y right of performing the "legitimate" was, by
the minor theatres, infringed in many ways. The means adopted was the
employment of Pantomime in the depiction of plays adapted and considered
suitable for the minor theatres. These were entirely carried on by
action, and when the actor could not express something that had to be
explained, like the names of characters, a scroll, with the necessary
details inscribed thereon, was unrolled in full view of the audience.
These entertainments were very popular at the close of the eighteenth
century, and they were also the means of providing some first-class
Pantomimists--as, for instance, Bologna and D'Egville.

In a couple of volumes by Mr. J.C. Cross, entitled, "Circusiana," the
author of many of these old "dumb shows," the reader can see what they
were like. The scripts of these plays consisted, like our ancient
"Platts" and the Italian Scenarios, of principally stage directions.

John Palmer, the actor who died on the stage of the Theatre Royal,
Liverpool--now used for the purpose of a cold storage--after uttering,
in the part of "The Stranger," the words "There is another and a better
world," found that, after building his theatre, the Royalty, in
Wellclose Square, that he was prohibited its use, used to give
Pantomimic representations, and just in a similar way as what the minor
theatres did, as mentioned above.

It is amusing to note how the titles of some of Shakespeare's
works--which at one time the Patent theatres had the monopoly--were got
over; "Hamlet" has been known to have been played as "Methinks I see my
Father;" "Othello," as "Is He Jealous?;" "Romeo and Juliet," as "How to
Die for Love;" "The Merchant of Venice," under "Diamond Cut Diamond,"
and so on. Music and dancing also were introduced _ad lib_ into these
performances.

The Pantomime of "Mother Goose," produced at Covent Garden, December 29,
1806, which ran 92 nights, was preceded by "George Barnwell," and
brought some L20,000 into the theatre treasury. Strangely enough, for
about thirty years, it was the unvarying rule to play "George Barnwell"
at this theatre on a Boxing Night, which, from all accounts, owing to
the liveliness of the gods and goddesses assembled on these
occasions--the Tragedy was as much a Pantomime as the Pantomime proper
that followed. Of these "merry moments" Dibdin recalls that Tragedies,
Comedies, and Operas were doomed to suffer all the complicated
combinations of "Pray ask th