a most formidable nuisance, and was with difficulty abolished.
Another device of this crafty lawyer was to admit "fast men" behind the scenes, sometimes on payment of money, sometimes gratis; and the same authority observes that, "the inconveniences of the custom we found so intolerable, when we afterwards had the stage in our hands, that at the hazard of our lives we were forced to get rid of them."
The tide of public favour, however, at first ran strongly with Betterton, but gradually "the novelty of encouraging merit wore off." The Drury Lane company, likewise, conscious of inferior talents, exerted themselves with the greater diligence; the actors and actresses were younger, and more ambitious of distinction. Cibber, Southerne, and Vanbrugh wrote for them; while Betterton's company, too confident in their merit and experience, flushed with success, grew slothful and negligent, and were in turn neglected.
Finding their popularity on the wane, they accused the capriciousness of the public, the public recriminated on their supineness, and when they followed the example of Drury Lane, in only paying the actors and employés as receipts fell in, their condemnation was unreserved.
It was about this time that Collier's famous book appeared.
Posturing and tumbling now became fashionable frivolities, in which the two theatres condescended to a degrading rivalry. Vanbrugh, for some cause unexplained, deserted Drury Lane, and projected a new theatre to be built in the Haymarket, with a more especial view in its construction to the requirements of opera and spectacle. The necessary powers were obtained, and the theatre was built in 1705. It opened with operas, the principal performers singing in Italian, the rest singing and reciting in English.
