Dr. Johnson’s comments have been quoted as typifying the attitude which even in Garrick’s day, a man of intellect could maintain toward the player’s profession,[228] though it is to be noted that not even in the Doctor’s distinguished circle were his prejudices generally shared. And Johnson himself, it will be remembered, felt honored to receive a visit from the celebrated Mrs. Siddons. “At all periods of his life, Johnson used to talk contemptuously of players,” says Boswell, “for which, perhaps there was formerly too much reason from the licentious and dissolute manners of those engaged in that profession. It is but justice to add,” Boswell goes on, “that in our own time such a change has taken place, that there is no longer room for such an unfavorable distinction.” A century had, indeed, seen a change. In 1660, when actresses invaded the theatre, there was a long road to travel before the actor could be thought of as he is today,--innocent of social stigma until proved guilty. It was then the other way about,--he belonged to an outcast class, until he proved himself deserving of exceptional consideration. Naturally, when women came to join the actors’ ranks, they shared more than to the full the social disadvantages attaching to the calling, simply because they _were_ women; for, as is well known, it is a queer twist of the ingrained chivalric attitude toward the sex that when a woman ranges herself with men of a doubtful class she is accorded a double portion of the disfavor in which that class may be held. In any event, the first century of English actresses saw them, for the most part, doing their best to justify the stigma. Anne Bracegirdle was notorious in her day, not for lapses from virtue, but actually for leading a measurably pure life. So singular, in her day, was the actress who was not the mistress of some one her social superior that virtuous “Bracey” was hailed as a phenomenon. A number of lords and gentlemen once met round a festive board and pledged a large purse to be offered to her as a tribute to her rare chastity.[229] Her sister actresses, and many who were to follow in the eighteenth century, were, in many instances, openly the mistresses of lords and other “fine gentlemen.” It seems superfluous to say of the average nineteenth century actress that her standards of life were, in general, far different from those of her earlier sisters; and the fact is of much importance in its direct bearing on one of the most interesting changes that have occurred in the realm of the theatre: the improvement in the social status of the actor and actress. For another cause of that change we may look to the general dramatic awakening that characterized the latter part of the nineteenth century,--the vitalization of the theatre as the home of an art worthy the study and appreciation of the best minds. In 1660 and for many years later the English-speaking theatre, at least, was not _that_.