tors, and in no degree with authors. Nevertheless, it was for
authors that benefits were originally instituted, in opposition, as we
have seen, to their wishes, and solely to suit the convenience and
forward the interests of managers such as Mr. Henslowe.

Certainly in Shakespeare's time the actors knew nothing of benefits.
They obtained the best price they could for their services, and the
risk of profit or loss upon the performance was wholly the affair of
the manager. Indeed, it was long after the time when the chance of an
overplus had become systematised as a means of paying authors, that it
occurred to anyone that actors might also be remunerated in a similar
way. In olden days the actor's profession was not favourably regarded
by the general public; his social position was particularly insecure;
he was looked upon as of close kin to the rogue and the vagabond, and
with degrading possibilities in connection with the stocks and
whipping-post never wholly remote from his professional career. An
Elizabethan player, presuming to submit his personal claims and merits
to the consideration of the audience, with a view to his own
individual profit, apart from the general company of which he was a
member and the manager whom he served, would probably have been deemed
guilty of a most unpardonable impertinence. Gradually, however, the
status of the actor improved; people began to concede that he was not
necessarily or invariably a mountebank, and that certain of the
qualities and dignities of an art might attach now and then to his
achievements. The famous Mrs. Barry was, according to Cibber, "the
first person whose merit was distinguished by the indulgence of having
an annual benefit play, which was granted to her alone," he proceeds,
"if I mistake not, first in King James II.'s time, and which became
not common to others until the division of the company, after the
death of King William's Queen Mary." However, in the preceding reign,
in the year 1681, it appears by an agreement made between Davenant,
Betterton, and others, that Charles Hart and Edward Kynaston were to
be paid "five shillings apiece for every day there shall be any
tragedies or comedies or other representations at the Duke's Theatre,
in Salisbury Court, or wherever the company shall act during the
respective lives of the said Charles Hart and Edward Kynaston,
excepting the days the young men or young women play for their own
profit only." Benefits would ce