Mr. Ebers's management commenced in 1821. He formed an excellent company, of which several singers, still under engagement to Mr. Waters, formed part, and which included among the singers, Madame Camporese, Madame Vestris, Madame Ronzi de Begnis; and M. M. Ambrogetti, Angrisani, Begrez, and Curioni. The chief dancers (as already mentioned in the previous chapter), were Noblet, Fanny Bias, and Albert. The season was a short one, it was considered successful, though the manager but lost money by it. The selection of operas was admirable, and consisted of Paer's _Agnese_, Rossini's _Gazza Ladra_, _Tancredi_ and _Turco_ in _Italia_, with Mozart's _Clemenza di Tito_, _Don Giovanni_, and _Nozze di Figaro_. The manager's losses were already seven thousand pounds. By way of encouraging him, Mr. Chambers increased his rent the following year from three thousand one hundred and eighty pounds to ten thousand. It is right to add, that in the meanwhile Mr. Chambers had bought up Waters's entire interest in the Opera for eighty thousand pounds. Altogether, by buying and selling the theatre, Waters had cleared no less than seventy-three thousand pounds. Not contented with this, he no sooner heard of the excellent terms on which Mr. Chambers had let the house, than he made an application (a fruitless one), to the ever-to-be-tormented Chancellor, to have the deed of sale declared invalid. During Mr. Ebers's management, from the beginning of 1821 to the end of 1827, he lost money regularly every year; the smallest deficit in the budget of any one season being that of the last, when the manager thought himself fortunate to be minus only three thousand pounds (within a few sovereigns). After Mr. Ebers's retirement, the management of the Opera was undertaken by Messrs. Laporte and Laurent. Mr. Laporte was succeeded by Mr. Lumley, the history of whose management belongs to a much later period than that treated of in the present chapter. * * * * * [Sidenote: THE KING'S THEATRE IN 1789.]