Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/462

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. xn. DEC. 11, 1915.

This is the Vicar, Sir, of Bray,

A Man of no Repute ; The Scorn and Scandal of his Tribe,

A loose, ill-manner'd Brute. (P. 296.)

The date, 1658, of the story, true or untrue, should be fixed by the following stanza :

What's worse, old Noll is Marching off,

And Dick his Heir apparent, Succeeds him in the Government ;

A very lame Vicegerent. (P. 300.)

As in * The Turn-coat ' there is a reference to the year '41 :

If we would turn our Heads about

And look t'wards Forty one, We soon should see what little Jars

Those cruel Wars begun. (P. 301.)

Most, if not all of the pieces given in the book, whether in prose or verse, clearly indicate the times of the Rebellion, the Commonwealth, or Charles II. It is evident that there was a notorious Vicar of Bray, real or invented, and that there was a song about a turn-coat parson which was very similar to the well-known song ' The Vicar of Bray' long before George I. came to England.

I neither assert nor deny that Butler was the author of these ' Posthumous Works,' nor do I enter into the question whether the ' Vicar of Bray ' Vicar lived in the time of Henry VIII. et seq., or in that of Charles II. et seq.

I should like to have proof by reference that there was a "Col. Fuller's regiment" in the reign of George I.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

STROLLING PLAYERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

THERE are few professions which have seemed more alluring, attracted more uni- versal condemnation, and entailed more hard work combined with financial embarrass- ment, than that of strolling player. The magazines and books of the eighteenth century are replete with attacks upon the evils of the stage and particularly upon the country stage. In the opinion of many, plays and players were an abomination in the sight of the Lord, and thousands were taught from infancy to look on the theatre as the devil's tabernacle, and dramatic per- formers as infernal imps (S. W. Ryley, ' The Itinerant,' ix. 27, 182). Cowper's assault on the wandering players (' The Borough ') is well known for its attribution to them of all that is lawless, transitory, and undependable. But the principal thing about this profession

of amusing the public is the fact that there- was more work than amusement in it for the professional himself. " The stage, sir," said O'Scroggins (S. W. Ryley, ' The Itinerant,' ix. 107),

" is a profession whereby a man of talent may live ; that is, he may vegetate ; but the education r information, and knowledge of human nature he must possess before he can even vegetate, together^ With the study he is daily fatigued with, renders it, as you say, sir, a harassing life, a mental drudgery ; treated with insult by the ignorant, and looked down upon with unjust contempt by the rich."

There are also few portions of dramatic history of which our records are so un- organized and so incomplete. True, we have ' The Itinerant ' of S. W. Ryley, and Tate Wilkinson's two books * The Wandering Patentee ' and his ' Memoirs ' ; we have a portion of a chapter in Holcroft's ' Memoirs ' p some letters from Thomas Cooper in Kegan Paul's ' William Godwin ' (i. 35-46) ; and a few scattered pages in the biographies of Britain's many theatrical artists who began. their professional career on the road. But that man must be very energetic indeed who would write the history of England's strolling- players in the eighteenth century. (I doubt if for an earlier period it could be done at all.)

Letters must be ransacked, memoirs and lives must be looked into, country newspaper files must be turned over, antiquarian material must be searched ; such a work would carry a man into nearly every town in the kingdom. Yet I rather fancj^ the work would have some importance, for there is scarcely an author or performer of importance, from Shirley to Macklin, from Sam Foote to Kemble, who did not serve a term in the country houses where, under great difficulties and in a large variety of roles, these men learned the tricks of the trade and skill of their art.

" In Passion Week, all the managers who want people and all the actors who want employment assemble in London. Managers ; first those dignified persons who govern theatres royal ; next those who preside over theatres by licence ? and lastly, the humble purveyors for public amusement Whose ambition soars not beyond that appendage to agriculture a Barn. The Actors were not less diversified than the managers.. Some were dressed in the first stile of fashion ? others barely clean and decent ; and a third class neither one nor the other." S. W. Ryley, ' The Itinerant,' iv. 144.

After the usual haggling over salaries between penniless players and managers who could offer no advance, it is rather interesting to speculate what became of those whoso destinv for the next twelvemonth led them