actors

lotes of the great Actors with whom Yve w^ coww^cXsy

been most eminent; having produced admirable

actors, and excellent authors, both in the comic and

tragic style, and sometimes also noble patrons, who

were applauding the re-animated muse of Old Ben,

neither audience nor actors were aware that the stage

quired a reasonable figure, let us now return, and take

a more particular view of the stage and the actors.

The first company of players we have any account of,

The actors who had been employed by Rhodes were

soon afterwards taken under the protection of Sir Wil-

unexperienced set of actors could produce. Having

little judgment to direct him in the conduct of a

Goose Chase,^ which hath been long lost, and I fear irrecoverable; for a

person of quality borrowed it from the actors many years since, and (by

the negligence of a servant) it was never returned; therefore now I put

here (after giving due praise to the sentleman above, for restoring Shakespeare's magic to its

fcenuine horror, out of that low buffoonery which former actors and managers of theatres had

Bung it into) I shall shew in what light Shakespeare's low education always appeared to