He took leave of the stage in 1784, being then about eighty years of age.

But he was at this time so afflicted with deafness that it was impossible for him to "catch the word" from the prompter at the side of the stage.

To assist him, therefore, in the delivery of his farewell address, one of the performers, provided with a copy of the speech, was stationed behind the speaker and instructed to keep moving forward and backward as he did, like his shadow.

The effect must certainly have been whimsical.

Winstone had been a pupil of Quin's, and had played Downright to Garrick's Kitely in "Every Man in his Humour," at Drury Lane, in 1751.