The diaries, biographies, journals, and traditions of the time will enable us, with some little aid from the imagination, not only to see the actor, but the social aspects amid which he moved. By aid of these, I find that, on a December night, 1661, there is a crowded house at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The play is "Hamlet," with young Mr. Betterton, who has been two years on the stage, in the part of the Dane. The Ophelia is the real object of the young fellow's love, charming Mistress Saunderson. Old ladies and gentlemen, repairing in capacious coaches to this representation, remind one another of the lumbering and crushing of carriages about the old playhouse in the Blackfriars, causing noisy tumults which drew indignant appeals from the Puritan housekeepers, whose privacy was sadly disturbed. But what was the tumult there to the scene on the south side of the "Fields," when "Hamlet," with Betterton, as now, was offered to the public! The Jehus contend for place with the eagerness of ancient Britons in a battle of chariots. And see, the mob about the pit-doors have just caught a bailiff attempting to arrest an honest playgoer. They fasten the official up in a tub, and roll the trembling wretch all "round the square." They finish by hurling him against a carriage, which sweeps from a neighbouring street at full gallop. Down come the horses over the barrelled bailiff, with sounds of hideous ruin; and the young lady lying back in the coach is screaming like mad. This lady is the dishonest daughter of brave, honest, and luckless Viscount Grandison. As yet she is only Mrs. Palmer; next year she will be Countess of Castlemaine. At length the audience are all safely housed and eager. Indifferent enough, however, they are during the opening scenes. The fine gentlemen laugh loudly and comb their periwigs in the "best rooms." The fops stand erect in the boxes to show how folly looks in clean linen; and the orange nymphs, with their costly entertainment of fruit from Seville, giggle and chatter, as they stand on the benches below with old and young admirers, proud of being recognised in the boxes. The whole court of Denmark is before them; but not till the words, "'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother," fall from the lips of Betterton, is the general ear charmed, or the general tongue arrested. Then, indeed, the vainest fops and pertest orange girls look round and listen too. The voice is so low, and sad, and sweet; the modulation so tender, the dignity so natural, the grace so consummate, that all yield themselves silently to the delicious enchantment. "It's beyond imagination," whispers Mr. Pepys to his neighbour, who only answers with a long and low drawn "_Hush!_"