The “Grassington theatre,” or rather “playhouse,” for it never received a loftier appellation, where (to borrow the phraseology of the Coburg) our worthies received their “nightly acclamations of applause,” has been pulled down, but I will endeavour to describe it. It was an old limestone “lathe,” the Craven word for barn, with huge folding-doors, one containing a smaller one, through which the audience was admitted to the pit and gallery, for there were no boxes. Yet on particular occasions, such as when the duke of Devonshire or earl of Thanet good-naturedly deigned to patronise the performances, a “box” was fitted up, by railing off a part of the pit, and covering it, by way of distinction, with brown paper, painted to represent drapery. The prices were, pit sixpence, and gallery threepence. I believe they had no half price. The stage was lighted by five or six halfpenny candles, and the decorations, considering the poverty of the company, were tolerable. The scenery was respectable; and though sometimes, by sad mishap, the sun or moon would take fire, and expose the tallow candle behind it, was very well managed--frequently better than at houses of loftier pretension. The dresses, as far as material went, were good; though not always in character. An outlaw of the forest of Arden sometimes appeared in the guise of a Craven waggoner, and the holy friar, “whose vesper bell is the bowl, ding dong,” would wear a bob wig, cocked hat, and the surplice of a modern church dignitary. These slight discrepancies passed unregarded by the audience; the majority did not observe them, and the few who did were silent; there were no prying editors to criticise and report. The audience was always numerous, (no empty benches _there_) and respectable people often formed a portion. I have known the village lawyer, the parson of the parish, and the doctor comfortably seated together, laughing heartily at Tom Airay strutting as Lady Randolph, his huge Yorkshire clogs peeping from beneath a gown too short to conceal his corduroy breeches, and murdering his words in a manner that might have provoked Fenning and Bailey from their graves, to break the manager’s head with their weighty publications. All the actors had a bad pronunciation. Cicero was called _Kikkero_, (which, by the by, is probably the correct one;) Africa was called _Afryka_, fatigued was _fattygewed_, and pageantry was always called _paggyantry_. Well do I remember Airay exclaiming, “What _pump_, what _paggyantry_ is there here!” and, on another occasion, saying, “_Ye damons o’ deeth come sattle my swurd!_” The company would have spoken better, had they not, on meeting with a “dictionary word,” applied for information to an old schoolmaster, who constantly misled them, and taught them to pronounce in the most barbarous mode he could devise; yet such was the awe wherewith they were accustomed to regard this dogmatical personage, and