"
This evidence, if not in itself damning to Fleetwood's designs toward
his actors, at least indicates the internecine breach at Drury Lane.
(The inter-theater conflict, important for its effect on repertory and
morale, is adequately examined in theater histories and lies outside my
interests in this essay.)
Mrs. Clive admits, however, that reduced, unpaid, or "handled" salaries
were not the first fear of the actors; it was instead, she says, the
fear of what "would happen from an Agreement supposed to be concluded
betwixt the two Managers, which made 'em apprehend, that if they
submitted to act under such Agreements, they must be absolutely in the
Managers Power." As the writer of _The Case Between the Managers_ (p.
11) presents it, a conversation between a personified Covent Garden and
Drury Lane would have gone like this: "Well, but, Brother _Drury_, we
can manage that matter [how to keep audiences]--Suppose you and I make a
Cartel; for instance, agree for every other Theatre, and oblige
ourselves by this Cartel to reduce by near one half the Salaries of our
principal Performers--I'gad, we may cramp 'em rarely this way--they must
serve us at any rate we tax their Merit at, for they'll then have no
where else to go to." Drury Lane responds, "D--n me, if that is not
divinely thought--my dear Friend, give me a Kiss."
Late in the summer of 1743, several months before the salary figures
described above, Garrick, Macklin, Clive, and Mrs.
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