To T. Taylor, Esq., my friend, and coadjutor in the comedy of "Masks and Faces," to whom the reader owes much of the best matter in this tale: and to the memory of Margaret Woffington, falsely _summed up_ until to-day, this "Dramatic Story" is inscribed by CHARLES READE.--
LONDON. Dec. 15, 1852.
CHAPTER I.
ABOUT the middle of the last century, at eight o'clock in the evening, in a large but poor apartment, a man was slumbering on a rough couch. His rusty and worn suit of black was of a piece with his uncarpeted room, the deal table of home manufacture, and its slim unsnuffed candle.
The man was Triplet, scene painter, actor and writer of sanguinary plays,