TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. The oe ligature has been replaced by 'oe' or 'OE'. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. More detail can be found at the end of the book. NOTE.--_Three Hundred copies of this Edition printed on fine deckle-edge Royal 8vo paper. The fifty Portraits are given in duplicate, one on Japanese and the other on plate paper, as India proofs._ _Each of these copies is numbered._ _No._ .......... "Their Majesties' Servants" DR. DORAN, F.S.A. VOLUME THE FIRST Ballantyne Press BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON [Illustration: (Frontispiece, Dr. Doran)] "_THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS_" ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH STAGE FROM THOMAS BETTERTON TO EDMUND KEAN BY DR. DORAN, F.S.A. _EDITED AND REVISED BY ROBERT W. LOWE_ With Fifty Copperplate Portraits and Eighty Wood Engravings _IN THREE VOLUMES_ VOLUME THE FIRST LONDON JOHN C. NIMMO 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND MDCCCLXXXVIII PREFACE. It is unnecessary to apologise for a new edition of Dr. Doran's _Annals of the Stage_. The two editions already published have been for many years out of print, and the first is so rare that copies of it bring a high price whenever they occur for sale. And this demand is not a mere bibliographical accident, for the book has held for many years a recognised position as the standard popular history of the English stage. The admirable work of Genest, indispensable as it is to every writer on theatrical history, and to every serious student of the stage, is in no sense a popular work, and is, indeed, rather a collection of facts towards a history than a history itself. In preparing this new edition every effort has been made to add to its interest by the introduction of portraits and other illustrations, and to its authority as a book of reference, by correcting those errors which are scarcely to be avoided by a writer working among the confused, inaccurate, and contradictory documents of theatrical history. No one who has not ventured into this maze can conceive the difficulty of keeping the true path, and I can imagine nothing better calculated to sap one's self-confidence than the task of noting the false turnings made by such a writer as Dr. Doran. I can hardly hope that my own work, light as it is in comparison with his, will be found free from sins of omission, and even of commission.