“‘Virginia Company of Comedians,’” he read, “‘by permission of his worship the Mayor--in the old theatre near the capitol, on Thursday evening--a tragedy called ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ by Mr. William Shakespeare, boxes seven shillings sixpence’--‘Vivat Rex et Regina’--here it is, ‘Shylock, Mr. Rigby; Portia, Miss Beatrice Hallam.’ The part of Portia is to be performed by Miss Beatrice Hallam--I have never seen or heard of her.” “Which means,” said Henrietta, laughing, “that Miss Beatrice cannot be very well worth seeing, as Mr. Champ Effingham, just from London, and conversant with all the celebrities there, has never heard of her existence.” “My dear Cousin Henrietta,” said Mr. Effingham, languidly, “you really seem to sit in judgment on my wearisome conversation. I do not profess to know anything about celebrities. True, I very frequently lounged into the theater in London, but I assure you took very little interest in the plays or performers. Life itself is enough of a comedy for me, and I want nothing more. I know nothing of Miss Hallam. She may be a witch of Endor, or as beautiful as Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, for all that I know. That I have not heard of her proves nothing. The best actors and actresses are often treated with neglect and indifference.” “Well,” said Clara, smiling, “we soon shall see for ourselves, for there is papa coming, all ready dressed to go, and I hear the wheels of the chariot.” Upon which they go to the play-house, which the novelist thus describes: The “old theatre near the capitol,” discoursed of in the manifesto issued by Mr. Manager Hallam, was so far old that the walls were well browned by time, and the shutters to the windows of a pleasant neutral tint between rust and dust color. The building had, no doubt, been used for the present purpose in bygone times, before the days of the “Virginia Gazette,” which is our authority for many of the facts here stated, and in relation to the “Virginia Company of Comedians”--but of the former companies of “players,” as my Lord Hamlet calls them, and their successes and misfortunes, printed words tell us nothing, as far as the researches of the present “Chronicle” extend. That there had been such companies before, however, we repeat, there is some reason to believe; else why that addition “old” applied to the “theatre near the capitol.”