"_July 9, 1829._--Many recollections die with poor Terry." Of his semi-partnership with his actor-friend, Sir Walter Scott, in a humorous mood, wrote:--"I have been made a dramatist whether I would or no. I believe my muse would be _Terry_fied into treading the stage even if I should write a sermon." Benjamin Terry, the father of the clever family who form the subject of these pages, became in his time very popular in Edinburgh, and it was there that he attracted the attention of Charles Kean, and obtained his offer for the actor's Mecca--London. But his experience had no doubt been earned in some of the old "circuits" that were the theatrical schools of his early days, and turned out many a true artist. The actors and actresses who thus served their apprenticeship to the stage assuredly had rough times of it, but they had for the most part joined the profession for the love of it--they adored Shakespeare and the authors of the "legitimate drama,"--and, in spite of tedious journeys from town to town, poor business, and bad theatrical accommodation at the end of them, looked forward to and enjoyed the evening's performance. Enthusiasm and hard work led to their reward, and many a poor strolling-player became a shining light on the London stage. When Ben Terry went on circuit, travelling actors were in better plight than they were in the days of poor Roger Kemble and his devoted wife, who travelled from town to town, and village to village, after the manner and under the difficulties and disadvantages of the time,--at some places being received with gracious favour, and at others treated like lepers and threatened with the stocks and whipping at the cart's tail, according as the great people were liberal minded or puritanical. But this struggling, persecuted Roger Kemble lived to see his daughter, Mrs. Siddons, and his son, John Philip, the stage idols of their day; and if sometimes his perturbed spirit could revisit Hereford (one of the cities of his early sorrows) he would realise the happy fact that the portraits of his never-to-be-forgotten family hold the places of honour on the Deanery walls. Since to the often ridiculed circuits of a bygone day we can trace such actors as the Kembles, the Robertsons, and the Terrys, surely we should hold them in honoured memory? Dickens turned them to comic account when he conceived the impossible but immortal Crummles family; but he put the true ring into the warm-hearted old manager's heart and voice when on bidding farewell to Nicholas, he said, "We were a very happy little company. You and I never had a word. I shall be very glad to-morrow morning to think that I saw you again, but now I almost wish you hadn't come." It is pleasant to think that in their own way the circuit players all formed happy little companies. To enjoy the work of our choice is, in spite of any drawbacks, one of the greatest sources of happiness.