CHAPTER V.
A BILL OF THE PLAY.
Are there, nowadays, any collectors of playbills?
In the catalogues of secondhand booksellers are occasionally to be found such entries as: "Playbills of the Theatre Royal, Bath, 1807 to 1812;" or "Hull Theatre Royal--various bills of performances between 1815 and 1850;" or "Covent Garden Theatre--variety of old bills of the last century pasted in a volume;" yet these evidences of the care and diligence of past collectors would not seem to obtain much appreciation in the present.

The old treasures can generally be purchased at a very moderate outlay.

Still, if scarceness is an element of value, these things should be precious.

It is in the nature of such ephemera of the printing-press to live their short hour, and disappear with exceeding suddenness.

They may be originally issued in hundreds or even in thousands; but once gone they are gone for ever.