to invest this upper-gallery visitor with special critical qualities
to attribute to his "oaken plant" almost supernatural powers. In any
case, the trunkmaker was a sort of foreshadowing of the _claqueur_. It
was reserved for later times to organise applause and reduce success
to a system. Of old, houses were sometimes "packed" by an author's
friends to ensure a favourable result to the first representation of
his play. When, for instance, Addison's "Cato" was first produced,
Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience, and
accordingly filled the pit with frequenters of the Whig coffee-houses,
with students from the Inns of Court, and other zealous partisans.
"This," says Pope, "had been tried for the first time in favour of
'The Distressed Mother' (by Ambrose Phillips), and was now, with more
efficacy, practised for 'Cato.'" But this was only an occasional
_claque_. The "band of applauders" dispersed after they had cheered
their friend and achieved their utmost to secure the triumph of his
play. And they were unconnected with the manager of the theatre; they
were not _his_ friends, still less were they his servants, receiving
wages for their labours, and bound to raise their voices and clap
their hands in accordance with his directions. For such are the
genuine _claqueurs_ of to-day.

Dr. Veron, who has left upon record a sort of secret history of his
management of the Paris Opera House, has revealed many curious
particulars concerning _les claqueurs_, adding a serious defence of
the system of artificial applause. The artistic nature, the doctor
maintains, submitting its merits to the judgment of the general
public, has great need of the exhilaration afforded by evidence of
hearty approval and sympathy; the singer and the dancer are thus
inspired with the courage absolutely necessary to the accomplishment
of their professional feats; and it is the doctor's experience that
whenever a song or a dance has been redemanded by the audience, the
dance has been better danced, and the song better sung, the second
time of performance than the first. Hence there is nothing harmful,
but rather something beneficial, in the proceedings of _les
claqueurs_. Every work produced at the theatre cannot be of the first
class, and legitimately rouse the enthusiasm of the public; every
dramatic or lyrical artist cannot invariably, by sheer force of
talent, overcome the coldness, the languor, or the indifference of an
audience