and looked upon it as rather laid out upon the real than the fictitious person of the actor; nay, I have known in our own company this ridiculous sort of regret carried so far, that the tragedian has thought himself injured when the comedian pretended to wear a fine coat! I remember Powel, upon surveying my first dress in the "Relapse," was out of all temper, and reproached our master, in very rude terms, that he had not so good a suit to play Cæsar Borgia in; though he knew, at the same time, my lord Foppington filled the house when his bouncing Borgia would do little more than pay fiddles and candles to it, and though a character of vanity might be supposed more expensive in dress than possibly one of ambition; yet the high heart of this heroical actor could not bear that a comedian should ever pretend to be as well dressed as himself. Thus again, on the contrary, when Betterton proposed to set off a tragedy, the comedians were sure to murmur at the charge of it: and the late reputation which Dogget had acquired, from acting his Ben in "Love for Love," made him a more declared malecontent on such occasions; he overvalued comedy for its being nearer to nature than tragedy, which is allowed to say many fine things that nature never spoke in the same words; and supposing his opinion were just, yet he should have considered that the public had a taste as well as himself, which in policy he ought to have complied with. Dogget however could not with patience look upon the costly trains and plumes of tragedy, in which knowing himself to be useless, he thought they were all a vain extravagance: and when he found his singularity could no longer oppose that expense, he so obstinately adhered to his own opinion, that he left the society of his old friends, and came over to us at the theatre-royal: and yet this actor always set up for a theatrical patriot. This happened in the winter following the first division of the (only) com pany. He came time enough to the theatre-royal to act the part of Lory in the "Relapse," an arch_valet quite after the French cast, pert and familiar. But it

suited so ill with Dogget's dry and closely-natural manner of acting, that upon the second day he desired it might be disposed of to another; which the author complying with, gave it to Pinkethman, who, though in other lights much his inferior, yet this part seemed better to become. Dogget was so immovable in his opinion of whatever he thought was right or wrong, that he could never be easy under any kind of theatrical government, and was generally so warm in pursuit of his interest, that he often outran it. I remember him three times, for some years, unemployed in any theatre, from his not being able to bear in common with others the disagreeable accidents that in such societies are unavoidable. But whatever pretences he had formed for this first deserting from Lincoln's-inn-fields, I always thought his best reason for it was, that he looked upon it as a sinking ship; not only from the melancholy abatement of their profits, but likewise from the neglect and disorder in their government. He plainly saw, that their extraordinary success at first had made them too confident of its duration, and from thence had slackened their industry; by which, he ob served at the same time, the old house, where there was scarce any other merit than industry, began to flourish. And indeed they seemed not enough to consider, that the appetite of the public, like that of a fine gentleman, could only be kept warm by variety; that let their merit be never so high, yet the taste of a town was not always constant nor infallible; that it was dangerous to hold their rivals in too much contempt; for they found that a young industrious company were soon a match for the best actors, when too securely negligent and negligent they certainly were, and fondly fancied, that had each of their different schemes been followed, their audiences would not so suddenly have fallen off.

But alas! the vanity of applauded actors, when they are not crowded too as they may have been, makes them naturally impute the change to any cause rather than the true one, satiety they are mighty loath to think a town once so fond of them could ever be tired; and

yet at one time or other, more or less, thin houses have been the certain fate of the most prosperous actors ever since I remember the stage. But against this evil the provident patentees had found out a relief, which the new house were not yet masters of, viz. never to pay their people when the money did not come in; nor then aeither, but in such proportions as suited their conveniency. I myself was one of the many who for six acting weeks together never received one day's pay, and for some years after seldom had above half our ominal salaries; but to the best of my memory, the finances of the other house held it not above one season more, before they were reduced to the same expedient of making the like scanty payments.

Such was the distress and fortune of both these companies since their division from the theatre-royal; either working at half wages, or by alternate successes intercepting the bread from one another's mouths; irreconcilable enemies, yet without hope of relief from a victory on either side; sometimes both parties reduced, and yet each supporting their spirits by seeing the other under the same calamity.

During this state of the stage it was, that the lowest expedient was made use of to ingratiate our company in the public favour. Our master, who had some time practised the law, and therefore loved a storm better than fair weather, (for it was his own conduct chiefly that had brought the patent into these dangers,) took nothing so much to heart as that partiality wherewith he imagined the people of quality had preferred the actors of the other house to those of his own. To balance this misfortune, he was resolved at least to be well with their domestics, and therefore cunningly opened the upper gallery to them gratis; for before this time no footman was ever admitted, or had presumed to come into it, till after the fourth act was ended. This additional privilege (the greatest plague that ever playhouse had to complain of) he conceived would not only incline them to give us a good word in the respective families they belonged to, but would naturally

incite them to come all hands aloft in the crack of our applauses; and indeed it so far succeeded, that it often thundered from the full gallery above, while our thin pit and boxes below were in the utmost serenity. This riotous privilege, so craftily given, and which from custom was at last ripened into right, became the most disgraceful nuisance that ever depreciated the theatre. How often have the most polite audiences, in the most affecting scenes of the best plays, been disturbed and insulted by the noise and clamour of these savage spectators! From the same narrow way of thinking too, were so many ordinary people and unlicked cubs of condition admitted behind our scenes for money, and sometimes without it; the plagues and inconveniencies of which custom we found so intolerable, when we afterwards had the stage in our hands, that at the hazard of our lives we were forced to get rid of them; and our only expedient was by refusing money from all persons without distinction at the stage-door. By this means we preserved to ourselves the right and liberty of choosing our own company there; and by a strict observance of this order, we brought what had been before debased into all the licenses of a lobby, into the decencies of a drawing-room.

About the distressful time I was speaking of, in the year 1696, Wilks, who now had been five years in great esteem on the Dublin theatre, returned to that of Drurylane; in which last he had first set out, and had continued to act some small parts for one winter only. The considerable figure which he so lately made upon the stage in London, makes me imagine that a particular account of his first commencing actor may not be unacceptable to the curious. I shall therefore give it them as I had it from his own mouth.

In king James's reign he had been some time employed in the secretary's office in Ireland (his native country) and remained in it till after the battle of the Boyne, which completed the revolution. Upon that happy and unexpected deliverance, the people of Dublin, among the various expressions of their joy, had a

mind to have a play; but the actors being dispersed during the war, some private persons agreed in the best manner they were able to give one to the public gratis at the theatre. The play was "Othello," in which Wilks acted the Moor; and the applause he received in it warmed him to so strong an inclination for the stage, that he immediately preferred it to all his other views in life; for he quitted his post, and with the first fair occasion came over to try his fortune in the (then only) company of actors in London. The person who supplied his post in Dublin, he told me, raised to himself from thence a fortune of fifty thousand pounds. Here you have a much stronger instance of an extravagant passion for the stage, than that which I have elsewhere shown in myself. I only quitted my hopes of being preferred to the like post, for it; but Wilks quitted his actual possession for the imaginary happiness which the life of an actor presented to him. And though possibly we might both have bettered our fortunes in a more honourable station, yet whether better fortunes might have equally gratified our vanity (the universal passion of mankind) may admit of a question.

Upon his being formerly received into the theatreroyal (which was in the winter after I had been initiated) his station there was much upon the same class with my own; our parts were generally of an equal insignificancy, not of consequence enough to give either a preference; but, Wilks being more impatient of his low condition than I was (and indeed the company was then so well stocked with good actors, that there was very little hope of getting forward)-laid hold of a more expeditious way for his advancement, and returned again to Dublin with Mr Ashbury, the patentee of that theatre, to act in his new company there. There went with him at the same time Mrs Butler, whose character I have already given, and Estcourt, who had not appeared on any stage, and was yet only known as an excellent mimic. Wilks, having no competitor in Dublin, was immediately preferred to whatever parts his inclination led him; and his early reputation on that