oftener pleas'd? Might not every bad house, too, by a possibility of being made every day better, add as much to one side of his account as it could take from the other." The latter portion of Colley's remarks will be echoed by our own audiences, which are so often doomed to see the most delicate of plays acted in barns of theatres where all the sensitive effects of dialogue and action are swallowed up in the immensity of stage and auditorium. There is nothing more dispiriting, indeed, both to performers and spectators, than the presentation of some comedy like the "School for Scandal" in a house far better suited to the picturesque demands of the "Black Crook" or the "County Circus." The theatre in Drury Lane, as Oldfield knew it, had a not over-cheerful interior, the most noticeable features of which included the pit, provided with backless benches, and surrounded by what would now be called the Promenade. The latter, as Misson informs us,[A] was taken up for the most part by ladies of quality. In addition to these quarters and the boxes, there were two galleries reserved for the common herd, but into which, no doubt, impecunious beaux, down in the heels and at the mouth, would frequently stray. [Footnote A: Henre Misson's "Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England."] The performances generally began at 5 o'clock, but that there were occasional lapses into unpunctuality, may be inferred from the following advertisement in the _Daily Courant_ of October 5, 1703: "Her Majesty's Servants of the Theatre Royal being return'd from the Bath, do intend, to-morrow, being Wednesday, the sixth of this instant October to act a Comedy call'd 'Love Makes a Man, or the Fop's Fortune.'[A] With singing and dancing. And whereas the audiences have been incommoded by the Plays usually beginning too late, the Company of the said Theatre do therefore give notice that they will constantly begin at Five a Clock without fail, and continue the same Hour all the Winter."[B] [Footnote A: One of Cibber's earlier plays.] [Footnote B: Quoted in "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."] To the _fin de siècle_ playgoer the idea of beginning a performance at so strange an hour seems nothing short of startling, until it be remembered that people of quality were then wont to dine between three and four o'clock of the afternoon. How they spent the earlier portion of the day is not hard to relate. The men of fashion rose tardily, feeling none the better, as a rule, for a night at club or tavern, and then lounged about as best they could, visiting, sauntering in the Mall,[A] or otherwise trying to pass the time until dinner. This solid meal over they were ready for the theatre, where they occasionally arrived in a state of unpleasant exhilaration, damning the play, ogling the women and making themselves as obnoxious as possible to the unfortunates who cared more for the stage than the commonplace audience.