The Thespian army had no need of a recruiting-sergeant or a press-gang
to reinforce its ranks. There have always been amateurs lured by the
mere spectacle of the foot-lights, as moths by a candle. Crabbe's
description of the strollers in his "Borough" was a favourite passage
with Sir Walter Scott, and was often read to him in his last fatal
illness:
Of various men these marching troops are made,
Pen-spurning clerks and lads contemning trade;
Waiters and servants by confinement teased,
And youths of wealth by dissipation eased;
With feeling nymphs who, such resource at hand,
Scorn to obey the rigour of command, &c. &c.
And even to the skilled and experienced actors a wandering life
offered potent attractions. Apart from its liberty and adventure, its
defiance of social convention and restraint, ambition had space to
stir, and vanity could be abundantly indulged in the itinerant
theatre. Dekker speaks of the bad presumptuous players, who out of a
desire to "wear the best jerkin," and to "act great parts, forsake the
stately and more than Roman city stages," and join a strolling
company.
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