He always strengthened his company, and produced his best dresses, for the London fairs, where his theatre, decked with banners and a good display of steel and brass armour, presented a striking appearance. His wardrobe and scene-waggon were always well stocked, and the dresses were not, as some persons imagined, the off castings of the theatres, but were made for him, and, having to be worn by daylight, were of really excellent quality. Cloaks were provided for the company to wear on parade when the weather happened to be wet. It was a frequent boast of Richardson, that many of the most eminent members of the theatrical profession had graduated in his company, and it is known that Edmund Kean, James Wallack, Oxberry, and Saville Faucit were of the number. Kean always acknowledged that he made his first appearance in a principal part as Young Norval in Richardson's theatre; but it is obvious from what is known of his boyhood that he must have been in the company several years before he could have essayed that character. So far as can be made out from his supposed age, he seems to have joined Richardson's company in 1804, to the early part of which year we must assign the story told by Davis, who was afterwards associated in partnership with the younger Astley in the lesseeship of the Amphitheatre. "I was passing down Great Surrey Street one morning," Davis is reported to have said, "when just as I came to the place where the Riding House now stands, at the corner of the Magdalen as they call it, I saw Master Saunders packing up his traps. His booth, you see, had been standing there for some three or four days, or thereabouts; and on the parade-waggon I saw a slim young chap with marks of paint--and bad paint it was, for all the world like raddle on the back of a sheep--on his face, tying up some of the canvas. And when I had shook hands with Master Saunders, he turns him right round to this young chap, who had just threw a somerset behind his back, and says, 'I say, you Mr. King Dick, if you don't mind what you're arter, and pack up that wan pretty tight and nimble, we shan't be off afore to-morrow; and so, you mind your eye, my lad.' That Mr. King Dick, as Master Saunders called him, was young Carey, that's now your great Mr. Kean."