with his name, that the
call-boy or the prompter should be called for and congratulated upon
the valuable aid he had furnished to the performance.

Macready relates in his Memoirs that the practice of "calling on" the
principal actor was first introduced at Covent Garden Theatre, on the
occasion of his first performance of the character of Richard the
Third, on October 19th, 1819. "In obedience to the impatient and
persevering summons of the house I was desired by Fawcett to go before
the curtain; and accordingly I announced the tragedy for repetition
amidst the gratulating shouts that carried the assurance of complete
success to my agitated and grateful heart." But while loving applause,
as an actor needs must, Macready had little liking for the honours of
calls and recalls--heartily disapproving of them, indeed, when they
seemed to him in any way to disturb the representation. Thus, of his
performance of Werner at Manchester, in 1845, he writes: "Acted very
fairly. Called for. _Trash!_" Under date December 23rd, 1844, he
records: "Acted Virginius [in Paris] with much energy and power to a
very excited audience. I was loudly called for at the end of the
fourth act, but could not or would not make so absurd and empirical a
sacrifice of the dignity of my poor art." Three years later he enters
in his diary: "Acted King Lear with much care and power, and was
received by a most kind, and sympathetic, and enthusiastic audience. I
was called on, the audience trying to make me come on after the first
act, but of course I could not think of such a thing." But these
"calls" relate to the conclusion of an act, when, at any rate, the
drop-scene was fallen, hiding the stage from view, and when, for a
while, there is a pause in the performance, suspension of theatrical
illusion. What would Macready have said to "calls" in the course of
the scene, while the stage is still occupied, with certain of the
characters of the drama reduced to lay figures by the conduct of their
playfellows and the public? Yet in modern times Ophelias, after
tripping off insane to find a watery grave, have been summoned back to
the stage to acknowledge suavely enough by smiles and curtsies the
excessive applause of the spectators, greatly to the perplexity of
King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, and Laertes, and seriously to the
injury of the poet's design--and this is but a sample of the follies
of the modern theatre in this respect.

Such calls, recalls, and i