G3C6 1865 MAIN PREFACE. If the wishes expressed by numerous competent judges may be regarded as a sufficient criterion for the utility of an undertaking, I am justified in hoping that the essay now presented to the reader will not altogether fail of its proposed object. For some time past, indeed, whoever has had occasion to speak of the so-called English Comedians and their relation to the old German and English stages, has always complained of the want of a documentary history relating to them. In the year 1849, having been fortunate enough to make the personal acquaintance of Ludwig Tieck, I obtained from him so much interesting information regarding the appearance of English Actors in Germany, as to cause the liveliest desire to follow up the traces of those strolling players. The remarks by which Tieck in his 'Old German Theatre' first directed attention to this subject in the year 1817, are calculated to stimulate the student to further investigations in the same field rather than to satisfy him; and in the historians of literature who have succeeded Tieck, I have only met with contradictory views, based more on conjecture than on research. One fact alone seemed to be fully evident: that the whole subject of the actors, their origin, their objects, and also the pieces which they performed, was veiled in obscurity. It was the custom to speak of them as of a myth, in the consideration of which we were to base all information regarding them on legendary rather than on historical ground. Nor indeed was there any firm footing to be obtained in the materials which had become known up to that time. Since then, I endeavoured to throw some light upon the question in a few scattered articles, which at distant intervals appeared in the Athenaeum. These were followed up by valuable contributions from other quarters; but quite recently only a few happy discoveries have put me in possession of materials which several of my literary friends considered as calculated to give a certain degree of a |