little as did his father.]

And a very commonplace, foxy and inartistic lawyer he was, too, with
his fondness for money bags and his willingness to oblige the town
with anything it wanted. To his narrow mind there was no great
difference between a lot of rope-dancers and a company of players, or,
if there should be, the advantage was quite in favour of the former.
We see the same commercial spirit to-day, when the average manager
rents his house for one week to an Irving or a Mansfield, and perhaps
turns it over, the following Monday night, to the tender mercies of
performing dogs and cats. 'Tis all grist that comes to his mill, and
what cares he whether that grist represent "Macbeth" or canine drama?

Cibber was not above looking at the practical side of things, but he
had no patience, nevertheless, with the Philistianism of Rich, who
had that fatal fondness for "paying extraordinary prices to singers,
dancers, and other exotick performers, which were as constantly
deducted out of the sinking sallaries of his actors."[A]


[Footnote A: Operatic singers and dancers, mostly recruited from the
Continent, were fast becoming fashionable, and, as their appearance
on the scene interfered with the profits of the actors, it may be
imagined that the latter held the strangers in much contempt.]

For it seems that Master Rich had not bought his share of the Drury
Lane patent to elevate the stage, but rather to get a fortune
therefrom. "And to say truth, his sense of everything to be shown
there was much upon a level with the taste of the multitude, whose
opinion and whose money weigh'd with him full as much as that of the