at discretion. The patentees saw their error, and made overtures of reconciliation. At this crisis Queen Mary died, and the closing of the theatre gave Betterton time to mature his designs.
The opposite party, in the meantime, were not idle; they doubled the salaries of their actors, and beat up for recruits in all quarters. The principal performers, however, felt that the cause of Betterton was their own; they had an audience of the King, who promised them his protection, and were empowered by royal licence to open a theatre for themselves. Subscriptions were instantly set on foot to provide the necessary funds; there was no lack of popular sympathy, and they established themselves in the Tennis Court in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The patentees were necessarily beforehand, and commenced the campaign with Mrs. Behn's "Abdelazar, or the Moor's Revenge," the prologue to which was Cibber's first attempt in literature. In about a fortnight's time, such was the incredible diligence of Betterton, the rival house opened (April 13th, 1695) with Congreve's "Love for Love," and the success of this play was so unprecedented, that it sufficed of itself to keep the theatre afloat during the whole season.
Various devices were resorted to by the Drury Lane company to win back public favour. Rich, chagrined at the preference given to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields by persons of distinction, and calculating on the influence servants possessed over the actions of their masters, resorted to the unworthy expedient of opening the gallery free to footmen and others, who had before been excluded altogether from the house. "If he did this to get applause," says Cibber, "he certainly succeeded, for it often thundered from the full gallery above, while the thin pit and scanty boxes below were in a state of perfect serenity." The privilege once accorded, became
