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 certainly seem to be here referred to, unless we are to understand the performances to be of a commonwealth kind, carried on by the players at their own risk, and independently of the managers. Still, to King James's admiring patronage of Mrs. Barry, the benefit system, as it is at present known to us, has been generally ascribed; and clearly the monarch's memory deserves to be cherished on this account by our players. He can ill afford to forego the smallest claim to esteem, and undoubtedly he entertained a friendly regard for the stage and its professors. Indeed, the Stuarts generally were well disposed towards the arts, and a decidedly playgoing family.