I have upon several occasions, already observed, that when one company is too hard for another, the lower in reputation has always been forced to exhibit fine newfangled foppery, to draw the multitude after them; of these expedients, singing and dancing had formerly been most effectual; but, at the time I am speaking of, our English music had been so discountenanced since the taste of Italian Operas prevailed, that it was to no purpose to pretend to it. Dancing, therefore, was now the only weight, in the opposite scale, and as the new theatre sometimes found their account in it, it could not be safe for us wholly to neglect it. Cibber's antagonistical views towards Pantomime were shared, as we shall see, by a good many others. Booth, however, a greater actor than Cibber, and a tragedian to boot, took a more business-like view of the proceedings, thinking thin houses the greatest indignity the stage could suffer. "Men of taste and judgment (said he) must necessarily form but a small proportion of the spectators at a theatre, and if a greater number of people were enticed to sit out a play because a Pantomime was tacked to it, the Pantomime did good service to all concerned. Besides, if people of position and taste could, if so minded, leave before the nonsense commenced--an opportunity they do not seem to have embraced since Booth reminded the opponents of Pantomime how Italian opera had drawn the nobility and gentry away from the play-houses, as appeared by the melancholy testimony of their receipts, until Pantomime came to the rescue when pit and gallery were better filled, and the boxes too put on a nobler appearance." CHAPTER XV. John Rich and his Pantomimes--Rich's Miming---Garrick, Walpole, Foote--Anecdotes of Rich--Pope--The dance of infernals in "Harlequin Sorcerer"--Drury Lane--Colley Cibber--Henry Fielding, the Novelist--Contemporary Writers' opinion of Pantomime--Woodward, the Harlequin--The meaning of the word Actor--Harlequins--"Dr. Faustus," a description--William Rufus Chetwood--Accidents--Vandermere, the Harlequin--"Orpheus and Eurydice" at Covent Garden--A description--Sam. Hoole, the machinist--Prejudice against Pantomime--Mrs. Oldfield--Robert Wilks--Macklin--Riot at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre--Death of Rich. It was in 1717 that Rich devised this new form of entertainment, though it was not till 1724, when "The Necromancer, or History of Dr. Faustus" was produced by Rich, which took the town by storm, that Pantomime became such a rage. It has been stated that what induced Rich to turn his attention to Pantomime was the bringing over of a German, named Swartz, who had two performing dogs that could dance. They were engaged at £10 a night; and brought full houses. However, be this as it may, in the "Daily Courant," of December 20, 1717, we find him, advertising for his "Italian Mimic Scenes"--as he, for long enough, so termed his Pantomimes--as follows:--