regretfully forced to abandon on being told that if he enlarged the entrance sufficiently to admit this certain. draw, the wall would be in danger of collapsing.

Since plays were of small consequence to Rich, those who performed them were of less. Being, moreover, a mean man, he underpaid his actors, and bound them by ferocious contracts. As a result they quarrelled with him and among themselves, while Cibber, who felt his art being debased, one day went into the pit and told all his friends that nothing would induce him to act on such a stage; for which he received as much applause from the audience as he had ever had. In vacation time the actors were forced to open booths at the Bartholomew and May fairs, and produce the strangest spectacles so as to compete successfully with such undeniable attractions as Siamese twins and other monstrosities, performing animals, and the seductive' girl from Somerset '.1

66

In these circumstances it occurred to some that the only way to recover the actors to their due estimation " and to raise the drama to its old glory was to build another theatre. The notion may have emanated from Vanbrugh, to whose lot, at any rate, the building of the theatre fell, and who was to share its management with Congreve and Betterton. With the two leading writers of comedy standing godfathers, the scheme appeared promising ; and it suited Vanbrugh peculiarly well, for he was eager to establish opera firmly in England, and Congreve loved music even beyond the drama. One hundred pounds was collected from each of thirty patrons, who in return were to be allowed free entry for life. Armed with this capital, Vanbrugh selected a two thousand pound site in the Haymarket, and began operations.2

1 Ashton, Cibber. The lines in the Dunciad III are as appropriate to him as to his son. Baker, Cibber, Thomson.

2

I

2

The outside would not be unlike Drury Lane, but for the rest it would far surpass Wren's antiquated theatre, now some thirty years old. In hubristic vein Vanbrugh wrote to Tonson, " I have drawn a design for the whole disposition of the inside very different from any other house in being; but I have the good fortune to have it absolutely approved by all that have seen it ", all, no doubt, including many actors, and the members of the Kit-Cat in dining committee assembled. Certainly the laying of the foundation stone was made a Kit-Cat function, and on it was inscribed 'The Little Whig', in honour of that beautiful toast the Countess of Sunderland, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough.

But the activities of so notorious a subject as Vanbrugh caused great alarm to the members of The Society for the Reformation of Manners, who saw in the erection of this new theatre a grave menace to right living. At the end. of 1704 they addressed a letter to Archbishop Tennison describing Mr. Vanbrook' as "a man who has debauched the stage beyond the looseness of all former times"; but if their object was to put a check to the building, the protest came too late, and the piece of triumphal architecture grew to completion. It was duly opened on Easter Monday, the 9th April 1705.

Since it had been part of the collaborators' ambition to provide a home for the musical form of the drama, the new playhouse was called The Queen's Theatre or Italian Opera House, and the first piece performed was an Englished version of Giacomo Greber's The Loves of Ergasto, with a gracefully satirical epilogue by Congreve. With what anxious hopes must Vanbrugh have followed the fortunes of this opera, for the theatre had cost far

An illustration may be seen in Palmer, p. 207.

2

13th July 1703; Gent. Mag. 1836.

more than the money subscribed: but alas," the new set of singers arrived from Italy" proved to be “the worst that e'er came from thence ", and after a very few days," being liked but indifferently by the gentry, they in a little time marched back to their own country 19.2

An inauspicious beginning does not preclude final success, but every kind of performance met with much the same fate. Even such an attraction as "The Indian Emperor, or the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. The Part of Cortez to be perform'd by Mr. Powel; with Entertainments of Dancing, as also Singing by the new Italian Boy" failed to draw good houses. Neither did The Merry Wives of Windsor, nor Mrs. Centlivre's breezy moralizings on the theme of Regnard's Gamester bring the necessary crowds. crowds. With affairs looking so black, Vanbrugh rallied to the fray, and at the end of October produced The Confederacy, his most dashing and most racy creation, far better than Dancourt's original. But although the same combination of authors had made a success of The Country House at Drury Lane in June, here even the talents of Mrs. Barry, who had charmed London since the days of Gramont, and the utmost sparkle of the divine Mrs. Bracegirdle, proved lamentably null. In desperation the associates turned to "the frippery of crucified Molière"; yet The Mistake and The Cuckold in Conceit did hardly any better, while the popularity of The Provok'd Wife and Squire Trelooby was found to have waned almost to nothing.3

Was it possible that there was something wrong with the theatre itself? Might it be that, after all, Wren had known what he was about when he built the low ceiling

Priv. Corr. July 1708. From Maynwaring.

Downes. He says the play lasted five days; Cibber says three. 3 Ashton for succession of plays.

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