Some weeks subsequently the "Old Batchelor" was suddenly substituted for the previously announced tragedy of "Hamlet." When all the parts had been distributed to the principal actors, Cibber, ever vigilant and ever ready, quietly remarked that they had forgotten one of the most telling parts in the whole play, Fondlewife. It was Dogget's great part. In it he was unapproachable. He was not a member of the company. Who could or would dare to face a public whose sides were still shaking with laughter at Dogget's irresistible performance of this character? No one knew the part; midday was at hand; the curtain must go up by four; the play could _not_ be changed. What _was_ to be done? Colley, of course, offered himself to do it, and his offer was treated with contempt;[77] but the managers were compelled to accept it. Here was a golden chance which had golden results for Cibber. He played the part at night, in dress, feature, voice, and action, so like to the incomparable Dogget himself, that the house was in an uproar of delight and perplexity,--delight at beholding their favourite, and perplexity as to how it could possibly be he. For there sat Dogget himself, in the very centre of a forward row in the pit; a stimulant rather than a stumbling-block to Cibber; and the astonished witness of the newly-acquired glory of this young actor, who always seemed ready to undertake anything, and who was always sure of accomplishing whatever he undertook. "It would be too rank an affectation," he writes, "if I should not confess that to see him there, a witness of my reception, was to me as consummate a triumph as the heart of vanity could be indulged with." Surely, this persevering fellow merited success; but still were his playfellows like his schoolfellows. They envied and decried him. If he solicited a part, he was put by, with the remark that _it was not in his way_. He wisely replied that any part, naturally written, should be in the way of every man who pretended to be an actor. The managers thought otherwise, and left Colley--but not to despair. He had just discerned another opportunity, and, _more suo_, he clutched it, worked it to a noble end, and with it achieved a double and a permanent triumph--triumph as author as well as actor.