bber had been active in organising a form of
opposition to the authority of the Chamberlain and the Master of the
Revels, which, although it seemed of a trifling kind, had yet its
importance. For it turned upon the question of fees. The holders of
the patents considered themselves sole judges of the plays proper to
be acted in their theatres. The Master of the Revels claimed his fee
of forty shillings for each play produced. The managers, it seems,
were at liberty to represent new plays without consulting him, and to
spare him the trouble of reading the same--provided always they paid
him his fees. But these they now thought it expedient to withhold from
him. Cibber was deputed to attend the Master of the Revels, and to
inquire into the justice of his demand, with full powers to settle the
dispute amicably. Charles Killigrew at this time filled the office,
having succeeded his father Thomas, who had obtained the appointment
of Master of the Revels upon the death of Sir Henry Herbert in 1673.
Killigrew could produce no warrant for his demand. Cibber concluded
with telling him that "as his pretensions were not backed with any
visible instrument of right, and as his strongest plea was custom, the
managers could not so far extend their complaisance as to continue the
payment of fees upon so slender a claim to them." From that time
neither their plays nor his fees gave either party any further
trouble. In 1725 Killigrew was succeeded as Master of the Revels by
Charles Henry Lea, who for some years continued to exercise "such
authority as was not opposed, and received such fees as he could find
the managers willing to pay."

The first step towards legislation in regard to the theatres and the
licensing of plays was made in 1734, when Sir John Barnard moved the
House of Commons "for leave to bring in a bill for restraining the
number of houses for playing of interludes and for the better
regulating common players of interludes." It was represented that
great mischief had been done in the city of London by the playhouses:
youth had been corrupted, vice encouraged, trade and industry
prejudiced. Already the number of theatres in London was double that
of Paris. In addition to the opera-house, the French playhouse in the
Haymarket, and the theatres in Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, and Goodman's Fields, there was now a project to erect a
new playhouse in St. Martin's-le-Grand. It was no less surprising than
sha