Rich had hired Drury Lane, on the condition that he should pay £3 a-night while the house was open. As the house was now closed, and the payment of rent suspended, the proprietors, without cancelling his lease, granted another to one Collier, a lawyer, M.P. for Cornwall. By his interest at Court, he obtained a separate licence; and flourishing this lease and licence against Rich's lease and patent, he seized the occasion of a night of public rejoicing, and with a mob at his heels, broke into the house, and violently ejected the rightful tenant. In these prosaic times, how curiously do we look back upon those roystering days of tumultuous licence. This dashing feat actually overwhelmed Collier with popularity; and by the aid of Miss Santlowe's acting in "The Fair Quaker of Deal," his house filled nightly. Rich bowed, with a forced composure, to these strange and adverse circumstances, and turned his attention elsewhere.
Upon the dissolution of Betterton's company, he had taken a lease of the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in order that no one else might open it; and he now fell back upon that property, and undertook to rebuild it. He died, however, before its completion, though his son afterwards opened it, and enjoyed there a prosperous career. It stood behind the present College of Surgeons, and the principal entrance was in Portugal Street. Here Quin played all his characters. Here Fenton produced his "Mariamne;" and Miss Lavinia Fenton, the original Polly Peachum, by her wit and sprightliness, here fascinated a ducal heart, and became afterwards Duchess of Bolton. Giffard, from Goodman's Fields, took it on lease in 1732. In 1756, it was transformed into a barrack. It was next converted into a china repository, and was taken down in August, 1848, to make room for the improvements in connection with the Royal College of Surgeons.
