was working in Colchester when she is said to have interceded to save Palmer's job. In Norwich he married a Miss Berroughs, who had taken a box for his benefit. He then gave, at Hampstead and Highgate, and in various country towns, George Alexander Stevens's Lecture on Heads, and, after playing with a strolling company, returned to London. In 1766, after refusing offers for Dublin and Convent Garden, he engaged with Garrick for Drury Lane, at a salary of 25 shillings a week, raised in answer to his remonstrance to 30 shillings. He appeared on 7 Oct. 1766 as Sir Harry Beagle in the Jealous Wife. He appears in the bills as "J. Palmer", being thus distinguished from his namesake, the elder John Palmer, known as 'Gentleman' Palmer (see below), who took leading business in the company. Acting career Returning in the summer to the Haymarket, Palmer was on 2 July 1767 the original Isaacos in the mock tragedy of the Tailors, and acted Ben Budge in the Beggar's Opera, Morton in Hartson's Countess of Salisbury, imported from Crow Street Theatre, Dublin, to the Lord William of Miss Palmer from Dublin, apparently no relation, and Young Rakish in the School-boy. Back at Drury Lane, he was on 23 Oct. 1767 the original Wilson in Garrick's Peep behind the Curtain, or the New Rehearsal; Furnival, a worthless barrister, in Kenrick's Widow'd Wife; on 23 Jan. 1768 Sir Harry Newburgh in Kelly's False Delicacy, and, 21 March, Captain Slang in Bickerstaffe's Absent Man, and played also Young Wilding in the Liar, and Colonel Tamper in The Deuce is in him. The death of "Gentleman Palmer" in 1768 was followed by the engagement of John Palmer for four years, at a salary rising from forty to fifty shillings a week. The parts assigned him increased in number and importance. The death of Charles Holland and the secession of other actors also contributed to his advancement. It was, indeed, while replacing "Gentleman Palmer" as Harcourt in the Country Girl, in about 1767, that Jack Plausible, as the second Palmer was generally called, established himself in Garrick's favour. He offered to play the part, with which he was quite unfamiliar, the following day. 'Read it, you mean,' said Garrick, who held impossible the mastery of such a character within the time accorded. When at rehearsal Palmer read the part, Garrick exclaimed: "I said so! I