"I'm a justice of the peace and know how to deal with strollers," says
Sir Tunbelly, with an air of menace, in "The Relapse." The
magistrates, indeed, were much inclined to deal severely with the
wandering actor, eyeing his calling with suspicion, and prompt to
enforce the laws against him. Thus we find in "Humphrey Clinker," the
mayor of Gloucester eager to condemn as a vagrant, and to commit to
prison with hard labour, young Mr. George Dennison, who, in the guise
of Wilson, a strolling player, had presumed to make love to Miss Lydia
Melford, the heroine of the story.
In truth, the stroller's life, with all its seeming license and
independence, must always have been attended with hardship and
privation. If the player had ever deemed his art the "idle calling"
many declared it to be, he was soon undeceived on that head. There was
but a thin partition between him and absolute want; meanwhile his
labour was incessant. The stage is a conservative institution,
adhering closely to old customs, manners, and traditions, and what
strolling had once been it continued to be almost for centuries.
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