whereupon he told Quin of the mistake;-who very pleasantly said, "Faith, then, Sir, I have certainly lost your play." "Lost my play!" cries the poet, almost thunderstruck. "Yes, by but I have," replied Quin," but look ye, here is a drawer full of both comedies and tragedies-take any two you will in the room of it." But this in no way satisfied the poet, who imagined that no one's Pegasus had so luxuriant a district to graze on as his own upon the common of Parnassus. "My play or a benefit; if not, sir, I shall commence a prosecution against you and the manager.' Such were the terms of the bard:-he had the run of the house, and was completely satisfied; being fully persuaded that his next production (which, by-the-bye, was the identical same in a rough copy) would not fail of being performed.

CHAPTER VII.

The difficult task of managers, particularly with regard to writers; the manner in which the different managers of this century have behaved upon these occasions. The genteel method Mr. Garrick pursues. An author's disgrace upon the second night of the representation of his piece. The duty of a manager according to the poet laureate.

THE story related of Mr. Quin, in the last chapter, when he was deputy manager of Drury Lane house, naturally leads to some reflections upon the embarrassments the masters of playhouses most frequently meet with upon these occasions.

If a manager refuses a play by saying "that he has so many pieces to bring on this season that he would not amuse the gentleman with hopes to his prejudice, while, perhaps, the manager of the other house would be very glad of the performance," he is looked upon as a stupid, ignorant coxcomb, to say anything of a play before he has seen it; or that if ignorance is not the ground-work of his behaviour, partiality must be so; or else he may be giving the preference to contemptible works, whilst he refuses to accept of those that may be of great worth and excellence. If, like Wilkes, when he was one of the patentees, he should pay the author compliments on his piece that it did not deserve, and omit mentioning such beauties as might have escaped him, none but a fool could be pleased, and such could never be the author of a work of this nature, and as a man of sense he must hold the manager's judgment in the highest contempt. If, like the laureate, he returned a poet his play with saying "That it was not fit for the stage," an author might pertinently reply "If, Sir, in other respects it is a good piece, it may be easily rendered theatrical, as this is a mechanical quality and is like the jeu de theatre to an actor;-it can never confer merit, but may hide defects." If, like the late Mr. Rich, whose judgments were always particularly laconic, he should communicate his answer as this manager constantly did, in the same identical four words,"It will not do;"—an author might perhaps shrewdly add,—" for you-who form the same opinion upon all works except pantomimes." Or if, indeed, like Mr. Fleetwood, who piqued himself upon being the gentleman, more particularly on these occasions, as he had gentlemen only to deal with, he should avoid as long as

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possible giving the mortifying refusal, and at length after having perhaps driven the poor poet to his last shirt, acquit himself in the most polite terms possible; a hungry author would certainly damn him for a fawning equivocating scoundrel, and for the next toast, in small beer give "More beef, and less complaisance.” But if, like a certain manager, who has presided for almost twenty years over the best regulated company of comedians in Europe, he should, when a play is offered to him, read it with attention, be always accessible to the author and diligent in giving a fair and candid opinion of the piece without equivocation or disguise, and such an opinion as would constantly stand the test of sound criticism; no one but the vain, self-sufficient, disappointed poetaster would ever be offended at a similar conduct, and even such a contemptible animal as this, must not be so callous to all literary fame, as not to be better pleased with a genteel representation of his errors and inability, than to be damned the first night of his piece's representation, to the lowest regions of public infamy.

I shall illustrate this observation with a genuine anecdote. In the reign of Queen Anne, a solemn bard, who, like Bayes in the Rehearsal, wrote only for fame and reputation, upon the second day's public triumph of his muse, marching in a stately full bottomed peruke into the lobby of the house with a lady of condition in his hand, and raising his voice to the Sir Fopling sound, that became the mouth of a man of quality, and calling out"Hey, box-keeper, where is my lady such a one's servant?" was unfortunately answered by honest John Trott, (which then happened to be the box-keeper's real name) "Sir, we are dismissed; there was not company enough to pay candles." In which mortal astonishment it may be sufficient to leave him, exclaiming against the barbarous taste of the age, their want of judgment, and the like.

But the difficulties and embarrassments which managers labour under, are not confined merely to poets; they have many refractory subjects in their commonwealth-many turbulent spirits in their state, who are constantly raising commotions; the progress of which nothing but the most vigilant attention, animating the utmost latitude of human prudence, can frequently prevent. And therefore if when they have gained the public esteem, by affording the town a rational and variegated amusement, they may be supposed to be handsomely rewarded for their pains, it is no more than what they most laboriously earn. No reasonable man ever grudged a lord chancellor his income, and if small things may be compared with great, by a parity of reasoning,

no generous man should covet the much inferior profits of the far more laborious and embarrassing task of a theatrical manager. Perhaps the reader may not be thoroughly acquainted with the vocations of a dramatic governor and therefore I shall give him a short sketch of them, as Colley Cibber represented them to the court of King's Bench when he was counsel in his own cause depending with Sir Richard Steele.

THE DUTY OF A MANAGER.

"By our books it is apparent, that the managers have under their care no less than a hundred and forty persons in constant daily pay; and among such numbers, it will be no wonder, if a great number of them are unskilful, 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 times 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 any part in the play or not. A manager ought to be at the reading of every new play when it is at first offered to the stage, though there is 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, 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, who 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 doorkeepers, under servants and officers, who, without such care, are too often apt to defraud us, or neglect their duty."

Such are the outlines of the duty of a manager, which must appear no very easy employment to fill with propriety, as it necessarily requires a thorough knowledge of all the things that relate to the stage and its decorations, and an uncommon share of sense and foresight, to apply them to the most advantage. I shall make no farther comment upon this business, which, perhaps, to some of my readers, may be considered as a tedious digression, though so immediately connected with the person and subject I am writing upon.

CHAPTER VIII.

A view of the stage at the time of Mr. Garrick's first appearance. His superior abilities impartially represented.

WE now approach that period, when the great theatrical luminary, who has shone with such transcendent splendour for five and twenty years, first made his appearance upon our horizon. Let us for a moment view the state of the stage at this crisis, and the principal actors whom he so far and suddenly eclipsed, that their names were scarce ever after mentioned but as mere theatrical satellites. We must however exclude from this number our buskined hero, though it must at the same time be acknowledged, that he lost his rank in many parts that he before performed without a rival.

Quin was at that time at the head of the Drury-lane company, and had not met with any sort of competitor since the death of Booth, till Delane having gained the ascendant at Covent-garden, had some blind admirers, who put him upon an equal footing with Quin, of whom he was little more than the copy; and even in those very points which the nicer judges condemned him for, particularly a monotony, which the critics called languid; but this defect Quin could emerge from whenever he chose to exert himself, which he was the more assiduous in now doing, as even his petty rivalship created an emulation in him to distinguish his superiority. On the other hand Quin's solemn sameness of pronunciation, which communicated so much dignity to the part of Cato, could never be imitated by Delane: add to this, that Quin's action was always elegant, and suited to the character he appeared in; whereas Delane's was seldom or never so. word though the prejudiced, or ill judges might rank Delane in the same class as Quin, the town, whose opinion seldom errs in this respect, by a great majority pronounced our hero still unrivalled.

In a

These then were the two principal actors, at the time that Mr. Garrick made his first appearance in the character of Richard the Third at Goodman's Fields in the year 1740-1 when that theatre was under the management of Mr. Gifford. He displayed at the very earliest dawn a somewhat more than meridian brightness; his excellence dazzled and astonished everyone; and the seeing a