is voice, his looks, and honest soul
Speak all so movingly in his behalf,
I dare not trust myself to hear him talk,"

the apology came with such delicious grace and plaintiveness that the
house forgot her coldness in sorrow for her woes.

And Barton Booth? His superb acting of Cato raised him to such an airy
pinnacle of fame that he soon became one of the managers of Drury
Lane. The other players were evidently all more or less effective,
barring Cibber, whose Syphax (the Numidian warrior who seeks the
downfall of Cato), must have made the judicious grieve. Indeed we can
easily believe that he used so many grotesque motions and spoke his
lines with such a cracked voice as to win only ridicule and "a loud
laugh of contempt."

Lord Bolingbroke's gift of fifty guineas had a disturbing effect not
only on the Whigs but on Manager Dogget as well. That worthy feared
the success of "Cato" would cause Booth to claim a share in the
direction of Drury Lane, as he did, of course, in a very short time.
In the hopes of shutting off all pretensions to this honour by a
paltry expedient Dogget thought that Cibber, Wilks and himself, as
joint managers, could relieve themselves of every obligation by
duplicating the generosity of the Tory statesman.

"He insinuated to us (for he was a staunch Whig)" relates Colley,
"that this present of fifty guineas was a sort of Tory triumph which
they had no pretence to; and that for his part he could not bear that
so redoubted a champion for liberty as Cato should be bought off to
the cause of a contrary party. He therefore, in the seeming zeal of
his heart, proposed that the managers themselves should make the
same present to Booth which had been made him from the boxes the day
before. This, he said, would recommend the equality and liberal spirit
of our management to the town, and might be a means to secure Booth
more firmly in our interest, it never having been known that the skill
of the best actor had received so round a reward or gratuity in one
day before.

"Wilks, who wanted nothing but abilities to be reduc'd to tell him
that it was my opinion that Booth would never be made easy by
anything we could do for him, 'till he had a share in the profits
and management; and that, as he did not want friends to assist him,
whatever his merit might be before, every one would think since his
acting of Cato, he had now enough to back his pretentions to it."

In the end Cibber's objections were