Macklin was the last of the great actors who played at Lincoln's Inn Fields; and he did not leave Covent Garden until _after_ the appearance there of Braham, who was yet among us but yesterday. The first-named house had never rivalled the success of Drury Lane, but Rich had gained enough to enable him to build a new house, and the last play acted in the Fields was Ravenscroft's "Anatomist," one of the worst of a second-rate author of King Charles's days. This was on December 5, 1732. Except for a few nights, irregularly, the old house never opened again. It was the third theatre which had occupied the site since 1662. In 1756 it was converted into a barrack. As late as 1848, it was Copeland's China Repository, when the old stage door and passage, through which Quin had so often passed, still existed. There had been a long expressed desire for a new theatre; that is, not merely a new edifice, but a new system. The proposal embraced prospective delights for authors, such as they had hitherto never dreamed of. In the published prospectus it was stated that actors and authors should be excluded from the management, which was to be entrusted to individuals, who, at least, knew as little about it, namely, men of quality, taste, figure, and of a fortune varying from ten to twelve hundred pounds. A committee was to be appointed, whose duty it would be, among others, to provide for the efficient reading of new plays, and for their being listened to with reverence and attention. It was calculated that the annual profit of such a theatre would amount to £3000 a year, and that out of it an annuity of £100 might be set aside for every author who had achieved a certain amount of success. In the following year, the _Weekly Miscellany_ and the _Grub Street Journal_ were very eager on the subject of theatrical reform. The former complained that high comedy and dignified tragedy had deserted the stage; remarked that plays were not intended for tradesmen! and denounced pantomimes and harlequinades as infamous. The Journal was rather practical than reflective. Old Exeter Change was then to let, and the Journal proposed that it should be converted into a theatre; adding a suggestion, which required above a century and a quarter to be carried into realisation, namely, that a college should be founded for decayed actors. This college was to form the two wings of the theatre; which wings were to be inhabited respectively by the _emeriti_ among actors, and destitute actresses, whose new home was to be within sound of the old stirring echoes of their joyous days. The direction of the establishment was to be confided to a competent governor and officers selected from among the decayed nobility and gentry; and the glory and profit resulting were calculated at a very high figure indeed!