More than once we find the little princes and princesses “fretting their hour upon the stage,” their instructor being the celebrated actor, James Quin, who was also the stage manager. In after years the old actor took a pride in speaking of the days when he was a Court favourite, and when the first speech of George III., delivered from the throne, was much commended for the graceful manner in which it was spoken; “Ay!” said Quin, “it was I who taught the boy to speak.” The first of these juvenile dramatic performances took place on 4th January 1749--the piece selected for representation being Addison’s “Cato”--and the last occasion of these juvenile theatricals at Leicester House appears to have been on 11th January 1750, on which day Bubb Dodington mentions in his diary that he was invited to witness the representation of Rowe’s tragedy of “Lady Jane Grey” by the royal children. In after days George III.’s early acquired taste for the drama seems to have kept pace with his life, for so frequent were his visits to the theatre that the people of London are said to have been as well acquainted with his features as with those of their next-door neighbour. His glee during the performance of a broad farce, or a droll hit in a pantomime, may at times have been too exuberantly manifested, but his subjects did not love him the less because he was completely at home in the midst of them. Neither did his sense of the ridiculous prevent his enjoying the higher beauties of the drama. Frequently Mrs. Siddons, and sometimes Garrick, were sent for to read plays or poetry in the royal circle either at Buckingham House, or Windsor.[141] “He is said,” writes Thackeray,[142] “not to have cared for Shakespeare or tragedy much; farces and pantomimes were his joy; and especially when the clown swallowed a carrot, or a string of sausages, he would laugh so outrageously that the lovely princess by his side would have to say, ‘My gracious monarch, do compose yourself.’ But he continued to laugh, and at the very smallest farces, so long as his poor wits were left him.” But the fondness of George III. for the drama on one occasion was not unattended with risk, for as he was on his way to the Haymarket Theatre, on 25th July 1777, a madwoman attacked and did some damage to his chair. And as he was entering his box in Drury Lane Theatre, on 15th May 1800, he was shot at by a madman named James Hadfield. But he did not lose his composure, and he slept as quietly as usual during the interval between the play and the after-piece. What nowadays would be considered an unpardonable offence was occasionally taken by actors with their royal patrons. When Parsons, for instance, was playing the Chief Carpenter in the “Siege of Calais,” advancing close to the royal box, he exclaimed, “An’ the King were here and did not admire my scaffold, I would say, D--n him! he has no taste”--an impudent sally which amused the King even more than the audience.