.. told
him, that if he had patience, or spirit enough to have stayed in his
confinement till he had given him notice of it, he would have found
him a handsomer way of coming out of it!" Of the same actor, Powell,
it is recorded that he once, at Will's Coffee House, "in a dispute
about playhouse affairs, struck a gentleman whose family had been some
time masters of it." A complaint of the actor's violence was lodged at
the Chamberlain's office, and Powell having a part in the play
announced for performance upon the following day, an order was sent to
silence the whole company, and to close the theatre, although it was
admitted that the managers had been without cognisance of their
actor's misconduct! "However," Cibber narrates, "this order was
obeyed, and remained in force for two or three days, till the same
authority was pleased, or advised, to revoke it. From the measures
this injured gentleman took for his redress, it may be judged how far
it was taken for granted that a Lord Chamberlain had an absolute power
over the theatre." An attempt, however, upon the authority of the
Chamberlain to imprison Dogget, the actor, for breach of his
engagement with the patentees of Drury Lane Theatre, met with signal
discomfiture.
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