... would be willing to acknowledge that facts equally melodraamatic-nay, tragical-were every day cropping up as thick as blackberries in every court, street, and alley within a hundred yards of the garish 'Theatre, where they sit in spell-bound attention ...

... Anecdotes of the Stage, have for the last forty years rained round us in a perfect storm; indeed, ihey have budded thick as blackberries on the literary hedge of every year within the memory of decent compu- tation. But the reminiscences of an actor, whso ...