The outlines of Dibdin’s career are soon told. He came up to London as poor as Whittington, but with little of his luck. He earned a couple of guineas by composing ballads for music-sellers, by which they made hundreds; and he tuned pianos, and taught how to play on them. At length, wearied with this, he made his first appearance on the stage (he says) at the Richmond Theatre, on the Hill, in 1762, when he was seventeen years of age. Dibdin, however, also states that he first appeared at Birmingham, and Jesse records that Dibdin and Bannister came out originally at Marylebone Gardens. Dibdin speaks of the old Richmond house as the ‘Academy’ and the ‘Histrionic Academy.’ This was one of the names given to the theatre by Theophilus Cibber before a licence had been got to open it. Theophilus called it at first the Cephalic Snuff Warehouse. Snuff, in minute quantities, was sold at the various entrances, and admission followed _gratis_. It was on this stage that Dibdin is said to have made his _début_, as Damætas, in ‘Midas’; a thing the more difficult to believe, as ‘Midas’ was not produced in England till 1764, namely, at Covent Garden, and then Damætas was played by Fawcett. Victor pronounced Charles Dibdin’s Mungo to be ‘as complete a low character as was ever exhibited.’ Isaac Bickerstaffe as highly praised the musical composer as Victor did the actor. ‘The music of this piece,’ he wrote in the preface to it, ‘being extremely admired by persons of the first state and distinction, it would be injustice to the extraordinary talents of the young man who assisted me in it, was I not to declare that it is, under my direction, the entire composition of Mr. Dibdin, whose admirable performance in the character of Mungo does so much credit to himself and me, as well as to the gentleman whose penetration could distinguish neglected genius, and who has taken pleasure in producing it to the public.’ Dibdin’s elder son was named after his father, the character he played, and the author of ‘The Padlock’--Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin. The author of ‘The Thespian Dictionary,’ writing of the second son, Thomas Dibdin, adds to the fact, ‘but not acknowledged by his father!’