By his rapacity and inhuman extortion Biggs had so entirely alienated the hearts of the actors, that he was often obliged to shut up his theatre for want of assistants. Considering the nature of the man, it is not a little extraordinary that any actor who knew his character should enter into his employment at all; or that those who were ignorantly surprised into it should remain with him many weeks. Besides, exclusive of his conduct to them, travelling actors are considered as having a strong propensity to wandering, to novelty of situation and change of place, which they indulge often to the great detriment of their professional character and pecuniary interest. This propensity is first engendered by the despotism of the mimic monarchs they serve, and the distresses in which it involves them; for who is he that in misery does not hope to obtain relief by change of place? To this impulse from distress, the sagacious Horace remarks, that even the dull phlegmatic merchant himself is not insensible.

Impiger extremos currit mercator ad Indos,

Per mare pauperiem fugiens, per saxa, per ignes.

How then should that mercurial, sublimated being, an actor, be expected to rest motionless while buffeted by tyranny, or patiently to sojourn with poverty and contempt? Beside, while they are thus impelled forward by motives so very urgent, they are but little retarded in their migrations by incumbrance or impediment. Like soldiers, they are in general ready for a march, on short noticethey are rarely incumbered with heavy baggage, and if they have not cash to spare for a seat in the inside of a stage-coach or on the out, they can at all times resort to the pad which Bishop Jewell gave to the immortal Hooker to help him on his journey—a stick; and being used to "trip it on the light fantastic toe," and moreover pretty generally in good hunting condition, they walk with surprising alacrity and ease. He must be but a poor fainthearted creature who cannot extract some consolation even from sorrow, and force misery itself to furnish him with mirth. The itinerant players have in their composition, or their habits, much of that lighthearted philosophy; and, joking upon their distresses and their penchant for migration, have got in use a pleasant, consolatory sort of a proverb: "Shoes well soled,

It was but a very short time after Warren's return to the house of his father at Bath, that Biggs once again was left in the lurch by his company, who deserted him en corps. Finding himself disabled from opening his theatre until he could procure a new suite of performers, he resolved to try his fortune among those who had not yet experienced the misery of dealing with him; and among the rest fixed upon Warren, who not only had talents to be useful, but had not yet felt the effects of his extortion or insolence. The terms he proposed were deemed fair and reasonable. Warren had not yet got an insight into the ways and means of country managers, and, being impatient to enter fully into the career of his intended profession, readily swallowed the gilded bait held out to him by Biggs. He engaged on shares with him, returned to Chippenham, and appeared there, for the second time on any stage, in the character of Don Carlos, in the Revenge. The next play Biggs got up was the West Indian, in which, to Warren's surprise and mortification, he was appointed to the character of Stockwell. Well, indeed, might he be mortified to be put at his time of life, being little more than seventeen years of age, into a character so grave and elderly. What made it more irksome to him was that his supposed son, Belcour, was performed by a coarse person, many years elder than himself, who was, in no one respect, fit for the part; his voice being exactly adapted to the office of a boatswain of a man of war, and his manner and deportment scarcely less so. This man, whose real name was Haymes, but who went by that of Kerridge, had been a coachmaker at Exeter, and took it into his head to abandon his trade in order to follow the fortunes of a strolling company. It is proper here to remark, that this was not Thomas Haymes, who was at one time the hero of Exeter, and failed in an attempt to play Belcour at Drury Lane. Such as he was, however, Biggs put Warren into old Mr. Stockwell, in order to enable Haymes to murder Belcour. Nor was this the whole amount of our youth's cause for mortification: he was obliged to go on in Stockwell, dressed in a large white bushy wig, and a suit of clothes which, being made for a stout, fat, punchy fellow, hung about him, who, as we have before remarked, was very slender, "like an old lady's loose gown," and must have made him look very ridiculous. He himself candidly says, that the whole play, and indeed all their exhibitions, were so extremely contemptible that he never thinks of them without wondering how any rational being could sit to see them out.

Finding that Warren had a good memory, a disposition to industry and diligent study, and an easy temper, Biggs imposed upon him shamefully, and gave him every long character to perform; and as the players were continually leaving the company, made him a versatile hack in all kinds of characters as it suited the needy purposes of his theatre. Hence it fell out, that, in no very long period of time, Warren had performed almost every character in play and farce; frequently doubling, as they call it, that is to say, playing two parts in the play-nay sometimes three, and afterwards performing at least one part in the afterpiece. For all this his receipts scarcely amounted to a very spare subsistence; rarely more than four shillings a week. He, in conjunction with another player of the name of Stannard, had a benefit, which produced the largest sum he had yet touched as a playerthe receipts of the house, over and above the expenses, amounting to thirty shillings, or about three dollars and a half a piece. The gentlemen of Chippenham, taking into consideration the distressed circumstances of the actors, laid a little plan for their relief, and performed two nights for them, admitting no part of the com-. pany but the actresses to play along with them. This generous scheme was successful; the profits, when fairly shared, gave about four and twenty shillings to each, with which, and the little cash he had brought from home, Warren was able to pay his way and get through the season.

Those who live in plenty, and have not known experimentally what it is to endure severe privations, will wonder how men qualified by education for the stage, and of course nurtured in comfort, could exist under such galling distress. There are few that know Warren who will not be surprised how he contrived to make out life upon the miserable pittance arising from his labours, or how for such a pittance he would work so hard. "I am convinced" says he, speaking on this subject, "that in the whole time I was with Biggs, I did not receive upon an average, more than four shillings a week. My mother, to be sure, occasionally assisted, or I could not have got on; and, as it was, my wants were great: yet I do not know that I have ever been much happier. I was blessed with a strong constitution, excellent animal spirits, and a natural disposition to contentment; and these I never impaired by intemperance."

From Chippenham, Biggs went to Warminster, a trading town

of Wiltshire, and waiting on lord Weymouth, procured a grant of the Great Ball-room over the Courthouse, to play in. There had not been a company in that town for twenty-three years before, about which time one under the management of Bates, the father of Bates the comedian, who now has a theatre in New England, performed there with little success, it is to be presumed, since it was for so many years after deserted by the actors. Notice was now given to the company to assemble at Warminster at the end of three weeks, in which time the scenery, &c. was transported there in wagons; but at the end of that three weeks, the Quarter Sessions were to be held, so that the players could not get possession of the Ball-room for a fortnight longer; and thus were those poor sufferers full five weeks without receiving a shilling. As soon as the Quarter Sessions were over, the company performed, constantly to full houses: but this success made little difference to any but Biggs, who fleeced them so that they were not better off than they had been at Chippenham.

Thus oppressed, starved, and irritated, the performers left Biggs one by one. Warren was enabled by supplies received from home, to stand his ground, and feeling averse to "unlace his reputation, and spend his rich opinion for the name of" a deserter, remained with Biggs, who now found it his interest to give him the first line of business. He played young Marlow, and characters of that cast in comedy. In tragedy too he played first characters. At the end of the season, he had Richard for his Benefit, which turned out well, being the only good one he ever had while in Biggs's Company. He actually cleared twenty-three pounds by it. How well he earned it, may be collected from the quantity of labour which fell to his share. That very night he played Richmond, Tressel, and Buckingham, besides a character in the afterpiece. How that was practicable it may puzzle those unacquainted with the arts of country companies to find out; but these things are easy enough to those who know how to do them. Whether the play be understood or not, is of little consequence to an audience of clodpoles. During this season, Warren had the advantage of constant practice in a vast variety of characters, and in the first line of business. In short, he played in every thing from Richard and Hamlet, to lord Minnikin and young Philpot.

From Warminster the company went to Frome, where they passed a miserable winter; thence to Bruton, and thence to Sher

born, in Dorsetshire, playing at each place with no success, and without any occurrence worth relating save that at Bruton, where they played in a room in an inn, Biggs erected a hanging gallery, suspended from the ceiling in the manner of a hanging shelf in a larder or pantry; in the midst of the performance, the suspenders gave way, the gallery began to descend with a crash, and the people to save themselves, in their consternation leaped down, throwing all into the most ridiculous confusion. Luckily, however, no one was hurt.

While they were at Frome, an accident befel Warren, not less distressing, and indeed not less ridiculous than that which befel the knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, with his green stockings, while sojourning at the palace of the duke. There being no chimney in the theatre, which autrefois held hay for horses, being what is vulgarly called a stable loft, a stove was placed upon a large flag stone behind the scenes. Warren had only one pair of shoes, and those were of black calamanco. It being very wet and cold, he placed them on the flag for the benefit of the fire. When oh! horrible to relate, one of them took fire, and was burned to the very sole. His distress may well be imagined, when it is told, that there was not a shoe to be bought ready made in the town, and that he had three days to wait while a lazy fellow made a pair, for which our friend was sadly pinched to pay. The whole fruits of his success at Warminster having been consumed in repairing his wardrobe, and paying for his board for above four months, during which he received next to nothing from Biggs.

At Sherborn, where they remained four months, he, though a first performer, got so little, that he was not able to pay four shillings a week, the price of his bed and board. Still hope gleamed in his horizon, and he followed it; but as a great writer says "like the horizon it still flew away before him."-During this time many distresses occurred so severe, that he owns he would be afraid to relate them, as they would to many appear incredible, and indeed so ludicrous and out of the ordinary course of things, that they would incur the suspicion of being purposely fabricated for the joke's sake.

He now began to reflect seriously upon his situation, and thinking that he had sacrificed enough to honour, resolved to leave Biggs for ever: he had been about a year with him, and after