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THE STAGE FIFTY YEARS AGO
of the truth of Hfe. As long as they were
played they provoked an immense amount
of wholesome and happy laughter. The
most serious actors — even the leaders of
the Booth family— did not disdain to ap-
pear in them, and the greatest comedians
of the nineteenth century — Blake, Burton,
Clarke, Owens, Gilbert, Warren, and the
Mathewses — were largely known to fame
through the impersonation of the best far-
cical characters. At William Warren's
famous "benefits,"— of which there were
four per annum for many years in the
Boston Museum, — a programme which
had not at least one farce was seldom pre-
sented ; and 1 recall some of that come-
dian's "benefit" nights in which the bill
consisted merely of five farces.
The king of the English writers or
adapters of these dramas was John Mad-
ison Morton, and somewhat below him
were J. B. Buckstone and T. J. Wil-
liams. Morton's Box and Cox, Betsy
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