We meet with one instance of forbearance being asked from the critics, not on the ground that the piece had merit, but that, as a prince of the blood was in the house, he should be allowed to listen to the nonsense undisturbed. The piece was Cibber's pastoral opera, "Love's Riddle," produced at Drury Lane, in January 1729. The public were offended at the recent prohibition of the second part of the "Beggar's Opera," Cibber was looked upon as having procured the prohibition for the sake of his own piece, and a cabal of pit rioters hooted the play, and were only momentarily silent while Miss Raftor was singing, whose voice had well nigh saved this operatic drama. On the second night, which was even more riotous than the first, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was present, and it was in order that he might be decently bored, and not deprived of what he had never seen, the fun of a playhouse riot, that Cibber addressed the pit, and undertook that the piece should be withdrawn after that night, if they would only remember in whose presence they were, and allow the drama to be quietly played out. With this understanding the rioters withdrew, the piece went dully on, and, at the close of it, a lord in waiting was sent behind the scenes to compliment Cibber and to express the Prince's approval of his conduct on that night. The pit was always the great court of appeal, and on one occasion Cibber showed much courage and good sense, and a due appreciation of his calling as an actor. At the theatre in Dorset Gardens, where the Drury Lane Company occasionally played, and on an evening when he was announced for one of his best parts, a set of rope-dancers were advertised as about to make their first appearance. Cibber's scorn was roused by this companionship, and what he did may be best told in his own words. "I was hardy enough," he says, "to _go into the pit_, and acquainted the spectators near me that I hoped they would not think it a mark of my disrespect to them if I declined acting upon any stage that was brought to so low a disgrace as ours was like to be by that day's entertainment." In this he had the support of his fellow-actors, and the public approved; and the acrobats were dismissed by the reluctant manager. The pit was at this period supreme and severe, and as the witlings used to make remarks on, or exchange them with, the more audacious beauties in the boxes, so now did they exercise a cruel humour in making sarcastic application of the words of a part to the actress who delivered them. By these they pointed out the flaws in her character, her deficiency in beauty, or her effrontery in assuming virtues which did not belong to her.