the audience gradually dispersed. The managers
of Covent Garden Theatre asserted that the
average profits for the last ten years had not
exceeded six per cent on the whole capital
employed. It would be candid in them to state
the whole truth. Did they separate the actual
expenses from the annuities and other
payments for incumbrances laid at different times
on the establishment?

All was in vain. Nothing moved the man
whom friends called "firm," and enemies "obstinate."
Caius Marcius all over, he remained
"whole as the marble, founded as the rock."
Better to die, better to starve, than beg Hob
with the cat-call, and Dick with the horrible
watchman's rattle, for their "sweet voices."
"The night is long that never finds the day," he
said to himself, and thought,

                               I am half through.
        The one part suffer'd, the other I will do,

quite forgetting, on the other hand, that

Things bad begun make themselves strong by ill.

(Are there not aphorisms in Shakespeare for
every moment of life and for all possible
conditions of events?) The Coriolanus of Drury Lane
was not entirely on the defensive; he sent orders
to all his partisans and friends, and they bled
freely at the nose for him; he hired tough-armed
fighting watermen to repress the pit; he made
the stage machinery rumble to frighten the
bugle-players, and, as a fine theatrical coup
d'état, he opened all the trap-doors on the stage
suddenly when the pittites seemed prepared to
storm it and tear the scenery into shreds.

On the fourth night, a gentleman, after the
close of the farce, observed, from one of the
boxes, "That this was the fourth night on which
the most obstinate perseverance was made in
these most obnoxious charges; yet neither the
staves of constables, the arms of fighting water-
men, the riot act, the presence of magistrates,
the menacing noise of engines, nor the odious
exposure of secret trap-doors, could intimidate
the audience to comply with the manager's
unjustifiable demand. One proprietor, who was also
an actor, had passed by the voice of the audience
with more insult and more contumacy than
was ever shown by a minister to the voice of the
people. With all his boast of the liberality of
the managers, and the necessity of the increase of
prices, he had refused to an old English club,
who drank port wine and ate beefsteaks, a room
which they had always enjoyed, in order to make
a dressing-room for a foreign singer. Respectable
men were dragged to Bow-street for
manifesting what Lord Mansfield had stated was their
inalienable right."

This gentleman, who addressed his O. P.
constituents from the boxes, referred to a decision
of the great Lord Mansfield, May 11, 1775,
"The King versus Leigh," in which that
celebrated judge laid it down that any visitor to the
playhouse has an unalterable right to express
his instantaneous approbation or disapprobation
of the piece or the actors. The rioters boasted
loudly that that night they were not insulted by
constables, riot acts, or threats of the Bastille,
and that they had obtained an apology at the
bottom of the bills the night before. This
announcement was succeeded bv the usual
concord of sweet sounds proceeding from shrill
penny whistles, squeaking trumpets, raving
watchmen's rattles, &c., interrupted by frequent
calls for "Managers! managers!" and "Kemble!
Kemble! come forth."

Several placards were, as usual, suspended
from the boxes and held up in the pit. One
of them had inscribed on it, in large characters:

"Old prices, without any further insult or
evasion." "No Catalani. Native talents," &c.

Another was inscribed:

     Kemble here, John Bull advises,
     To raise your fame and sink your prices.

After a considerable interval Mr. Kemble
came forward. A great tumult then took place.
The placards were more conspicuously waved
and shaken, and some time elapsed before
silence could be obtained. Mr. Kemble was
still stiff-necked, and his speech was drowned
in fresh surges of noise. He had hoped
previous explanations would have satisfied the
public.

In the Morning Chronicle (September 22nd,
1809) appeared the following squib:

    THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT
This is the house that Jack built.
These are the boxes let to the great, that visit the
   house that Jack built.
These are the pigeon-holes over the boxes let to the
   great, that visit the house that Jack built.
This is the cat engaged to squall to the poor in the
   pigeon-holes over the boxes let to the great, that
   visit the house that Jack built.
This is John Bull with a bugle-horn, that hissed the
   cat engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes
   over the boxes let to the great, that visit the house
   that Jack built.
This is the thief-taker, all shaven and shorn, that
   took up John Bull with his bugle-horn, who
   hissed the cat engaged to squall to the poor in
   the pigeon-holes over the boxes let to the great,
   that visit the house that Jack built.
This is the manager, full of scorn, who raised the
   price to the people forlorn, and directed the thief-
   taker, shaven and shorn, to take up John Bull
   with his bugle-horn, who hissed the cat engaged
   to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the
   boxes let to the great, that visit the house that
   Jack built.

On the 22nd, the audience were more numerous
and, if possible, more clamorous than on
any preceding night. In addition to the usual
placards, were the following:

"Let the first causers of disturbance be sent
to Bow-street. Those are the managers."
"Let the managers play to empty benches, and
they will come to their senses."

"Support King George, but resist King John!
The former gives us through his minister
some statement of the causes which render