acquiesce, until after he had opened with the so recruited company in the Haymarket. The actors that came to him from Drury-lane were Wilks, Estcourt, Mills, Keen, Johnson, Bullock, Mrs Oldfield, Mrs Rogers, and some few others of less note. But I must here let you know that this project was formed, and put in execution, all in very few days in the summer season, when no theatre was open. To all which I was entirely a stranger, being at this time at a gentleman's house in Gloucestershire, scribbling, if I mistake not, the "Wife's Resentment."

The first word I heard of this transaction was by a letter from Swiney, inviting me to make one in the Haymarket company, whom he hoped I could not but now think the stronger party. But I confess I was not a little alarmed at this revolution. For I considered that I knew of no visible fund to support these actors, but their own industry; that all his recruits from Drury-lane would want new clothing; and that the warmest industry would be always labouring up hill under so necessary an expense, so bad a situation, and so inconvenient a theatre. I was always of opinion too, that in changing sides, in most conditions, there generally were discovered more unforeseen inconveniences than visible advantages; and that, at worst, there would always some sort of merit remain with fidelity, though unsuccessful. Upon these considerations, I was only thankful for the offers made me from the Haymarket, without accepting them; and soon after came to town, towards the usual time of their beginning to act, to offer my service to our old master. But I found our company so thinned, that it was almost impracticable to bring any one tolerable play upon the stage. When I asked him where were his actors, and in what manner he intended to proceed, he replied, Do not you trouble yourself; come along, and I will show you. He then led me about all the by-places in the house, and showed me fifty little back doors, dark closets, and narrow passages; in alterations and contrivances of which kind he had busied his head most

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part of the vacation; for he was scarce ever without some notable joiner, or a bricklayer extraordinary, in pay for twenty years. And there are so many odd obscure places about a theatre, that his genius in nookbuilding was never out of employment; nor could the most vain-headed author be more deaf to an interruption in reciting his works, than our wise master was, while entertaining me with the improvements he had made in his invisible architecture; all which, without thinking any one part of it necessary, though I seemed to approve, I could not help now and then breaking in upon his delight with the impertinent question ofBut, master, where are your actors? But it seems I had taken a wrong time for this sort of inquiry; his head was full of matters of more moment, and (as you find) I was to come another time for an answer. very hopeful condition I found myself in, under the conduct of so profound a virtuoso, and so considerate a master! But to speak of him seriously, and to account for this disregard to his actors, his notion was, that singing and dancing, or any sort of exotic entertainments, would make an ordinary company of actors too hard for the best set, who had orly plain plays to subsist on. Now, though I am afraid too much might be said in favour of this opinion, yet I thought he laid more stress upon that sort of merit than it would bear. As I therefore found myself of so little value with him, I could not help setting a little more upon myself, and was resolved to come to a short explanation with him. I told him I came to serve him at a time when many of his best actors had deserted him; that he might now have the refusal of me; but I could not afford to carry the compliment so far as to lessen my income by it; that I therefore expected either my casual pay to be advanced, or the payment of my former salary made certain for as many days as we had acted the year before. No; he was not willing to alter his former method; but I might choose whatever parts I had a mind to act of theirs who had left him. When I found him, as I thought, so insensible or impregnable, I

looked gravely in his face and told him-he knew upon what terms I was willing to serve him; and took my leave. By this time the Haymaket company had begun acting to audiences something better than usual, and were all paid their full salaries; a blessing they had not felt in some years in either house before. Upon this success, Swiney pressed the patentee to execute the articles they had as yet only verbally agreed on, which were in substance, that Swiney should take the Haymarket house in his own name, and have what actors he thought necessary from Drury-lane; and after all payments punctually made, the profits should be equally divided between these two undertakers. But soft and fair! Rashness was a fault that had never yet been imputed to the patentee; certain payments were methods he had not of a long, long, time been used to; that point still wanted time for consideration. But Swiney was as hasty as the other was slow, and was resolved to know what he had to trust to before they parted; and to keep him the closer to his bargain, he stood upon his right of having me added to that company, if I was willing to come into it. But this was a point as absolutely refused on one side, as insisted on on the other. In this contest high words were exchanged on both sides, until in the end this their last private meeting came to an open rupture. But before it was publicly known, Swiney, by fairly letting me into the whole transaction, took effectual means to secure me in his interest. When the mystery of the patentee's indifference to me was unfolded, and that his slighting me was owing to the security he relied on of Swiney's not daring to engage me, I could have no further debate with myself which side of the question I should adhere to. To conclude; I agreed in two words to act with Swiney; and from this time, every change that happened in the theatrical government was a nearer step to that twenty years of prosperity which actors under the management of actors not long afterwards enjoyed. What was the immediate consequence of this last desertion from Drury-lane, shall be the subject of another chapter.

CHAPTER X.

The recruited actors in the Haymarket encouraged by a subscription.-Drury-lane under a particular management.— The power of a lord chamberlain over the theatres considered. How it had been formerly exercised.—A digression to tragic authors.

HAVING shown the particular conduct of the patentee in refusing so fair an opportunity of securing to himself both companies under his sole power and interest, I shall now lead the reader, after a short view of what passed in this new establishment of the Haymarket theatre, to the accidents that the year following compelled the same patentee to receive both companies united into the Drury-lane theatre, notwithstanding his disinclination to it.

It may now be imagined, that such a detachment of actors from Drury-lane could not but give a new spirit to those in the Haymarket; not only by enabling them to act each other's plays to better advantage, but by an emulous industry, which had lain too long inactive among them, and without which they plainly saw they could not be sure of subsistence, Plays by this means began to recover a good share of their former esteem and favour; and the profits of them in about a month enabled our new manager to discharge his debt (of something more than two hundred pounds) to his old friend the patentee, who had now left him and his troop in trust to fight their own battles. The greatest inconvenience they still laboured under was the immoderate wideness of their house; in which, as I have observed, the difficulty of hearing may be said to have buried half the auditors' entertainment. This defect seemed evident from the much better reception several new plays (first acted there) met with, when they afterwards came to be played by the same actors in Drury-lane. Of this number were the "Beaux Stratagem," and the " Wife's Resentment;" to which I may add the "Double Gallant."

This last was a play made up of what little was tolerable in two or three others that had no success, and were laid aside as so much poetical lumber; but by collecting and adapting the best parts of them all into one play, the Double Gallant has had a place every winter amongst the public entertainments these thirty years. As I was only the compiler of this piece, I did not publish it in my own name; but as my having but a hand in it could not be long a secret, I have been often treated as a plagiary on that account. Not that I think I have any right to complain of whatever would detract from the merit of that sort of labour; yet a cobbler may be allowed to be useful, though he is not famous; and I hope a man is not blamable for doing a little good, though he cannot do as much as another. But so it is: two penny critics must live, as well as eighteen-penny authors!

While the stage was thus recovering its former strength, a more honourable mark of favour was shown to it than it was ever known before or since to have received. The then lord Halifax was not only the patron of the men of genius of his time, but had likewise a generous concern for the reputation and prosperity of the theatre, from whence the most elegant dramatic labours of the learned he knew had often shone in their brightest lustre. A proposal therefore was drawn up, and addressed to that noble lord, for his approbation and assistance to raise a public subscription for reviving three plays of the best authors, with the full strength of the company; every subscriber to have three tickets for the first day of each play, for his single payment of three guineas. This subscription his lordship so zealously encouraged that, from his recommendation chiefly, in a very little time it was completed. The plays were "Julius Cæsar" of Shakspeare; the "King and No King" of Fletcher; and the comic scenes of Dryden's "Marriage à la Mode," and of his "Maiden Queen," put together; for it was judged that, as these comic episodes were utterly independent of the serious scenes they were originally written to, they might on this occasion be as