undertaking.  Vanbrugh proceeded to adapt for his new house three plays of Moliere.  Then Vanbrugh, still failing, let the Haymarket to Mr. Owen Swiney, a trusted agent of the manager of ‘Drury Lane’, who was to allow him to draw what actors he pleased from ‘Drury Lane’ and divide profits.  The recruited actors in the ‘Haymarket’ had better success.  The secret league between the two theatres was broken.  In 1707 the ‘Haymarket’ was supported by a subscription headed by Lord Halifax.  But presently a new joint patentee brought energy into the counsels of ‘Drury Lane’.  Amicable restoration was made to the Theatre Royal of the actors under Swiney at the ‘Haymarket’; and to compensate Swiney for his loss of profit, it was agreed that while ‘Drury Lane’ confined itself to the acting of plays, he should profit by the new taste for Italian music, and devote the house in the ‘Haymarket’ to opera.  Swiney was content.  The famous singer Nicolini had come over, and the town was impatient to hear him.  This compact held for a short time.  It was broken then by quarrels behind the scenes.  In 1709 Wilks, Dogget, Cibber, and Mrs. Oldfield treated with Swiney to be sharers with him in the ‘Haymarket’ as heads of a dramatic company.  They contracted the width of the theatre, brought down its enormously high ceiling, thus made the words of the plays audible, and had the town to themselves, till a lawyer, Mr. William Collier, M.P. for Truro, in spite of the counter-attraction of the trial of Sacheverell, obtained a license to open ‘Drury Lane’, and produced an actress who drew money to Charles Shadwell’s comedy, ‘The Fair Quaker of Deal.’  At the close of the season Collier agreed with Swiney and his actor-colleagues to give up to them ‘Drury Lane’ with its actors, take in exchange the ‘Haymarket’ with its singers, and be sole Director of the Opera; the actors to pay Collier two hundred a year for the use of his license, and to close their house on the Wednesdays when an opera was played.

This was the relative position of ‘Drury Lane’ and the ‘Haymarket’ theatres when the ‘Spectator’ first appeared.  ‘Drury Lane’ had entered upon a long season of greater prosperity than it had enjoyed for thirty years before.  Collier, not finding the ‘Haymarket’ as prosperous as it was fashionable, was planning a change of place with Swiney, and he so contrived, by lawyer’s wit and court influence, that in the winter following 1711 Collier was at Drury Lane with a new license for himself, Wilks, Dogget, and Cibber; while Swiney, transferred to the Opera, was suffering a ruin that caused him to go abroad, and be for twenty years afterwards an exile from his country.]

[Footnote 13:  ‘Jonathan’s’ Coffee House, in Change Alley, was the place of resort for stock-jobbers.  It was to ‘Garraway’s’, also in Change Alley, that people of quality on business in the City, or the wealthy and reputable citizens, preferred to go.]

[Footnote 14:  pains ... are.]