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that no actor was worth more than 300l. per annum.

For fome years, by the prudent advice of the principal players, more especially, I beleve, of Mr. Charles Macklin, who was the only player 1 ever heard of, that made acting a fcience; and the unremitted labours of this actor, Quin. Clive, Pritchard, and fome others, the theatre at Drury-lane was in a flate of confiderable credit, and generally filed with the choiceft company. But it was impoffible to refrain fo irregular and expenfive a man as the patentee within the bounds of prudence and œconomy. After he had happily been obliged to forfake the practice of high play, and had deferted Arthur's *, he was feized with an unaccountable paffion for low diverfion, and took a strange delight in the company of the meanest of the human fpecies. This man of genteel addrefs and polite manners conceived a peculiar fondnefs for the profeffors of the art of boxing; his time was divided between fturdy athletics and ridiculous buffoons; between Broughton, James, and Taylor, the most eminent of our boxers, and the tumblers of Sadler's-Wells; the heroic combatants of Hockley in the Hole and the Bear-Garden graced the patentee's levee almoft every morning.

Some time before Mr. Garrick's engagement with this manager, he had brought all the inmates of Sadler's-Wells upon his ftage, and entertained the public with fights of tail monsters and contemptible rope-dancers.

The theatre was farmed to one

Pierfon, his treasurer, who had lent large fums of money to the manager. This fellow confidered the merits of the best actors in no other view than as they contributed to the payment of his loan; the juft and legal demands of the actors were treated by him with infolence and contempt: he was civil to Mr. Garrick, indeed, because he hoped, by his acting, to get back the money he had rifqued upon the patent.

In this diftracted state of Fleetwood's management, the ill treatment of the players feemed to call aloud for redrefs. Bailiffs were often in poffeffion of the theatre; and the properties, cloaths, and other ftage ornaments of the comedians, were fometimes feized upon by thefe low implements of the law. Many ridiculous contefts and foolish fquabbles between the actors and thefe licensed harpies might here be recorded for the reader's amufement; I fhall content myfelf with relating one of them. The hat of King Richard the Third, by being adorned with jewels of paste, feathers, and other ornaments, feemed, to the fheriff's officers, a prey worthy of their feizure; but honeft Davy, Mr. Garrick's Welch fervant, told them, they did not know what they were about; "For, look you," faid Davy, "that hat belongs to the king." The fellows imagining that what was meant of Richard the Third was fpoken of George the Second, refigned their prey, though with fome reluctance.

Repeated, but ineffectual applications, were made to the patentee, for removal of grievances,

Generally called White's Chocolate-Houfe.

by

by Garrick, Macklin, Pritchard, and others. It is true, he did not treat their remonttrances with haughtiness as his treasurer did; he liftened to their addreffes with great calmness, as well as affability; he owned the juftnefs of their reprefentations, and the rectitude of their demands; he was moft heartily forry, he protelted, for what was pait, and promifed very folemuly to reform every thing that was amifs.---Fair prom fes frequently made, and as often broken, will the out the most patient tempers; the clamours of the actors, but fpecially thofe who had no means of fubfift.nce but their weekly income, were now fo loud and urgent, that it became neceffary to look about in, earnell for tome means of fubftantial,

redrefs.

About the end of the fummer 1743, the actors found leifure to digelt a plan for removing, the grievances under which they had to long patiently fuffered. About a dozen of them, the chief of whom were Garrick, Macklin, Havard, Berry, Blakes, Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Clive, with Mills, and his wife, entered into an aflociation, to which others were invited.

A formal agree ment was figned, by which they obliged themfelves not to accede to any terms which might be propofed to them by the patentee, without the confent of all the fub. fcribers..

The players were in hopes that the lord chamberlain would be induced to grant them his favour and protection; and, in imitation of one of his predeceffors, the witty and benevolent earl of Dorfet, who refcued Betterton, Mrs.

Barry, and other aggrieved actors,`from the tyranny and oppreffion of Chriftopher Rich, the old patentee of Drury-lane playhouse, grant them a licence or patent for acting plays at the Opera-house or elsewhere. They drew up a petition, in which they stated their grievances very exactly, and fupported their claim to redrefs from a variety of tacts which they offered to prove.

The Duke of Grafton, who was then chamberlain, received the petition of the players with coldnefs; inftead of examining into the merits of their complaints, he defired to know the amount of their annual flipends. He was much furprized to be informed, that a man could gain, merely by playing, the yearly salary of 500l. His grace obferved, that a near relation of his, who was then an inferior officer in the navy, expofed his life in behalf of his king and country for lefs than half that fum. All attempts to convince the duke that justice and right were on the fide of the petitioners, were to no purpole.

It requires but litle art of reafoning to confute the duke's argument; his attempt to compare a principal actor's income with that of a fubaltern officer, was very ill founded: every gentleman that would win to rife in the fleet or the army, is obliged to go through the feveral gradations of preferment; but the midshipman and the cadet both hope to rife to the higheit office which they can poffibly attain.

Befides, genius teps beyond the tedious formalities of progreffive fervice and limited practice. Hawke, Howe, and Keppel, were forced to ferve in

the

the navy fome time before they attained to the rank of lieutenant; Garrick, Clive, and Cibber, from the first trial of their abilities, proved themselves accomplished comedians.

Whilt the players were bufy in gaining friends to their caufe, and to promote their fuccefs with the lord chamberlain, the patentee was not idle; he endeavoured to raife recruits amongst all the itinerant actors in England. Before they proceeded to greater hoftilities, each party ftrove to justify their caufe by appealing to the public from the prefs. Paul Whitehead, it is faid, drew his pen for the manager; and William Guthrie, the hiftorian, was the champion for Mr. Garrick and his party.

Towards the middle of September, the manager was determined to open his theatre; but, on muftering his forces, he found himfelt to weak, that he could fcarce act any play whatever. But upen being joined by Mrs. Bennet, an ufeful actress, whom he fuffected to be gone over to the revolters, and by the affiftance of fome new rajted forces, he announced in his play bills the Conf ious Lovers, for September the 20th, the ufual time of beginning to act plays in the metropolis.

The compaffion of the public, the efforts of friends, and motives of curiofity, concurred to bring together a pretty full audience; and the play, though but tolerably acted, paffed with applaufe. The contest between the manager and the feceders became foon very unequal. The latter found all applications for a new patent ineffectual. There was now no remedy left, but to agree with the

manager upon the best terms that could be obtained. The matter ended, as it might have been forefeen, from the moment the chamberlain turned his back upon the players. Some of the principal actors, and fuch as were abfolutely neceffary to the conducting of the theatrical machine, were admitted to favour upon reasonable terms, and were allowed the fame annual ftipends which they enjoyed before the feceffion; others of lefs confequence were abridged of half their income.".

Mr. Lacy fucceeded Fleetwood as manager of Drury-lane; at the fame time Rich, the inventor of our modern pantomime, governed the theatre at Covent-garden. The characters of these two leaders, and the important event of the campaign of 1747, are thus defcribed.

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John Rich, the fon of Chriftopher Rich, formerly patentee of Drury-lane theatre, feems to have imbibed, from his very early years, a diflike of the people with whom he was deftined to live and daily converfe. We are told, that his father wifhed rather to acquire wealth by French dancers, Italian fingers, and every other exotic exhibition, than by the united skill of the most accomplished comedians. The fon innerited the fame odd tafte. for being left by his father in the joint poffeffion of the patent with his brother Christopher, and after having ineffe&ually tried his talent for acting in the part of the Earl of Effex, and fome other important character, he applied himself to the ftudy of pantomimical reprefentation. this he was happily very fortunate. He formed a kind of harlequinade, unknown

In

unknown to this, and, I believe, to any other country, which he called a pantomime: it confifted of two parts, one ferious and the other comic. By the help of gay fcenes, fine habits, grand dances, appropriated mufic, and other decorations, he exhibited a story from Ovid's Metamorphofes, or fome other fabulous writer: between the paufes or acts of this ferious reprefentation, he interwove a comic fable, confifting chiefly of the courtship of Harlequin and Columbine, with a variety of furprising adventures and fudden transformations, which were produced by the magic wand of Harlequin,

It is a very fingular circumftance, that of all the pantomimes which Rich brought on the ftage, from the Harlequin Sorcerer, in the year 1717, to the laft which was exhibited a year before his death, which fell out in 1761, there was fcarce one which failed to please the public, who teftified their approbation of them forty or fifty nights fucceffively..

Mr. Lacy, the rival of Mr. Rich, was a man of good underftanding, uncultivated by education. By a fucceffion of fchemes he endeavoured to attain affluence and independence. The first dawn of his profperity he owed to his projecting the rotunda of Ranelagh, about forty years fince, which gained him the fum of 40col. This building is a ftanding monument of his tafte and ingenuity. His being appointed manager for the bankers, who, purchafed the remainder of Mr. Fleetwood's patent, with a third of his own, advanced him ftill higher to public notice; and the

misfortunes of these men, owing perhaps to an utter desertion of theatrical entertainments, in the year of the Scotch rebellion in 1745, were occafionally the making of his fortune; for having, during the time he was a manager, frequently attended the duke of Grafton, then lord chamberlain, in his hunting parties, he fo far ingratiated himself in his grace's favour, that he afterwards, at the expiration of the old patent, obtained on very reasonable terms a new one, the half of which Mr. Garrick purchafed.

Mr. Lacy was active and enterprifing. He brought Barry from Ireland; and, at the fame time, fecured Macklin, Yates, Berry, Beard, Neale, Tafwell, Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Woffington, Mr. and Mrs. Giffard, and others. He appeared fo formidable to Rich, that, by the advice of his counsellors, he immediately entered into a treaty with Mr. Garrick, Mr. Quin, and Mrs. Cibber. Mrs. Pritchard, Meffrs. Woodward, Chapman, Hippifley, and Mrs. Green, he had already bound to himself by articles.

It is not, perhaps, more diffi cult to fettle the covenants of a league between mighty monarchs, than to adjutt the preliminaries of a treaty in which the high and potent princes and princeffes of a theatre are the parties. Mr. Garrick and Mr. Quin had too much fenfe and temper to fquabble about trifles. After one or two previous and friendly meetings, they fe lected fuch characters as they intended to act without being obliged to join in the fame play. Some parts were to be acted by them alternately, particularly Richard the

Third and Othello. The great difficulty lay in chufing fuch plays as they might both appear in to advantage. The following parts they confented, as far as I can recollect, to act together: Lothario and Horatio in the Fair Penitent; in Jane Shore, Haftings and Glofter; in Henry the Fourth, (firft part) Hotspur and Falstaff; in the Diftreffed Mother, Oreftes, Garrick; Pyrrhus, Quin; and, I believe, Brutus and Caffius in Julius Cæfar. I have feen the character of Caffius accurately delineated in Mr. Garrick's own handwriting, which he had extracted from Bayle; and it is very probable that he had given his confent to act the part, but that, on ferious reflection, he had renounced his intention, as the weight of applaufe, in the much-admired fcene between thefe great men in the fourth act of the play, muft have fallen to the fhare of Brutus. There was another reafon for rejecting Caffius, which, in all probability, had its force with him; he would never willingly put on the Roman habit.

Mr. Quin foon found, that his competition with Mr. Garrick, whofe reputation was hourly increafing, whilft his own was on the decline, would foon become ineffectual. His Richard the Third could scarce draw together a decent appearance of company in the boxes; and he was, with fome difficulty, tolerated in the part, when Garrick acted the fame character to crowded houfes, and with very great applause.

The town had often wifhed to fee these great actors fairly matched in two characters of almoft equal importance. The Fair Pe

nitent prefented an opportunity to difplay their feveral merits; though it must be owned that the balance was as much in favour of Quin, as the advocate of virtue is fuperior in argument to the defender of li bertinifm.

"The fhouts of applaufe, when Horatio and Lothario met on the ftage together in the fecond act, were fo loud, and fo often repeated, before the audience permitted them to speak, that the combatants feemed to be difconcerted. It was obferved that Quin changed colour, and Garrick feemed to be embarraffed; and it must be owned, that these actors were never lefs mafters of themselves, than ́ on the first night of the contest for preeminence.

Notwithstanding the evident dif parity arifing from one actor's pleading the caufe of truth and virtue, and the other being engaged on the fide of licentiousness and profligacy, Mr. Quin was, in the opinion of the belt judges, fairly defeated; by ftriving to de too much, he miffed the mark at which he aimed. The character of Horatio is compounded of deliberate courage, warm friendship, and cool contempt of vice. The laft Quin had in a fuperior de gree, but could not rife to an equal expreffion of the other two. The ftrong emphasis which he ftamped on almost every word in a line, robbed the whole of that eafe and graceful familiarity which thould have accompanied the elocution and action of a man who is calmly chaftifing a vain and audacious boafter.

'When Lothario gave Horatio the challenge, Quin, inftead of accepting it inftantaneously, with

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