_A small Apology for writing on. The different State of the two Companies. _Wilks_ invited over from _Dublin_. _Estcourt_, from the same Stage, the Winter following. Mrs. _Oldfield_'s first Admission to the _Theatre-Royal_. Her Character. The great Theatre in the _Hay-Market_ built for _Betterton_'s Company. It Answers not their Expectation. Some Observations upon it. A Theatrical State Secret._
I now begin to doubt that the _Gayeté du Coeur_ in which I first undertook this Work may have drawn me into a more laborious Amusement than I shall know how to away with: For though I cannot say I have yet jaded my Vanity, it is not impossible but by this time the most candid of my Readers may want a little Breath; especially when they consider that all this Load I have heap'd upon their Patience contains but seven Years of the forty three I pass'd upon the Stage, the History of which Period I have enjoyn'd my self to transmit to the Judgment (or Oblivion) of Posterity.[326] However, even my Dulness will find somebody to do it right; if my Reader is an ill-natur'd one, he will be as much pleased to find me a Dunce in my old Age as possibly he may have been to prove me a brisk Blockhead in my Youth: But if he has no Gall to gratify, and would (for his simple Amusement) as well know how the Playhouses went on forty Years ago as how they do now, I will honestly tell him the rest of my Story as well as I can. Lest therefore the frequent Digressions that have broke in upon it may have entangled his Memory, I must beg leave just to throw together the Heads of what I have already given him, that he may again recover the Clue of my Discourse.
Let him then remember, from the Year 1660 to 1682,[327] the various Fortune of the (then) King's and Duke's two famous Companies; their being reduced to one united; the Distinct Characters I have given of thirteen Actors, which in the Year 1690 were the most famous then remaining of them; the Cause of their being again divided in 1695, and the Consequences of that Division 'till 1697; from whence I shall lead them to our Second Union in----Hold! let me see----ay, it was in that memorable Year when the two Kingdoms of _England_ and _Scotland_ were made one. And I remember a Particular that confirms me I am right in my Chronology; for the Play of _Hamlet_ being acted soon after, _Estcourt_, who then took upon him to say any thing, added a fourth Line to _Shakespear_'s Prologue to the Play, in that Play which originally consisted but of three, but _Estcourt_ made it run thus: