Excerpt from The Life and Enterprises of Robert William Elliston, Comedian True it is, playhouses are open and frequented but this is not altogether our question. The drama, in its nobler form, is neither studied nor represented, nor have modern Societies any honours in store for dramatic distinction. How strange and out Of date would now appear the expression of Sir Richard Steele Nothing makes a man so popular, says he, as the authorship of a new play - few things, in our day, attract so little notice. The slight which attaches to the inventive claim must in equal degree await the ministers of its effects. The graces of the actor are cramped in the shrunken measure of degenerate taste, and he must be content to take only such rewards as an unsupported school of art may offer him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.