Drury Lane, in 1756-57, offers little for remark. Miss Pritchard appeared in Juliet--only to show that talent is not hereditary; and Garrick ventured King Lear, with a little less of Tate, and a little more of Shakspeare; he was as resolute, however, against introducing the Fool as he was with respect to the Gravediggers in Hamlet. On the other hand, he acted Don Felix. Gracefully as Garrick played the part, Walpole said "he was a monkey to Lord Henry Fitzgerald" (who played this character admirably in private). The Violante of Miss Macklin was acted with astonishing effect. When Garrick was weary, his parts were "doubled" by handsome Holland, the son of the Chiswick baker, and destined to carry grief to the honest heart of Miss Pope. The dramatic poets raised no new echoes in Drury this season--some farces excepted. One of these was the "Reprisal," by Smollet, who showed that if he could not write a good tragedy at nine-and-twenty, he could dash off a lively farce at seven-and-thirty. With this farce the ablest of novelists and harshest of critics closed his theatrical career. The second farce was Foote's "Author," in which he and Mrs. Clive acted Mr. and Mrs. Cadwallader, and the former exultingly held up to ridicule one of his most intimate friends, Mr. Apreece, taking care to have him among the audience on the first night! At the other house, Barry failed in Richard III.; but the treasury recovered itself by the production, in March, of "Douglas," in which Barry, six feet high, and in a suit of white puckered satin, played Norval to the Lady Randolph of Mrs. Woffington. The originals of those parts, when the piece was first played in Edinburgh, in the previous December, were Digges and Mrs. Ward. This piece was the glory of the Scottish stage, and a scandal to great part of the community. Before the curtain rises let me say a few words on the growth of that stage. There have been stringent rules in Scotland with regard to the theatre, but they have been accompanied by much general toleration. The Regent Murray cheerfully witnessed the performance of a drama; and the General Assembly, in 1574,[65] though they prohibited all dramas founded on Scripture, permitted the representation of "profane plays." The licensers were the Kirk Session, before which body the piece was first read; and if license was accorded for its being acted, stipulation was made that nothing should be added to the text which had been read, and that "nae swearing, banning, nor nae scurrility shall be spoken, whilk would be a scandal to our religion and for an evil example to others."