above three years he never desired to give it. And I believe there will be as little room to say, that he could have a voice if he were not a manager. But, sir, his being a manager is so self-evident, that it is amazing how he could conceive that he was to take the profits and advantages of a manager without doing the duty of it. And I will be bold to say, sir, that his assignment of the patent to Wilks, Booth, and Cibber, in no one part of it, by the severest construction in the world, can be wrested to throw the heavy burden of the management only upon their shoulders. Nor does it appear, sir, that either in his bill or in his answer to our cross-bill, he has offered any hint or glimpse of a reason for his withdrawing from the management at all; or so much as pretend, from the time complained of, that he ever took the least part of his share of it. Now, sir, however unaccountable this conduct of sir Richard may seem, we will still allow that he had some cause for it; but whether or no that cause was a reasonable one, your honour will the better judge, if I may be indulged in the liberty of explaining it.

"Sir, the case, in plain truth and reality, stands thus: sir Richard, though no man alive can write better of economy than himself, yet perhaps he is above the drudgery of practising it. Sir Richard then was often in want of money; and while we were in friendship with him, we often assisted his occasions. But those compliances had so unfortunate an effect, that they only heightened his importunity to borrow more; and the more we lent, the less he minded us, or showed any concern for our welfare. Upon this, sir, we stopt our hands at once, and peremptorily refused to advance another shilling, until by the balance of our accounts it became due to him. And this treatment (though we hope not in the least unjustifiable) we have reason to believe so ruffled his temper, that he at once was as short with us as we had been with him; for from that day he never more came near us. Nay, sir, he not only continued to neglect what he should have done, but actually did what he ought not to have done he

made an assignment of his share without our consent, in a manifest breach of our agreement. For, sir, we did not lay that restriction upon ourselves for no reason: we knew beforehand what trouble and inconvenience it would be to unravel and expose our accounts to strangers, who, if they were to do us no hurt by divulging our secrets, we were sure could do us no good by keeping them. If sir Richard had had our common interest at heart, he would have been as warm in it as we were, and as tender of hurting it. But supposing his assigning his share to others may have done us no great injury, it is at least a shrewd proof that he did not care whether it did us any or no; and if the clause was not strong enough to restrain him from it in law, there was enough in it to have restrained him in honour from breaking it. But take it in its best light, it shows him as remiss a manager in our affairs, as he naturally was in his own. Suppose, sir, we had all been as careless as himself, which I cannot find he has any more right to be than we have, must not our whole affair have fallen to ruin? And may we not, by a parity of reason, suppose that by his neglect a fourth part of it does fall to ruin? But, sir, there is a particular reason to believe, that from our want of sir Richard more than a fourth part does suffer by it: his rank and figure in the world, while he gave us the assistance of them, were of extraordinary service to us; he had an easier access, and a more regarded audience at court than our low station of life could pretend to, when our interest wanted (as it often did) a particular solicitation there. But since we have been deprived of him, the very end, the very consideration, of his share in our profits is not performed on his part; and will sir Richard then make us no compensation for so valuable a loss in our interests, and so palpable an addition to our labour? I am afraid, sir, if we were all to be as indolent in the managing part, as sir Richard presumes he has a right to be, our patent would soon run us as many hundreds in debt, as he had (and still seems willing to have) his share of for doing of nothing

"Sir, our next point in question is, whether Wilks, Booth, and Cibber, are justifiable in charging the 11. 13s. 4d. per diem, for their extraordinary management in the absence of sir Richard Steele. I doubt, sir, it will be hard to come to the solution of this point, unless we may be a little indulged in setting forth what is the daily and necessary business and duty of a manager. But, sir, we will endeavour to be as short as the circumstances will admit of.

"Sir, by our books it is apparent, that the managers have under their care no less than one hundred and forty persons in constant daily pay; and among such numbers, it will be no wonder if a great many of them are unskilful, idle, and sometimes untractable; all which tempers are to be led, or driven, watched, and restrained, by the continual skill, care, and patience of the managers. Every manager is obliged, in his turn, to attend two or three hours every morning at the rehearsal of plays and other entertainments for the stage, or else every rehearsal would be but a rude meeting of mirth and jollity. The same attendance is as necessary at every play during the time of its public action, in which one or more of us have constantly been punctual, whether we have had any part in the play then acted or not. A manager ought to be at the reading of every new play when it is first offered to the stage, though there are seldom one of those plays in twenty, which upon hearing proves to be fit for it; and upon such occasions the attendance must be allowed to be as painfully tedious as the getting rid of the authors of such plays must be disagreeable and difficult. Besides this, sir, a manager is to order all new clothes, to assist in the fancy and propriety of them, to limit the expense, and to withstand the unreasonable importunities of some that are apt to think themselves injured, if they are not finer than their fellows. A manager is to direct and oversee the painters, machinists, musicians, singers, and dancers; to have an eye upon the door-keepers, under servants, and officers, that

without such care are too often apt to defraud us or neglect their duty.

"And all this, sir, and more, much more, which wè hope will be needless to trouble you with, have we done every day without the least assistance from sir Richard, even at times when the concern and labour of our parts upon the stage have made it very difficult and irksome to go through with it.

"In this place, sir, it may be worth observing that sir Richard, in his answer to our cross-bill, seems to value himself upon Cibber's confessing, in the dedication of a play which he made to sir Richard, that he (sir Richard) had done the stage very considerable service, by leading the town to our plays, and filling our houses, by the force and influence of his "Tatlers." But sir Richard forgets, that those "Tatlers” were written in the late queen's reign, long before he was admitted to a share in the playhouse. And in truth, sir, it was our real sense of those obligations, and sir Richard's assuring us they should be continued, that first and chiefly inclined us to invite him to share the profits of our labours, upon such further conditions as in his assignment of the patent to us are specified. And sir, as Cibber's public acknowledgment of those favours is at the same time an equal proof of sir Richard's power to continue them; so, sir, we hope it carries an equal probability that without his promise to use that power, he would never have been thought on, much less have been invited by us into a joint-management of the stage, and into a share of the profits. And indeed what pretence could he have formed for asking a patent from the crown, had he been possessed of no eminent qualities, but in common with other men? But, sir, all these advantages, all these hopes, nay, certainties, of greater profits from those great qualities, have we been utterly deprived of by the wilful and unexpected neglect of sir Richard. But we find, sir, it is a common thing in the practice of mankind to justify one error by committing another. For sir Richard has not only refused us the extraordi

ary assistance which he is able and bound to give us ; but on the contrary, to our great expense and loss of time, now calls us to account in this honourable court for the wrong we have done him in not doing his business of a manager for nothing. But sir, sir Richard has not met with such treatment from us: he has not writ plays for us for nothing; we paid him very well, and in an extraordinary manner, for his late comedy of the "Conscious Lovers." And though, in writing that play, he had more assistance from one of the managers than becomes me to enlarge upon, of which evidence has been given upon oath by several of our actors; yet, sir, he was allowed the full and particular profits of that play as an author, which amounted to three hundred pounds, besides about three hundred more which he received as a joint-sharer of the general profits that arose from it. Now, sir, though the managers are not all of them able to write plays, yet they have all of them been able to do (I would not say as good, but at least) as profitable a thing. They have invented and adorned a spectacle that for forty days together has brought more money to the house than the best play that ever was writ. The spectacle I mean, sir, is that of the coronation ceremony of Anna Bullen. And though we allow a good play to be the more laudable performance, yet, sir, in the profitable part of it there is no comparison. If therefore our spectacle brought in as much or more money than sir Richard's comedy, what is there on his side but usage that entitles him to be paid for one more than we are for the other? But then, sir, if he is so profitably distinguished for his play, if we yield him up the preference, and pay him for his extraordinary composition, and take nothing for our own, though it turned out more to our common profit. Sure, sir, while we do such extraordinary duty as managers, and while he neglects his share of that duty, he cannot grudge us the moderate demand we make for our separate labor.

"To conclude, sir, if by our constant attendance, our care, our anxiety (not to mention. the disagreeable con