pounds a year. Things would have gone better could he have been persuaded entirely to abstain from management, but he persistently interfered with his subordinates. When a dramatist was employed in reading his tragedy to the performers, Brinsley would saunter in, yawning, at the fifth act, with no other apology than, having sat up late two nights running, he was unable to appear in time; or he would arrive drunk, go into the green-room, ask the name of a well-known actor who was on the stage, and bid them never to allow him to play again. He was once told, with some spirit, by one of the company, that he rarely came there, and then never but to find fault.
Things grew worse and worse. It was piteous to hear the complaints of the actors and staff of the theatre, who found it impossible to obtain payment of their weekly salaries. The shifts and devices which he employed to escape from their importunity was a constant subject of jest.
At last he was obliged to let the reins of management fall from his incapable hands. They were taken up by King; but he in turn soon found the position intolerable, and the stern and businesslike Kemble was called in to restore discipline among unruly players whose salaries were overdue, and amongst upholsterers and decorators who had never been paid for the pieces they had mounted.
It required the courage and determination of a Kemble to undertake the clearing out of such an Augean stable. "The public approbation of my humble endeavours in the discharge of my duties will be the constant object of my ambition," he said, in his modest declaration on the acceptance of the appointment; "and as far as diligence and assiduity
