The man who, having witnessed and enjoyed the earliest performance of
Thespis and his company, followed the travelling theatre of that
primeval actor and manager, and attended a second and a third
histrionic exhibition, has good claim to be accounted the first
playgoer. For recurrence is involved in playgoing, until something of
a habit is constituted. And usually, we may note, the playgoer is
youthful. An old playgoer is almost a contradiction in terms. He is
merely a young playgoer who has grown old. He talks of the plays and
players of his youth, but he does not, in truth, visit the theatre
much in his age; and invariably he condemns the present, and applauds
the past. Things have much degenerated and decayed, he finds; himself
among them, but of that fact he is not fully conscious. There are no
such actors now as once there were, nor such actresses. The drama has
declined into a state almost past praying for. This is, of course, a
very old story. "Palmy days" have always been yesterdays. Our
imaginary friend, mentioned above, who was present at the earliest of
stage exhibitions, probably deemed the second and third to be less
excellent than the first; at any rate, he assuredly informed his
friends and neighbours, who had been absent from that performance,
that they had missed very much indeed, and had by no means seen
Thespis at his best. Even nowadays, middle-aged playgoers, old enough
to remember the late Mr. Macready, are trumped, as it were, by older
playgoers, boastful of their memories of Kemble and the elder Kean.
And these players, in their day and in their turn, underwent
disparagement at the hands of veterans who had seen Garrick. Pope,
much as he admired Garrick, yet held fast to his old faith in
Betterton. From a boy he had been acquainted with Betterton. He
maintained Betterton to be the best actor he had ever seen. "But I
ought to tell you, at the same time," he candidly admitted, "that in