Young actors of the present time--time when pieces run for months and years; when authors prescribe the extent of the run of their own dramas, and when nothing is "damned" by a patient public--our young actors have little idea of the labours undergone by the great predecessors who gave glory to the stage and dignity to the profession. Not only was Betterton's range of characters unlimited, but the number he "created" was never equalled by any subsequent actor of eminence--namely, about one hundred and thirty! In some single seasons he studied and represented no less than eight original parts--an amount of labour which would shake the nerves of the stoutest among us now. His brief relaxation was spent on his little Berkshire farm, whence he once took a rustic to Bartholomew Fair for a holiday. The master of the puppet-show declined to take money for admission--"Mr. Betterton," he said, "is a brother actor!" Roger, the rustic, was slow to believe that the puppets were not alive; and so similar in vitality appeared to him, on the same night, at Drury Lane, the Jupiter and Alcmena in "Amphitryon," played by Betterton and Mrs. Barry, that on being asked what he thought of them, Roger, taking them for puppets, answered, "They did wonderfully well for rags and sticks." Provincial engagements were then unknown. Travelling companies, like that of Watkins, visited Bath, a regular company from town going thither only on royal command; but magistrates ejected strollers from Newbury; and Reading would not tolerate them, even out of respect for Mr. Betterton. At Windsor, however, there was a troop fairly patronised, where, in 1706, a Mistress Carroll, daughter of an old Parliamentarian, was awakening shrill echoes by enacting Alexander the Great. The lady was a friend of Betterton's, who had in the previous year created the part of Lovewell in her comedy of the "Gamester." The powers of Mrs. Carroll had such an effect on Mr. Centlivre, one of the cooks to Queen Anne, that he straightway married her; and when, a few months later, Betterton played Sir Thomas Beaumont, in the lady's comedy, "Love at a Venture,"[31] his friend, a royal cook's wife, furnished but an indifferent part for a royal cook's son. In other friendships cultivated by the great actor, and in the influences which he exerted over the most intellectual men who were his friends, we may discover proofs of Betterton's moral worth and mental power. Glorious Thomas not only associated with "Glorious John," but became his critic,--one to whom Dryden listened with respect, and to whose suggestions he lent a ready acquiescence. In the poet's "Spanish Friar," there was a passage which spoke of kings' bad titles growing good by time; a supposed fact which was illustrated by the lines-- "So, when clay's burned for a hundred years, It starts forth china!" The player fearlessly pronounced this passage "_mean_," and it was forthwith cancelled by the poet.