he success of the "Fair Quaker"--a success made in face of the
counter attraction furnished by the long trial of Dr. Sacheverel--went
sorely against the grain with him.[A] The fact was that things at the
Hay market were not flourishing, and the prosperity enjoyed by the
Drury Lane comedy--and the Sacheverel show--seemed tantalising to
bear.

[Footnote A: Shadwell evidently had Cibber in mind when he wrote in
the preface to the "Fair Quaker of Deal": "This play was written
about three years since, and put into the hands of a famous comedian
belonging to the Haymarket Playhouse, who took care to beat down the
value of it so much as to offer the author to alter it fit to appear
on the stage, on condition he might have half the profits of the third
day; that is as much as to say, that it may pass for one of his,
according to custom. The author not agreeing to this reasonable
proposal, it lay in his hands till the beginning of this winter, when
Mr. Booth read it, and liked it, and persuaded the author that, with a
little alteration, it would please the town."]

Even in after years Colley grew bitter in thinking of the "Fair
Quaker," and could not help indulging in a dig at its expense when
he came to write the "Apology." He likewise paid his satirical
compliments to the new-fangled Italian opera which was given at the
Haymarket during the season of 1709-10, on the days when the regular
dramatic company did not appear. The opera had already proved a
drawing attraction, but at the time here mentioned the popular
interest in the performances had fallen off, and the dear and ever
fickle public, of high and low degree, prefered either Drury Lane or
the trial of Sacheverel to the artistic delights of music and the
drama at the rival house. And so Cibber plaintively sighs.

"The truth is, that this kind of entertainment [opera] being so
entirely sensual, it had no possibility of getting the better of our
reason but by its novelty; and that novelty could never be supported
but by an annual change of the best voices, which, like the finest
flowers, bloom but for a season, and when that is over are only dead
nosegays. From this natural cause we have seen within these two years
even Farinelli singing to an audience of five and thirty pounds, and
yet, if common fame may be credited, the same voice, so neglected in
one country, has in another had charms sufficient to make that crown
sit easy on the head of a Monarch, which the jealous