Cibber, at the Haymarket, was now sanguine in the anticipation of success; but unexpected circumstances balked his well-grounded expectations. Sacheverell's trial became the all-absorbing topic of interest, and Collier's success at Drury Lane materially interfered with his receipts. Eventually, however, the tide turned. Collier, as soon as his speculation began to fail, and Swiney's to succeed, coolly proposed an exchange, with the restoration of the old agreement, that Drury Lane should be appropriated to drama and the Haymarket to opera and spectacle. He succeeded in compelling the acceptance of this unfair proposal; when finding matters not at all mended by the change, he again audaciously availed himself of his enormous interest at Court to reverse his own imperious arrangement.
A fresh mandate was issued, Swiney was obliged to return to the Haymarket, and, in consequence, to retire to Boulogne, and expiated, by a twenty years' exile, Collier's tyranny and mismanagement. Everything went wrong, till Collier was bribed to abstain from interfering in any way with either of the theatres. He was paid £700 a-year to remain idle; and the three actors—Cibber, Wilks, and Dogget—began their celebrated management. The partnership commenced in 1711.
Cibber's tactics were those of a consummate general. Resigning the vulgar ambition of ostentatious power, he aimed to control, and direct its secret springs; and the perverse and self-opiniated co-managers were made unconsciously the mere puppets to work out his schemes. The obstinacy and tenacity of purpose of Wilks, the frowardness and meddling industry of Dogget, became mere instruments in his hands, which he pointed and used with consummate tact; but in nothing was his address more apparent or his efforts more laudable than in the financial department. Dogget was parsimonious, Wilks
