is of course
illegal, yet the audience have a lawful right to express their feelings
at the performance either by applause or by hisses. The Cour de
Cassation of France has decided in the same way. When Forrest,
therefore, hissed Macready for introducing a fancy dance in _Hamlet_, he
was doing what he had a legal right to do, though the ultimate result
of it was the Astor Place riot and the death of many. In ancient Rome
the right to hiss seems also to have existed in its fulness. Suetonius
in his life of Augustus informs us that Pylades was banished not only
from Rome, but from Italy, for having pointed with his finger at a
spectator by whom he was hissed, and turning the eyes of the whole
audience upon him. But as time passed on, and Nero took the imperial
crown and chose to exhibit it himself to the public on the stage, all
the spectators were bound to applaud under penalty of death.

The French law forbids disturbance of any kind except when the curtain
is up. In France the boisterousness of the Dublin gallery-boy would
hardly be tolerated. The Parisians would have been amazed at a recent
incident of the Irish stage. When Sophocles' tragedy of _Antigone_ was
produced at the Theatre Royal with Mendelssohn's music, the gallery
"gods" were greatly pleased, and, according to their custom, demanded a
sight of the author. "Bring out Sapherclaze," they yelled. The manager
explained that Sophocles had been dead two thousand years and more, and
could not well come. Thereat a small voice shouted from the gallery,
"Then chuck us out his mummy."

There is a delicious tradition that Mrs. Siddons, when playing in
Dublin, was once interrupted with cries for "Garry Owen! Garry Owen!"
She did not heed for some time, but, bewildered at last and anxious to
conciliate, she advanced to the footlights and with tragic solemnity
asked, "What is Garry Owen? Is it anything I can do for you?"

Actors are not always willing to stand baiting quietly: they turn and
rend their tormentors. Mrs. Siddons herself took leave of a barbarian
audience with the words, "Farewell, ye brutes!" George Frederick Cooke,
describing his own failings, said: "On Monday I was drunk, and appeared,
but they didn't like that and hissed me. On Wednesday I was drunk, so I
didn't appear; and they didn't like that. What the devil would they
have?" Once at Liverpool, when he was drunk and did appear, they didn't
like it. He reeled across the stage and was greeted by a st