Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/149

Rh which, by reason of the abuses aforesaid, were scandalous and offensive, may, by such reformation, be esteemed not only harmless delights, but useful and instructive representations of human life, to such of our good subjects as shall resort to the same."

We are enabled to form some estimate of the profits of theatrical speculation at that period. The receipts were divided into fifteen shares, of which ten were allotted to Davenant. Of these, one was to provide dresses, scenery, &c., two were to be appropriated to the expenses of house-rent, buildings, &c., and the other seven to maintain the women, &c., and "in consideration of erecting and establishing his actors to be a company, and his pains and expenses for that purpose for many years." The remaining five shares were divided among the company; and Sir Henry Herbert tells us that Davenant drew from these ten shares £200 a week.

During the competition of the two companies for public favour, it was usual for each to secure the "taking" poets by a kind of retaining fee, which, according to Gildon, seldom or never amounted to more than forty shillings a week. There is a petition of Killegrew extant complaining, that although Dryden received his pay with exemplary regularity, he was not very punctual with his work: nay more, that "Mr. Dryden has now, jointly with Mr. Lee (who was in pension with us to the last day of our playing and shall continue), written a play called 'Œdipus,' and given it to the Duke's Company, contrary to his said agreement, his promise, and all gratitude; to the great prejudice and almost undoing of the company, they being the only poets remaining to us."

Davenant's success was so great that his theatre was too small for his audience, and he commenced building a new one in Dorset Gardens, near Dorset Stairs, which he did not live to see completed, but into which his