The life of an actress had many ups and downs—as it has now—in former days. There was the eccentric Charlotte Charke, daughter of Colley Cibber, who for some mysterious reason for many years went in male attire, and who acted on the stage if she could get employment. There was then in Bear Yard, Clare Market, a theatre, occasionally used as a tennis-court and as an auction-room. ’Thither,’ she says in her Memoirs, ’I adventured to see if there was any character wanting—a custom very frequent among the gentry who exhibited in that slaughter-house of dramatic poetry. One night, I remember, the "Recruiting Officer" was to be performed.... To my unbounded joy Captain Plume was so unfortunate that he came at five o’clock to say that he did not know a word of his part.... The question being put to me, I immediately replied that I could do such a thing, but was ... resolved to stand upon terms ... one guinea paid in advance, which terms were complied with.’ We mentioned above that the life of an actress has many ups and downs even now. In justification of that statement let us quote from the _Star_ of September 12, 1896: ’A pathetic story of an aged lady, who had been a popular actress, but upon whom evil days had come, and who was found dead in a poorly-furnished bedroom in a third-floor back at Whitfield Street, Tottenham Court Road, was told yesterday to the coroner. The old lady was Louisa Marshall, aged seventy, sister of a celebrated clown at Drury Lane, who died before her. She used to teach the piano, and had a small pension from the Musical and Dramatic Sick Fund. The contents of her room, an old piano and some theatrical dresses, were said to be worth fifty shillings at most.’ But, as Byron says, let us lay this sheet of sorrow on the shelf, and speak of lively, joyous Nell Gwynne, who drove that amorous Pepys nearly mad. His Diary is full of her. First she is simply ’pretty, witty Nell’ (April 3, 1665). On January 23, 1666, Nelly is brought to him in a box at the theatre. ’A most pretty woman.... I kissed her, and so did my wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is.’ On March 2, in the same year, ’Nell ... comes in like a young gallant, and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her.’ On May 1, 1667, he writes: ’To Westminster. In the way many milkmaids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them, and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodging’s door in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one. She seemed a mighty pretty creature.’ But, according to her ardent admirer, this ’mighty pretty creature’ could use mighty strong language too, for he says of her (October 5, 1667): ’But to see how Nell cursed for having so few people in the pit was strange.’ And again, on October 26, he reports: ’Nelly and Beck Marshall (one of the great Presbyterian’s