In the hurry, anxiety, and disappointments in which the old strollers lived, study was imperfect, and I have heard of a play acted almost entirely from the prompting supplied from a book borrowed from one of the audience, the actors neither knowing the piece nor having a copy to learn it from! That such a life should have any attraction may seem surprising, but Incledon left the musical band of a man-of-war to sing ballads, on country stages, and to get little more than bread to keep him in voice. Occasionally, the strollers played in very good company,--as at Plymouth, where Sir Charles Bampfylde would play Captain Brazen, or any other part, "by particular desire of Sir Charles," as the bills had it! The Plymouth house is the only house, except the old Dublin, in which performances took place before the roof was on! On one night of Shuter's benefit, the gallery was so crowded that the beam visibly bent, and two uprights were placed under it, to prevent the people, who came to be amused, from being killed. It must have been a cheerful night, free from anxiety! Between country actors and audiences, there was an easy freedom. Miller, of Birmingham, played Frenchmen well and Hamlet abominably, for which last he was hissed, and thereupon he told the audience that since they wouldn't have his Hamlet, they shouldn't have his Frenchman! Mrs. Charke records that one night, as she was playing Pyrrhus, she was called upon to deliver some speeches of Scrub, in which she had distinguished herself the night before. In like manner, when Incledon was singing the most pathetic ballad, his rude hearers would demand some coarse popular song, nor let him off till he had sung it! "Oh! take more pity in thine eyes!" said a Portsmouth Richard to Lady Anne. "Would they were _battle-axe_," said Miss White (instead of "_basilisks_") "to strike thee dead!" This, however, was probably only a slip.[85] At all events, it was not so shocking as Brereton's first indications of his insanity when, at a country theatre, and playing with his wife (afterwards Mrs. Kemble), he made her dance a _minuet_ with him, when she ought to have been weeping; and when she died in character, the poor fellow (a _star_ in the country) would, if not watched, walk up to her and seriously bewail the sad condition of his darling wife.