CHAPTER XVI.
"HER FIRST APPEARANCE." From the south-western corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields a winding and confined court leads to Vere Street, Clare Market.

Midway or so in the passage there formerly existed Gibbon's Tennis Court--an establishment which after the Restoration, and for some three years, served as a playhouse; altogether distinct, be it remembered, from the far more famous Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, situate close by in Portugal Street, at the back of the College of Surgeons.

Nevertheless, the Vere Street Theatre, as it was called, can boast something of a history; at any rate, one event of singular dramatic importance renders it memorable.

For on Saturday, the 8th of December, 1660, as historians of the drama relate, it was the scene of the first appearance upon the English stage of the first English actress.

The lady played Desdemona; and a certain Mr.Thomas Jordan, an actor and the author of various poetical pieces, provided for delivery upon the occasion a "Prologue to introduce the first woman that came to act on the stage in the tragedy called 'The Moor of Venice.'" So far the story is clear enough.