Hitherto, under the mismanagement of the lazy and reckless patentee, Fleetwood, Drury Lane had fallen to a level with Sadler's Wells--tumblers and rope-dancers being put forward as the chief attractions. Even after Garrick's accession, gross mismanagement continued, and drove the principal actors, whose salaries were often unpaid, into open rebellion. They sought permission from the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Grafton, to open the theatre in the Haymarket on their own account. But the grandson of Charles II. sneered at the fact of an actor earning £600 a year, when a relative of his own, in the navy, repeatedly exposed his life, in the kings service, for half that sum. The duke put constraint on them to return to their allegiance to Fleetwood. The latter dictated hard terms to most of them, except to Garrick, and he flatly refused to receive Macklin at all. This exclusion brought on a remarkable theatrical riot. The confederate actors had agreed to triumph or to fall together. To allow Macklin to be sacrificed to the resentment of Fleetwood, was a betrayal on their part of the compact. Macklin appealed to the town, and Roscius would have been driven from the stage but for Fleetwood's hired pugilists, who pummelled one portion of the audience into silence, and enabled the whole house to enjoy, after all, what they most cared for--the acting of Garrick, undisturbed. In this season, 1743-4, Roscius did not appear till the 6th of December,[40] when he acted Bayes. Between that night, and the close of the season, on the 31st of May, he played in all seventy times. His most marked success was in Macbeth, in the tragedy "written by Shakspeare," when he had Mrs. Giffard for his Lady; he repeated this part thirteen times. Covent Garden opposed to him, first Quin, in Davenant's alteration of Shakspeare, and subsequently Sheridan, who on the 31st of March 1744, made his first appearance at Covent Garden, in opposition to Garrick, as Hamlet. The force of the two theatres will be better understood, perhaps, if I show the exact amount of the opposition brought to bear against each other. Garrick's Richard was met by that of Ryan; the Lord and Lady Townley of Garrick and Mrs. Woffington, by those of Ryan and Mrs. Horton; the Hamlet and Ophelia of the former two, by those of Ryan (and afterwards of Sheridan) and Mrs. Clive. Garrick and Mrs. Giffard, in "Macbeth," were opposed, first by Quin, then by Sheridan and Mrs. Pritchard, who played everything, from the Thane's wife to Kitty Pry. To oppose to him an amateur, like Highmore, in Lothario, was absurd; Quin's Lear had no weight against the mad old king by his young rival; and Mrs. Charke's Plume, one of the many male characters which Cibber's daughter loved to play, was pale, compared with that of the universal actor.