+-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber’s note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+ DRURY LANE VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET IN AND ABOUT DRURY LANE _AND OTHER PAPERS_ REPRINTED FROM THE PAGES OF THE ‘TEMPLE BAR’ MAGAZINE BY DR DORAN AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS AND SOMETHING ON THEM’ ‘JACOBITE LONDON’ ‘QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER’ IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. [Illustration: Logo FIDE·ET·FIDUCIA RB] LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen 1881 _All rights reserved_ _PREFATORY REMARKS._ The republication of papers which have originally appeared in a Magazine frequently requires justification. In the present instance this justification, it is thought, may be found in the special knowledge which Dr. DORAN had of all matters pertaining to the stage; in his intimacy with the literature which treats of manners and customs, English and foreign; and in his memory, which retained and retailed a great amount of anecdote, told with a sprightly wit. These volumes, reprinted with one or two exceptions from the pages of the ‘Temple Bar’ Magazine, will, it is believed, be found to contain many good stories, and much information unostentatiously conveyed. It is hoped, therefore, that the public will endorse the opinion of the writer of this Preface, and consider that the plea of justification has been made out. _G. B._ CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. PAGE IN AND ABOUT DRURY LANE 1 ABOUT MASTER BETTY 20 CHARLES YOUNG AND HIS TIMES 54 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY 82 PRIVATE THEATRICALS 108 THE SMELL OF THE LAMPS 136 A LINE OF FRENCH ACTRESSES 159 SOME ECCENTRICITIES OF THE FRENCH STAGE 189 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE AND THE PERCYS 216 LEICESTER FIELDS 238 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 285 _IN AND ABOUT DRURY LANE._ In the afternoon of ‘Boxing-day,’ 1865, I had to pass through Drury Lane, and some of the worst of the ‘slums’ which find vent therein. There was a general movement in the place, and the effect was not savoury. There was a going to-and-fro of groups of people, and there was nothing picturesque in them; assemblings of children, but alas! nothing lovable in them. It was a universal holiday, yet its aspect was hideous. Arrived at the stage-door of Drury Lane Theatre, I found my way on to the stage itself, where the last rehearsal of the pantomime, to be played for the first time that evening, was progressing.