Excerpt from Our Old Actors, Vol. 1 of 2 Although a portion of the material of these volumes has appeared in the pages of "Temple Bar," this work claims to be much more than a mere reprint. Detached Essays have been linked together so as to form a chronological history of actors and acting from Shakespeare to Macready. Some of the Essays which have appeared have been considerably expanded, others have been relieved of irrelevant matter, and a number of new sketches have been introduced. As it was necessary to draw the line somewhere, however arbitrarily, I have omitted, with very few exceptions, the names of all actors whose stage career extended beyond Macready's. Many admirable actors are thus unmentioned who well deserve a place in every history of their profession; but besides want of space I have no desire to enter the arena of contemporary criticism. 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.