Gentlemen, if you dislike the play,
    Pray make no words on’t till the second day
    Or third be passed.

After the Restoration it became a settled practice that what was then called “the author’s night” should be the third performance of his play; and the dramatist in time received further profit from subsequent representations.

Then grant ’em generous terms who dare to write,
Since now that seems as dangerous as to fight;
If we must yield yet ere the day be fixt,
Let us hold out the third, and, if we may, the sixth.

    Prologue, “The Twin Rivals,” Farquhar, produced 1702.

“In Dryden’s time,” writes Dr. Johnson, explaining that with all his diligence in play-writing the poet could not greatly improve his fortune,[2] “the drama was very far from that universal approbation which it has now obtained.  The playhouse was abhorred by the Puritans, and avoided by those who desired the character of seriousness or decency.  A grave lawyer would have debased his dignity, and a young trader would have impaired his credit by appearing in those mansions of dissolute licentiousness.  The profits of the theatre, when so many classes of the people were deducted from the audience, were not great, and the poet had, for a long time, but a single night.  The first that had two nights was Southern; and the first that had three was Rowe.  There were, indeed, in those days, arts of improving a poet’s profit, which Dryden forbore to practise; but a play seldom produced him more than a hundred pounds by the accumulated gain of the third night, the dedication, and the copy.”

     [2] He had, it was alleged, entered into a contract to furnish
     four plays in each year.

These “arts of improving a poet’s profit” consisted in the canvassing his friends and patrons, distributing tickets, and soliciting favour in all quarters.  By his address in these matters, Southern’s tragedy, “The Spartan Dame,” produced him L500; indeed, he is said to have profited more by his writings for the stage than any of his contemporaries.  Malone states that Addison was the first to abandon the undignified custom of appealing personally to the public for support.  But it has been pointed out that this is an error.  Addison gave the profits of “Cato” to the managers, and was not required therefore to appeal on his own behalf to the public.  Goldsmith’s “Good-natured Man,” it may be noted, was played ten consecutive nights, and the third, sixth, and ninth performances were advertised as “appropriated to the author.”  These three nights produced him L400, and he received L100 more from Griffin, the publisher, for the publication of the play—­the entire receipts being immediately, with characteristic promptness, spent in the purchase of the lease of his chambers in Brick Court, Middle Temple, and in handsome furniture, consisting of “Wilton carpets, blue moreen mahogany sofas, blue moreen curtains, chairs corresponding, chimney-glasses, Pembroke and card tables, and tasteful book-shelves.”  According to Malone, one hundred guineas remained for many years, dating from 1726, the standard price paid by the publishers for a new play.