Rolla. Thoughts of
such actors as Henry Wallack, George Jordan, John Brougham, John E.
Owens, Mary Carr, Mrs. Barrow, and Charlotte Thompson, together in the
same theatre, are thoughts of brilliant people and of more than commonly
happy displays of talent and beauty. The figures that used to be seen on
Wallack's stage, at the house he established upon the wreck of John
Brougham's Lyceum, often rise in memory, crowned with a peculiar light.
Lester Wallack, in his peerless elegance; Laura Keene, in her spiritual
beauty; the quaint, eccentric Walcot; the richly humorous Blake, so
noble in his dignity, so firm and fine and easy in his method, so
copious in his natural humour; Mary Gannon, sweet, playful, bewitching,
irresistible; Mrs. Vernon, as full of character as the tulip is of
colour or the hyacinth of grace, and as delicate and refined as an
exquisite bit of old china--those actors made a group, the like of
which it would be hard to find now. Shall we ever see again such an
Othello as Edwin Forrest, or such a Lord Duberly and Cap'n Cuttle as
Burton, or such a Dazzle as John Brougham, or such an Affable Hawk as
Charles Mathews? Certainly there was a superiority of manner, a tinge of
intellectual character, a tone of grace and romance about the old
actors, such as is not common in the present; and, making all needful
allowance for the illusive glamour that memory casts over the distant
and the dim, it yet remains true that the veterans of our day have a
certain measure of right upon their side of the question.

In the earlier periods of our theatrical history the strength of the
stage was concentrated in a few theatres. The old Park, for example, was
called simply The Theatre, and when the New York playgoer spoke of going
to the play he meant that he was going there. One theatre, or perhaps
two, might flourish, in a considerable town, during a part of the year,
but the field was limited, and therefore the actors were brought
together in two or three groups. The star system, at least till the time
of Cooper, seems to have been innocuous. Garrick's prodigious success
in London, more than a hundred years ago, had enabled him to engross the
control of the stage in that centre, where he was but little opposed,
and practically to exile many players of the first ability, whose lustre
he dimmed or whose services he did not require; and those players
dispersed themselves to distant places--to York, Dublin, Edinburgh,
etc.--or cr