There is a smith's shop near Holyrood, which, in 1715, was part of a Tennis Court, which, in that year, and just before the outbreak, was converted into a theatre. It was well attended, and furiously denounced; even solemn kirk folk flocked to listen to the old and modern playwrights, despite the threats of their ministers that, from all such, they would withhold the "tokens to the Sacrament of the Supper." The presbytery of Edinburgh fulminated every species of menace against the new stage and its upholders, but the latter had a fatally amusing comment to make on such fulminations. Only the year previously, three of these very ministers, Mitchell, Ramsay, and Hart, sent as a deputation to congratulate George I. on his accession, rested on their way at Kendal, where there was a little theatre, whither these good men repaired to see Congreve's "Love for Love" acted, and thought nobody would tell of their backsliding! The Scottish Tennis Court theatre did not prosper even so well as that in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Eleven years after the above date, although we hear of a performance of Otway's "Orphan," with a prologue by Allan Ramsay, it is in "private;"[67] but adverse critics are informed, that they will have to support their opinions, by the duello, in the King's Park. In the same year, 1726, Anthony Aston, that erratic actor, "after a circuit round the Queen of Isles," as another prologue by Mr. Allan Ramsay said of him, re-appeared in Edinburgh with a theatrical company. "The dastards said, 'He never will succeed:' What! such a country look for any good in, That does not relish plays, nor pork, nor pudding!" Aston had to contend against the utmost efforts of the clergy and magistracy. Nevertheless, ruling elders, who were peers of the realm, Lords of Session and other amateurs, went and wept at graceful Westcombe and handsome Mrs. Millar, in the "Mourning Bride," and a son of Bishop Ross, and master of the Beaux' Coffee House, charged a commission of a penny on every playhouse ticket sold in his establishment. Then, even Lord Grange, the most profligate ruffian in all Scotland, was alarmed for Scottish morals, when he heard that Allan Ramsay had founded a circulating library, and was lending out English playbooks. The magistrates, moved by that arch-villain, Grange,--than whom there was not a man so given to drink, devilry, and devotion,--sent inspectors to learn from Ramsay's books the names of his subscribers. Allan had timely warning; and he destroyed his list before the obnoxious jurors presented themselves. The pulpits re-echoed with denunciations against acting and episcopacy, and _men_ who were carried to the theatres in sedans,--oh! what had come to Scottish thews and sinews, when such a spectacle as this was to be seen in old Edinburgh!