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The mention of these productions recalls the fact that one of the homes of the drama at this time was the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which was managed by Christopher Rich, a lawyer, from 1690 to 1710, and subsequently by Collier, Wilks, Dogget, and Cibber. In the year 1712 Dogget retired from the partnership, and Barton Booth took his place, while two years later we find Steele becoming its proprietor by virtue of a life-patent granted to him. Henri Misson, the observant French traveller who visited England about the end of the seventeenth century, naturally attended performances at Drury Lane, and in his memoirs gives a graphic idea of the interior of the house.* "The pit is an amphitheatre fill'd with benches without back boards, and adorn'd and cover'd with green cloth. Men of quality, particularly the younger sort, some ladies of reputation and vertue, and abundance of damsels that hunt for prey, sit all together in this place, higgledy-piggledy, chatter, toy, play, hear, hear not. Farther up, against the wall, under the first gallery, and just opposite to the stage, rises another amphitheatre, which is taken up by persons of the best quality, among whom are generally very few men. The galleries, whereof there are only two rows, are fill'd with none but ordinary people, particularly the upper one."

The Dorset Gardens Theatre, in Salisbury Court, originally occupied by the defunct Duke of York's *These Memoirs were translated into English in 1719.

Company, now seemed in a languishing condition. From being a temple for the muses of Tragedy and Comedy it gradually sank to the meanest uses until it was razed to the ground, in 1709. The house in Lincoln's Inn Fields had a fair amount of prosperity during its occupancy by Betterton and his company, who had revolted from the management of Rich, at Drury Lane, but for some time previous to Anne's death it remained untenanted.

London had at least one theatre too many, but a company was formed, notwithstanding, to build a new one in the Haymarket, where that novel and popular form of entertainment, Italian opera, might be presented. "Of this theatre," says Cibber, "I saw the first stone laid, on which was inscribed The Little Whig, in honor to a lady of extraordinary beauty,* then the celebrated toast and pride of that party." The house was opened with a great flourish of trumpets on an Easter Monday, 1705, with a performance of The Triumph of Love, otherwise "a translated opera, to Italian musick." Sir John Vanbrugh and Congreve, who directed the enterprise, hardly met with. the expected success, although they were joined by Betterton and his associates, who came over from Lincoln's Inn Fields. But as Cibber has pointed out, the company was no longer what it had been. "Several of them, excellent in their different talents, were now dead, as Smith, Kynaston, Sandford, and Leigh, Mrs.

*Lady Sunderland, a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough.

Betterton and Underhill being, at this time, superannuated pensioners, whose places were generally but ill supplied. Nor could it be expected that Betterton himself, at past seventy, could retain his former force and spirit, though he was yet far distant from any competitor. Thus, then, were these remains of the best set of actors that I believe were ever known, at once in England, by time, death, and the satiety of their hearers, mould'ring to decay."

Like equally sanguine managers of later years Congreve and Sir John gave up their new venture as soon as they conveniently could, and one Owen Swiney, engaged to watch over the destinies of the theatre whose

"Majestic columns stand where dung hills lay,
And cars triumphal rise from carts of hay."

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GENTLEMAN SMITH.

THE RECRUITING OFFICER." FROM A DRAWING BY ISAAC TAYLOR.

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