At this time, no doubt, the actor laboured under certain social disadvantages; and the manager who did not act, however insignificant a person otherwise, was generally regarded as enjoying a more dignified position than that occupied by the most eminent of performers. In time, of course, the status of the actor improved, and he outgrew the supposititious degradation attaching to his exercise of his profession. We have lived to see composers, authors, and even scene-painters summoned before the foot-lights, nothing loath, apparently, to accept this public recognition of their merits. But these are innovations of quite recent date. In a reputable literary and critical journal,[6] of forty years back, appears an account of the production at the English Opera House (now the Lyceum Theatre) of the opera of "Nourjahad," the work of the late Mr. E.J. Loder, of Bath, then described as the leader of the theatrical orchestra there, and the son and successor of Mr. Loder, whose talents as a musician had been long known in that city, and at the Philharmonic and other concerts. Much praise is awarded to the work, and then we find the following paragraph: [6] _The Athenaeum._ "The silly practice of calling for a favourite actor at the end of a play was upon this occasion, for the first time, extended to a composer; and Mr. E.J. Loder was produced upon the stage to make his bow. As the chance portion of the audience could not possibly be aware that a gentleman so little known in London was present, it would have betrayed less of the secrets of the prison-house if this bit of nonsense had not been preconcerted by injudicious and over-zealous friends. The turn of successful authors will, we suppose, come next; and, therefore, such of them as are not actors had better take a few lessons in bowing over the lamps and be ready. We know some half-dozen whom this process would cause to shake in their shoes more vehemently than even the already accumulated anxieties of a first night." The critic was, in some sort, a seer. The turn of the authors arrived in due course, some years later, although history has not been careful to record the name of the first English dramatist who appeared before the curtain and bowed "over the lamps." How far the accomplishment of this proceeding is attended by shaking in the shoes, is preluded by lessons in the art of deportment, or adds to the anxieties of a first representation, must be left for some successful playwright to reveal.