"We could fish and study,
study and fish," said the actor. "I made myself perfect in Bob Acres
while fishing in the Avon, and committed the words to my memory quite
as fast as I committed the fish to my basket."
The straits and necessities of the strollers have long been a source
of entertainment to the public. In an early number of the "Spectator,"
Steele describes a company of poor players then performing at Epping.
"They are far from offending in the impertinent splendour of the
drama. Alexander the Great was acted by a fellow in a paper cravat.
The next day the Earl of Essex seemed to have no distress but his
poverty; and my Lord Foppington wanted any better means to show
himself a fop than by wearing stockings of different colours. In a
word, though they have had a full barn for many days together, our
itinerants are so wretchedly poor that the heroes appear only like
sturdy beggars, and the heroines gipsies." It is added that the stage
of these performers "is here in its original situation of a cart." In
the "Memoirs of Munden" a still stranger stage is mentioned.
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