Of the two, Drury Lane was the more important in an historical sense,
having been the house of the famous "King's Company," as the players
of Charles II. were styled, and then of the combined forces formed
in 1682 by the union of this organisation and the "Duke of York's
Company." This was the house into which Nance Oldfield came as a
modest _débutante_. It had been built from the designs of Wren, to
replace the old theatre destroyed by fire in 1672.

Cibber has sketched for us the second Drury Lane's interior, as it
appeared in its original form, before the making of changes intended
to enlarge the seating capacity. "It must be observed then, that the
area or platform of the old stage projected about four feet forwarder
(_sic_), in a semi-oval figure, parallel to the benches of the pit;
and that the former lower doors of entrance for the actors were
brought down between the two foremost (and then only) pilasters; in
the place of which doors now the two stage boxes are fixt. That where
the doors of entrance now are, there formerly stood two additional
side-wings, in front to a full set of scenes, which had then almost a
double effect in their loftiness and magnificence.

"By this original form, the usual station of the actors, in almost
every scene, was advanc'd at least ten foot nearer to the audience
than they now can be; because, not only from the stage's being
shorten'd in front, but likewise from the additional interposition of
those stage boxes, the actors (in respect to the spectators that fill
them) are kept so much more backward from the main audience than they
us'd to be. But when the actors were in possession of that forwarder
space to advance upon, the voice was then more in the centre of the
house, so that the most distant ear had scarce the least doubt or