Here my skill and address were so conspicuous that it procured me the same office the ensuing winter, at Drury Lane, where I acquired intrepidity, the crown of all my virtues....

For I think, sir, he that dares stand the shot of the gallery, in lighting, snuffing, and sweeping, the first night of a new play, may bid defiance to the pillory with all its customary compliments....

But an unlucky crab-apple applied to my right eye by a patriot gingerbread baker from the Borough, who would not suffer three dancers from Switzerland because he hated the French, forced me to a precipitate retreat." Mr.Richard Jenkins, in his "Memoirs of the Bristol Stage," published in 1826, relates how one Winstone, a comic actor, who sometimes essayed tragical characters, appeared upon a special occasion as Richard III.

He played his part so energetically, and flourished his sword to such good purpose while demanding "A horse! a horse!" in the fifth act that "the weapon coming in contact with a rope by which one of the hoops of tallow candles was suspended, the blazing circle (not the golden one he had looked for) fell round his neck and lodged there, greatly to his own discomfiture and to the amusement of the audience." The amazed Catesby of the evening, instead of helping his sovereign to a steed, is said to have been sufficiently occupied with extricating him from his embarrassing situation.

Winstone, indeed, seems to have enjoyed some fame on the score of eccentricity.