Still, notwithstanding the fact that the opinion of the critics who graced the proscenium was not very favorable, all the rest of the house appeared mightily to approve the play. The afternoon had turned wet and there was no roof to the inn yard, but those who were packed in it so closely that they could hardly breathe, followed the whole of the piece with ever-growing excitement. They roared with delight at its humors. _Portia_, who was played by young Parflete, enchanted them. They execrated the Jew, yet Richard Burbage, as became the great actor he was, invested his defeat with a pathetic dignity that almost drew their tears. “Ha! now, that is the man,” said Mr. Francis Bacon. “I ask you, what had the play been without such incomparable acting?” “What, indeed!” said the learned doctors. “I must make that fellow my compliments upon his performance,” said the Master of Balliol College. And a few minutes afterwards, when the delighted audience was streaming out of the yard, these great men condescended to approach the tragedian and express their approval. “Fain would I make you my compliments, sir,” said Mr. Francis Bacon, in his highest style, in order to impress the person he addressed, “upon the inimitable art you have used this afternoon. The performance would have been barren enough without it. Never have I seen acting so choice lavished on a play so inferior.” The tragedian looked very doubtfully at Mr. Francis Bacon. “By your leave, sir,” he said, “I would not have you exalt me at the expense o’ the piece.” “To be sure, sir, your modesty does you honor,” said the Master of Balliol College. “But your genius, if I may so express myself, is deserving of something far better than the clumsy work of this rude journeyman.” The tragedian shook his head. “Nor would I have you exalt me at the expense of the writer,” he said. “Ah, my friend, you are too modest,” interposed the Dean of Christ Church in an amiable manner. “If it is the part of modesty,” said the tragedian bluntly, “to decline to be praised by the ignorant, then I grant you that modest I may be. Because I would have you to know, you learned doctors in your furred gowns, that the play you have just witnessed is by the first dramatic author of this age or of any other.” The three gentlemen were unable to repress a polite snigger. “What!” said the Master of Balliol College, “that _odd_-looking fellow with the beard who sat in the pay box and bit my half-crown as if he feared it was a counterfeit?” “The same, sir,” said Burbage. “And if you can put a counterfeit upon him, you are an abler man than I have yet cause to consider you.”