R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

The Theatre in the 'Seventies 137amount, ' it was', says Robertson, ' a salary of loose andirregular habits', the management being always inpecuniary straits. At last, in desperation, he and Byrondetermined to enlist in the Horse Guards. Robertsonwas rejected, failing to satisfy the regimental doctor, andByron refused to enlist without him. So back they bothwent to the old drudgery of acting in the minor theatres,doubtless with many a laugh and joke. And it wasshortly afterwards that Robertson began to do hackworkfor Thomas Hailes Lacy, a prominent theatricalagent and publisher, in the way of adapting plays fromthe French. This, it seems to me, was the first, faintstreak of dawn.It will surprise nobody who has studied the theatricaltemperament to learn that in the following year Robertsonmarried. Rehearsing at a poky little theatre inTottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road, he met andfell in love with a Miss Elizabeth Burton, a young actressplaying the line of parts then known as ' walking ladies'—perhaps because such characters did more walking thantalking. With a precipitancy not unusual, I believe,in the theatrical profession, they were married after ashort engagement on the 27th August, 1856, at ChristChurch, Marylebone. It is worthy of remark that thatlittle theatre in Tottenham Street, then called the Queen'sTheatre—or more frequently, from its state of dirt anddecay, the ' Dusthole'—was afterwards furbished up andre-named the Prince of Wales's, and was the scene ofRobertson's greatest dramatic triumphs. Soon after hismarriage he set out with his wife for the provinces, andthey acted together, she promoted to the position of'leading lady', in Dublin, Belfast, Dundalk, Plymouth,and Rochester. Returning home, they appeared at theSurrey Theatre and the Marylebone Theatre, and—alittle farther afield—at the theatres rather magnilo-