ssembly-room of the head inn has been fitted up with the aid of
brown paper and ochre, for the exhibition of some heroes of the sock
and buskin, vulgarly called strollers. At the old Windsor Theatre, her
majesty's apothecary in the lower boxes might have almost felt her
pulse across the pit. My knowledge of the drama commenced at the early
age of seven years, amidst this royal fellowship in fun; and most
loyally did I laugh when his majesty, leaning back in his capacious
arm-chair in the stage-box, shook the house with his genuine peals of
hearty merriment. Well do I remember the whole course of these royal
play-goings. The theatre was of an inconvenient form, with very sharp
angles at the junctions of the centre with the sides. The stage-box,
and the whole of the left or O.P. side of the lower tier, were
appropriated to royalty. The house would fill at about half-past six.
At seven, precisely, Mr. Thornton, the manager, made his entrance
backwards, through a little door, into the stage-box, with a plated
candlestick in each hand, bowing with all the grace that his gout would
permit. The six fiddles struck up God save the King; the audience rose;
the king nodded round and took his seat next the stage; the queen
curtsied, and took her arm-chair also. The satin bills of their
majesties and the princesses were then duly displayed--and the dingy
green curtain drew up. The performances were invariably either a comedy
and farce, or more frequently three farces, with a plentiful
interlarding of comic songs. Quick, Suett, and Mrs. Mattocks were the
reigning favourites; and, about 1800, Elliston and Fawcett became
occasional stars. But Quick and Suett were the king's especial delight.
When Lovegold, in the "Miser," drawled out "a pin a day's a groat a
year," the laugh of the royal circle was somewhat loud; but when Dicky
Gossip exhibited in his vocation, and accompanied the burden of his
song, "Dicky Gossip, Dicky Gossip is the man," with the blasts of his
powder-puff, the cachinnation was loud and long, and the gods prolonged
the chorus of laughter, till the echo died away in the royal box. At
the end of the third act, coffee was handed round to the court circle;
and precisely at eleven the performances finished,--and the flambeaux
gleamed through the dimly-lighted streets of Windsor, as the happy
family returned to their tranquil home.

There was occasionally a good deal of merriment going forward at
Windsor in these olden day