eight children. After a quarrel with Sheridan, Palmer, approaching the dramatist with a head bent forward, his hand on his heart, and his most plausible Joseph Surface manner, and saying, "If you could see my heart, Mr. Sheridan", received the reply, "Why, Jack, you forget I wrote it." On 30 Aug. of the same year, at the Haymarket, he further heightened his reputation by his performance of Almaviva. Royalty Theatre and debtors' prison In 1785 Palmer, yielding to his own ambition and the counsel of friends, began to build the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square. Deaf to remonstrances, he persisted in his task, though the only licenses, wholly ineffectual, which he could obtain were those of the governor of the Tower and the magistrates of the adjoining district. This building he opened, 20 June 1787, with a performance of As you like it, in which he was Jaques to the Rosalind of Mrs. Belfille, and Miss in her Teens, in which he was Flash to the Miss Biddy of Maria Gibbs. The contest for places was violent. Apprehensive of an interference on the part of the authorities, he gave the representation for the benefit of the London Hospital. At the close Palmer read an address by Arthur Murphy, and said that performances would be suspended for the present. On 3 July the theatre was reopened for the performance of pantomimes and irregular pieces. Though backed up by friends, some of them of influence and wealth, Palmer was never able to conquer the opposition of the managers of the patent houses. A pamphlet warfare began with A Review of the present Contest between the Managers of the Winter Theatres, the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square, &c., 8vo, 1787. This, written in favour of Palmer, was answered anonymously by George Colman in A very plain State of the Case, or the Royalty Theatre versus the Theatres Royal, &c., 8vo, 1787. In the same year appeared Royal and Royalty Theatres (by Isaac Jackman), Letter to the Author of the Burletta called "Hero and Leander," The Trial of John Palmer for opening the Royalty Theatre, tried in the Olympian Shades, and The Trial of Mr. John Palmer, Comedian and Manager of the Royalty Theatre, &c. In 1788 appeared The Eastern Theatre Erected, an heroic "comic poem", the hero of which is called Palmerio, and Case of the