gality of expense, at which they were so willing to support them; and from the late extraordinary profits Swiney had made of them; what mountains did we not hope from this mole-hill? But alas! the fairy vision was vanished, this bridal beauty was grown familiar to the general taste, and satiety began to make excuses for its want of appetite; or what is still stranger, its late admirers now as much valued their judgment in being able to find out the faults of the performers, as they had before in discovering their excellences. The truth is, that this kind of entertainment being so entirely sensual, it had no possibility of getting the better of our reason but by its novelty; and that novelty could never be supported but by an annual change of the best voices, which like the finest flowers bloom but for a season, and when that is over, are only dead nosegays. From this natural cause, we have seen within these two years even Farinelli singing to an audience of five and thirty pounds; and yet, if common fame may be credited, the same voice so neglected in one country has in another had charms sufficient to make that crown sit easy on the head of a monarch, which the jealousy of politicians (who had their views in his keeping it) feared, without some such extraordinary amusement, his satiety of empire might tempt him a second time to resign.

There is too in the very species of an Italian singer such an innate fantastical pride and caprice, that the government of them (here at least) is almost impracticable. This distemper, as we were not sufficiently warned or apprized of, threw our musical affairs into perplexities we knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarce a sensible auditor in the kingdom that has not since that time had occasion to laugh at the several instances of it; but what is still more ridiculous, these costly canary-birds have sometimes infested the whole body of our dignified lovers of music with the same childish animosities. Ladies have been known to decline their visits upon account of their being of a different musical party. Cæsar and Pompey made

But

not a warmer division in the Roman republic, than those heroines, their countrywomen, the Faustina and Cuzzoni, blew up in our commonwealth of academical music, by their implacable pretensions to superiority. And while this greatness of soul is their unalterable virtue, it will never be practicable to make two capital singers of the same sex do as they should do in one opera at the same time! No, not though England were to double the sums it has already thrown after them; for even in their own country, where an extraordinary occasion has called a greater number of their best to sing together, the mischief they have made has been proportionable; an instance of which, if I am rightly informed, happened at Parma, where upon the celebration of the marriage of that duke a collection was made of the most eminent voices that expense or interest could purchase, to give as complete an opera as the whole vocal power of Italy could form. when it came to the proof of this musical project, Dehold what woful work they made of it! Every performer would be a Cæsar or nothing; their several pretensions to preference were not to be limited within the laws of harmony; they would all choose their own songs, but not more to set off themselves than to oppose or deprive another of an occasion to shine; yet any one would sing a bad song, provided nobody else had a good one, till at last they were thrown together like so many feathered warriors for a battle-royal in a cockpit, where every one was obliged to kill another to save himself! What pity it was these froward misses and masters of music had not been engaged to entertain the court of some king of Morocco that could have known a good opera from a bad one; with how much ease would such a director have brought them to better order! But alas, as it has been said of greater things,

Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit.

HOR.

Imperial Rome fell by the too great strength of its own citizens; so fell this mighty opera, ruined by the

too great excellency of its singers; for, upon the whole, it proved to be as barbarously bad, as if malice itself had composed it.

Now though something of this kind, equally provoking, has generally embarrassed the state of operas these thirty years, yet it was the misfortune of the managing actors at the Haymarket to have felt the first effects of it; the honour of the singer and the interest of the undertaker were so often at variance, that the latter began to have but a bad bargain of it. But not to impute more to the caprice of those performers than was really true, there were two different accidents that drew numbers from our audiences before the season was ended; which were another company permitted to act in Drury-lane, and the long trial of Doctor Sache verel in Westminster-hall. By the way, it must be observed that this company was not under the direction of the patent (which continued still silenced) but was set up by a third interest, with a license from court. The person to whom this new license was granted was William Collier, esq. a lawyer of an enterprising head and a jovial heart. What sort of favour he was in with the people then in power, may be judged from his being often admitted to partake with them those detached hours of life when business was to give way to pleasure; but this was not all his merit: he was at the same time a member of parliament for Truro in Cornwall; and we cannot suppose a person so qualified could be refused such a trifle as a license to head a broken company of actors. This sagacious lawyer then, who had a lawyer to deal with, observing that his antagonist kept possession of a theatre without making use of it, and for which he was not obliged to pay rent, unless he actually did use it, wisely conceived it might be the interest of the joint landlords, since their tenement was in so precarious a condition, to grant a lease to one who had an undisputed authority to be liable by acting plays in it to pay the rent of it; especially when he tempted them with an offer of raising it from three to four pounds per diem. His

project succeeded; the lease was signed; but the means of getting into possession were to be left to his own cost and discretion. This took him up but little time: he immediately laid siege to it with a sufficient number of forces; whether lawless or lawful, I forget; but they were such as obliged the old governor to give it up; who notwithstanding had got intelligence of his approaches and design, time enough to carry off every thing that was worth moving, except a great number of old scenes and new actors that could not easily follow him.

A ludicrous account of this transaction, under fictitious names, may be found in the 99th Tatler, vol. ii which this explanation may now render more intelligible to the readers of that agreeable author.

This other new license being now in possession of the Drury-lane theatre, those actors whom the patentee, ever since the order of silence, had retained in a state of inaction, all to a man came over to the service of Collier. Of these Booth was then the chief. The merit of the rest had as yet made no considerable appearance; and as the patentee had not left a rag of their clothing behind him, they were but poorly equipped for a public review; consequently at their first opening they were very little able to annoy us. But during the trial of Sacheverel our audiences were extremely weakened by the better rank of people daily attending it; while, at the same time, the lower sort, who were not equally admitted to that grand spectacle, as eagerly crowded into Drury-lane to a new comedy called "The fair Quaker of Deal." This play, having some low strokes of natural humour in it, was rightly calculated for the capacity of the actors who played it, and to the taste of the multitude who were now more disposed and at leisure to see it; but the most happy incident in its fortune was the charm of the fair Quaker, which was acted by Miss Santlow, (afterwards Mrs Booth,) whose person was then in the full bloom of what beauty she might pretend to; before this she had only been admired as the most excellent

dancer; which perhaps might not a little contribute to the favourable reception she now met with as an actress in this character, which so happily suited her figure and capacity. The gentle softness of her voice, the composed innocence of her aspect, the modesty of her dress, the reserved decency of her gesture, and the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell from her, made her seem the amiable maid she represented. In a word, not the enthusiastic Maid of Orleans was more serviceable of old to the French army, when the English had distressed them, than this fair Quaker was at the head of that dramatic attempt, upon which the support of their weak society depended.

But when the trial I have mentioned, and the run of this play was over, the tide of the town beginning to turn again in our favour, Collier was reduced to give his theatrical affairs a different scheme; which advanced the stage another step towards that settlement which in my time was of the longest duration.

CHAPTER XIII.

The patentee, having now no actors, rebuilds the new theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields.-A guess at his reasons for it.More changes in the state of the stage.-The beginning of its better days under the triumvirate of actors. A sketch of their governing characters.

As coarse mothers may have comely children, so anarchy has been the parent of many a good government; and by a parity of possible consequences we shall find, that from the frequent convulsions of the stage arose at last its longest settlement and prosperity; which many of my readers (or, if I should happen to have but few of them, many of my spectators at least) who, I hope, have not yet lived half their time, will be able to remember.