A deputation accordingly
went from the pit, and the house patiently waited their return."
At this time, no doubt, the actor laboured under certain social
disadvantages; and the manager who did not act, however insignificant
a person otherwise, was generally regarded as enjoying a more
dignified position than that occupied by the most eminent of
performers. In time, of course, the status of the actor improved, and
he outgrew the supposititious degradation attaching to his exercise of
his profession. We have lived to see composers, authors, and even
scene-painters summoned before the foot-lights, nothing loath,
apparently, to accept this public recognition of their merits. But
these are innovations of quite recent date. In a reputable literary
and critical journal,[6] of forty years back, appears an account of
the production at the English Opera House (now the Lyceum Theatre) of
the opera of "Nourjahad," the work of the late Mr. E.J. Loder, of
Bath, then described as the leader of the theatrical orchestra there,
and the son and successor of Mr. Loder, whose talents as a musician
had been long known in that city, and at the Philharmonic and other
concerts.
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