. The prevailing characteristic of it, however, was faded frippery. In a shabby scarlet waistcoat, bound with shabby gold lace, was that sepulchre of "victuals crude and carnal," his påunch, enveloped. The color of his coat was generally one of those bright kinds which the vulgar choose for finery sake-such as powder blue, pea green, or flashy dabs of that sort; and as those soon fade, and he wore them to the last shred, for nine tenths of his time at least, his coat was shabby. A large tie wig, with enormous curls, embellished his face, which, streaming at every pore, was commonly besprent with moisture, so that it shone as if it had been recently washed with oil. When these exhalations were so copious as to trickle down his forehead, his hand was often the succedaneum for a handkerchief; and with his fore finger, he scraped rather than wiped it away. To cap the edifice, he wore a round hat small enough for a boy of sixteen.

The language of the man was worthy of such a person. It was a compound of all the vulgar slangs which separately distinguish Wapping, St. Giles's and the jails, mixed up with the cant of the stroller's green room; and it seemed as if Mesdames Slipslop and Malaprop were the models on which he had formed his style. Of this Riley has given several specimens in his Itinerant; but Warren thinks the description rather exaggerated. That the fellow was very ignorant he owns, but not so extremely ignorant as Riley has described him.

To finish the picture: this disgusting mass of worthlessness was vain beyond all example, and particularly boastful of his wealth, upon all occasions pulling out his purse and displaying his guineas, or as he was wont to call them his "goldfinches," his "singing birds."

Biggs had neither a regular established theatre, nor a permanent company; but having got possession of movable theatrical property to a considerable amount, that is to say, of scenery, decorations, library, music, and wardrobe, and having some money in hand, he contrived to collect about him a company of players, of one sort or other, with which he moved up and down the country, stopping at

such towns as had no established theatre or stationary company, and there performing plays as long as he could draw money enough to pay the expenses of performing. If the place in which he intended to play, happened to be an assises town, he applied to the magistrate for a grant of the session house to act in: if not, he got into some public assembly room, or, if there were none, he contented himself with the most spacious apartment he could hire, which he fitted up and decorated rather handsomely. Though rapacious to excess, he was purseproud and vain, and had the ambition to be thought splendid in the decoration of his theatre. At Chippenham he had the town-hall fitted up very neatly. The jury box serving for a gallery.

With most of the fraternity of country managers, the performers generally play upon shares: a system which gives the former a grievous advantage over those who are condemned to serve under them, leaving the unfortunate sufferers almost entirely at the mercy of the principal for their quota of the profits. If the manager be honest, the players come in for their just right and no more; but if, on the other hand, he be a knave, they are sure to be fleeced. And although, among those travelling managers, there are not wanting men who would reflect credit on a much higher station, and who treat their actors with justice and even generosity and fatherly kindness, it is to be feared that the majority are of a very different description. The celebrated James Whiteley, mentioned in the biography of Hodgkinson, is said to have been one of the former: of the latter, this Biggs was a memorable instance. Indeed the means by which they have it in their power to peculate upon their company, (though not without suspicion, at least without open discovery), are so many and so very practicable, that it requires more virtue than men of loose lives in general possess, to resist the temptation. The expenditures and receipts being entirely in their hands, they can swell the account they render of the one, and diminish that of the other, without incurring the least risk of positive detection, and during this process the poor actor undergoes every species of distress.

Biggs was not only one of those harpies, but was in all likelihood the very worst of them. At the time Warren joined his company, he had no less than nine shares on the following accounts: for his three children one share each, (to this they were justly intitled, being good performers); for dead shares as they are called, that is,

scenery, wardrobe, &c. four; for himself a share; and a share for his wife. These two last were palpable impositions; because so far from either being useful as actors, they were downright nusances on the stage. But this was not all. Biggs pretended to scrape the fiddle, and some nights set himself down half a crown for his assistance in the orchestra.

Besides all this, he bought every thing for the performances, and charged what he pleased for it; and he received in person the money at the door, and rendered what account of the sum he thought proper. Thus he contrived so to manage it that the shares of the actors might, without much exaggeration, be compared to those which the Lion in the fable allowed to his subject beasts, who hunted down the prey for him. It is to practices of this kind, and not to the indifference of the people of England to theatrical exhibitions, the distresses of itinerant actors, for ages proverbial, are to be ascribed. It is this, which drives so many of them to humiliating and often disreputable expedients for the support of life; and subjects the whole body, on their account, to the contempt and derision of a stupid, ignorant and unfeeling population. Among those victims of managerial fraud and cunning, there are many men of genius, sterling worth and exalted sentiment, who for years, nay some for their whole lives, languish in penury, and in circumstances the most afflicting; not in obscurity, for in their situation obscurity were comparative comfort, but in visible, broad day-light humiliation-in elevated misery;-as actors, for their hour admired and applauded on the stage; as men, contemned and neglected, because in distress.

But, to return to our subject. Elated to rapture with the applause he had received in young Norval, our young candidate for fame returned to Bath; where, having informed his father and mother of the step he had taken, and the success he had met with, and thereby smoothed the reluctant brow of parental authority, he applied himself with unremitted earnestness and industry to the study of some characters in which he hoped soon to establish still higher claims to the applause of the public; being determined to make as soon as possible another attempt, and to plant his foot firmly and permanently upon the stage. He had not been long engaged thus, when he was interrupted by Biggs, who unexpect edly arrived at Bath and desired to see him.