from him. When he played the part of Don Carlos,
in the opera of "The Duenna," he was disappointed with the measure of
applause bestowed upon his efforts, and complained that the obbligato
cadenza--which Mr. Parke had time out of mind played on the oboe in
the symphony of the song, "Had I a heart for falsehood framed"--interfered
with the effect of his singing, and that the applause which was
obtained by the cadenza deprived him of his encore. Accordingly
he requested that the cadenza might be suppressed. "Though
I thought this a mean and silly application," says Mr. Parke, "I
complied with it, and never interfered with his encores afterwards."
It must be said for Sinclair, however, that encores had come to be
regarded as tests of a singer's merits, and that a re-engagement at
the theatre sometimes depended upon this demonstration of public
approval. At Vauxhall Gardens, indeed, the manager--"who was not,"
says Mr. Parke, "a musical luminary"--formed his opinion of the
capacities of his singers from the report of a person appointed to
register the number of encores obtained by each during the season. The
singers who had received the most encores were forthwith re-engaged
for the next year. Upon the whole, however, the system was not found
to be completely satisfactory. The inferior vocalists, stimulated by
the fear of losing their engagements, took care to circulate orders
judiciously among their friends, with instructions as to the songs
that were to be particularly applauded; and it frequently resulted
that the worst performers, if the most artful manoeuvrers, were at the
head of the poll at the end of the season, and re-engaged over the
heads of superior artists, and greatly to the ultimate detriment of
the concern. In reference to this system of obtaining encores, Mr.
Parke cautiously observes: "Without presuming to insinuate that it was
surreptitiously introduced into our English theatres, I may be
permitted to observe, after forty years' experience in theatrical
tactics, that it would not be difficult, through a judicious
distribution of determined _forcers_ in various parts of a theatre,
with Herculean hands and stentorian voices, to achieve that enviable
distinction." Possibly the reader, bearing in mind certain great
successes and double and treble encores of our own time, may confirm,
from his own experience, Mr. Parke's opinions and suggestions in this
direction.

It was a rule of the theatre of the last ce