AT the first performance of Douglas, when Young Norval was busily employed giving out one of his rodomontading speeches, a canny Scot, who had been observed to grow more and more excited as the piece progressed, unable longer to contain his feelings, called out with evident pride,
'Whaur's yer Wully Shakspere noo!'
( For earlier or alternative versions of this celebrated anecdote, see Macdonald Emslie, 'Home's Douglas and Wully Shakespeare', Studies in Scottish Literature (October 1964), ii. 128-129.)
From James C. Dibdin, Annals of the Edinburgh Stage (1888), p. 87.