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Updated: May 25, 2025
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.
"The first word I heard of this transaction was by a letter from Swiney, inviting me to make one in the Hay-Market Company. whom he hop'd I could not but now think the stronger party. But I confess I was not a little alarm'd at this revolution.
This, then, was the model gentleman to whom Skipwith made over a share in the Drury Lane patent, and through whose efforts the rival companies were united in 1708. Swiney, according to the orders of the Lord Chamberlain, was to conduct the Haymarket for operatic performances, and the players were all to act at the older house. For a time life at the theatre went as merrily as a marriage bell.
Soon the new forces of Swiney take possession of the Haymarket, and for a short time London has but one playhouse. Mayhap Mr. Rich is chagrined, or perhaps he is not ill-pleased, and in any case he extracts great comfort from a manifesto published in his behalf by the treasurer of Drury Lane, sweet-named Zachary Baggs.
If you survive it, you can settle what other affairs you please including, belike, your business with Mr. Swiney." "Not so, Nick," said Wilding suddenly, and turned to Richard. "Here, Richard! Take her," he bade his brother-in-law. "Anthony, you damned shirk-duty, see to your wife. Leave me to my own diversions.
When, in the summer of 1706, Vanbrugh proposed that Swiney should lease the Haymarket, Sir John being anxious to relinquish management, just as Congreve had done some time before, cunning Christopher gave his consent, curiously enough, to what was nothing more or less than the setting up of a rival company of actors.
The card in question was a little matter of two hundred pounds owing from Swiney to Rich, and the latter fondly believed that this loan would bind the debtor to him as with hooks of steel.
Soon there will be another theatrical revolution by which the rival companies of the Haymarket and Drury Lane will be united under one management at the latter house, while Owen Swiney will be left free to devote his attention to Italian opera.
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.
Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out in his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of a debtor's gaol. The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him for fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned.
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