on to Folkestone and Dover. The Hare and Hounds Theatre kept its doors open until 1821, and on the 16th of October, 1823, Mr. Brooke obtained permission from the Corporation to erect a Theatre in Bourne Street, Hastings, an account of which will be found elsewhere.
Since writing the foregoing, my attention has been drawn to " Toole's Reminiscences," published about 1899, from which is extracted the following :
" Mr. Toole quotes a story of Paul Bedford, relating to an interesting incident in the early career of the late J. B. Buckstone. The latter was engaged, when quite a boy, for utility business at Hastings, but Wombwell's show proved too powerful a rival to the Theatre, and the manager (Mr. Sage) resolved to bring out a strong new play, which was a great hit at the Surrey Theatre, with a view to retrieving the fortunes of the Company. In this piece the boy Buckstone was cast for an unimportant part, but he went out upon the Down (Fairlight Down) to study it. On the third day he was followed by a stranger (Edmund Kean), who soon got into conversation with him, and elicited the fact that young Buckstone was a member of the Company of Actors then playing at Hastings, and was studying his part. The stranger enquired how they were doing at the Theatre, and hoped business was good, when Buckstone replied that he was sorry to say it was bad. There was a wild beast show in the town, which had emptied the Theatre. The truth was, the Management was hard up, and if the new piece did not draw he was afraid they should all be ruined. A friend of his, Cooper, the scene painter, had saved a five-pound note for a rainy day, and kept it in his watch case, but the watch was stolen on the last night, and affairs were not at all rosy with any of them. The stranger desired to see the Theatre, and was shown over it by the boy (he had, I believe, seen it before, and the performance too, as he was staying at Hastings to recruit his health). When he was about to leave, a post chaise drove up to the door, and Mr. Ellison, then manager of Drury Lane, jumped out, and shaking the stranger (Mr. Kean) by the hand, begged him to return to London to appear there in a new play. To this the stranger agreed, on condition that Ellison remained at Hastings to play on the succeeding night for their unfortunate brethren. That night it was announced that on the following evening the pieces would be "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE" : Shylock by Edmund Kean, and "THE LIAR" : Wildrake by R. W. Ellison. The result was a house that enabled the management to pay all back salaries, to buy Cooper a new watch and note, and money enough to take the troupe comfortably on to Dover (playing first at Folkestone en route). Sidney Cooper, the well-known painter of animals, began life as scene painter at Hastings."
