" In the twenty years while we were our own direc-
tors/ ' Cibber goes on to say, with pardonable compla-
cency, * ' we never had a creditor that had occasion to
come twice for his bill ; every Monday morning dis-
charged us of all demands, before we took a shilling
for our own use. And from this time, we neither
asked any actor, nor were desired by them, to sign any
written agreement (to the best of my memory) whatso-
ever. The rate of their respective salaries were only
enter' d in our daily pay-roll ; which plain record every
one look'd upon as good as City-Security."

The early history of the Triumvirate must have been
a sort of honeymoon, when everybody was in good
humor. The managers settled their weekly acounts
with a satisfaction not always to be derived from such
a process, the actors congratulated themselves on the
novel sensation of being well-paid and well-fed, and
the audience found nearly everything that the latter
did a source of delight. But life in a theatre is much
as it is on the large stage of the world, and there were
clouds as well as sunshine. Sometimes the clouds were
formed by the most petty causes, as in the storm
stirred Up by the arrival of two performers from Ire-
land. They were two un-celebrated actors from the
Dublin Theatre, and as Wilks had been so kindly
received on his visit to the Emerald Isle he determined
to do what he could, in turn, for the indigent new-



124 ECHOES OF THE PLAYHOUSE.
comers. He introduced them to the stage of Drury
Lane, and by the way in which he took them under his
theatrical mantle gave great offence to the exacting
Dogget.
