The fruit of this interview and of the fubfequent communications of the parties was, the publication, in November 1739, of a pamphlet with this title, • A vindication of Mr. Pope's Effay on Man. By the author of the Divine Legation of Moses. Printed for J. Robinson.' Whether or not Crouíaz ever replied to this vindication, I am not at leifure to enquire. I incline to think he did not, and that the controverfy rested on the foot of the Examen and the Commentary on the one part, and the Vindication on the other. In the year 1743, Johnson took it into his head to review the argument, and became a moderator in a difpute which, on the fide of Warburton, had been conducted with a great degree of that indignation and contempt of his adverfary, which is vifible in moft of his writings. This he did in two letters feverally published in the Gentleman's Magazine for the months of March and November in the above year, with a promife of more, but proceeded no farther than to state the fentiments of Mr. Croufaz refpecting the poem, from a feeming conviction that he was difcuffing an uninteresting question. Johnson had already tried his hand at political fatire, and had fucceeded in it; and though no new occafion offered, he was either urged by diftrefs or prompted by that clamour against the minifter which in the year 1739 was become very loud, to join in the popular cry, and as it were, to carry war into his own quarters. This he did in a pamphlet, intitled, Marmor Nor folcienfe, or an effay on an ancient prophetical infcription, in Monkish rhyme, lately discovered near Lynn in Norfolk, by Probus Britannicus.' This mode of fatire, the publication of prophecies adapted adapted to the incidents of the time when written, and not fo genuine as that of Nixon, the Chefhire feer, which fome thought was fulfilled in 1745, is not an invention fo new as many may think. In fome inftances it has been a mere exercife of wit; in others it has been used as a means to excite a people to fedition. Under the firft clafs is noted that mentioned by Lord Bacon: When Hempe is fpun, whereby, as his lordfhip fays, it was generally conceived, that after the princes had reigned which had the principal letters of that word Hempe, (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip and Elizabeth) England fhould come to utter confufion; which, adds he, thanks be to God, is verified only in the change of name, for the king's ftile is now no more, of England, but of Britain. Of the latter clafs of feigned prophecies many have, within these few years, been published by authors who had not wit enough to put them into verse. The infcription mentioned in the title-page of the Marmor Norfolcienfe, as alfo the relation of the manner of finding it, are, as will be readily fuppofed, equally fictitious, as the fole end of writing and publishing it was to give occafion for a comment, which should concentrate all the topics of popular discontent: accordingly it is infinuated, because an act of parliament had then lately paffed, by which it was enacted that all law proceedings fhould be in English, that therefore few lawyers understood Latin; and the people are taught to look on the descendants of the Princess Sophia as intruders of yesterday, receiving an estate by voluntary grant, and erecting thereon a claim of here ditary right. The explanation of the prophecy, which is all ironical, refolves itfelf into an invective against a ftanding army, a ridicule of the balance of power, complaints of the inactivity of the British lion, and that the Hanover horfe was fuffered to fuck his blood. A publication fo inflammatory as this, could hardly efcape the notice of any government, under which the legal idea of a libel might be supposed to exift. The principles it contained were fuch as the Jacobites of the time openly avowed; and warrants were iffued and meffengers employed to apprehend the author, who, though he had forborne to fubfcribe his name to the pamphlet, the vigilance of thofe in pursuit of him had discovered. To elude the fearch after him, he, together with his wife, took an obfcure lodging in a house in Lambeth-marsh, and lay there concealed till the fcent after him was grown cold, In the fame year, 1739, an event arofe that gave occafion to Johnfon again to exercise his talent of fatire; viz. the refufal of a licence for acting a tragedy intitled, Guftavus Vafa, or the deliverer of his country,' written by Henry Brooke, to account for which feeming injury, fome previous information, such as I am now about to give, appears neceffary. The places for theatrical reprefentations in this country were anciently the king's palace, and the manfions of the nobility; but as the love of them increased, taverns and other public houfes in different parts of the city and fuburbs, were fitted up for the purpofe, and called play-houfes. The ufurpation and the principles of the times put a stop to ftage entertainments: at the reftoration they were revived, and the places for reprefentation conftructed in the form of theatres: their number, at no time after that period, exceeded four, 5 and and in the year 1728, and long before, it was reduced to three, namely, Drury-lane, Lincoln's-inn-fields, and the French playhouse in the Hay-market. In that year, a man, of the name of Odell, took a throwfter's fhop in Ayliffe-ftreet, Goodman's-fields, and collecting together anumber of ftrolling players of both fexes, opened it as a theatre. Its contiguity to the city, foon made it a place of great refort, and what was apprehended from the advertisement of plays to be exhibited in that quarter of the town, foon followed: the adjacent houses became taverns, in name, but in truth they were houses of lewd refort*; and the former occupiers of them, useful manufacturers and induftrious artificers, were driven to seek elsewhere for a refidence. In the course of the entertainments of this place, the manager ventured to exhibit some few new plays; among the reft a tragedy, intitled, King Charles the 'First,' containing fentiments suited to the characters of republicans, fectaries and enthufiafts, and a fcenical reprefentation of the events of that prince's difaftrous reign, better forgotten than remembered. Sober perfons thought that the revival of the memory of past tranfactions of fuch a kind as thefe were, would ferve no good purpose, but, on the contrary, perpetuate I once, while I was chairman of the Middlefex feffions, tried an indictment for a riot committed in one of thefe coffee-houses, and in the course of the evidence difcovered, that it was kept by a woman, who appeared before me as a witnefs in the affumed drefs of a quaker, and was the reputed wife of a fea-faring man, who, being abroad, had left her to purfue this lawless occupation. I was greatly puzzled to reconcile in my mind, fuch a folecifm in manners as the profeffion of purity with the practice of lewdness, as alfo to account for her retaining the garb of a fect, who are known to discountenance vice and immorality, and even to expel from their fociety all perfons of fcandalous lives. I reproved her for her courfe of life, and exhorted her to quit it, but could not perceive that my words made any impreffion on her. that that enmity between the friends to and opponents of our ecclefiaftical and civil eftablishment, which they had heretofore excited; and for fuffering fuch reprefentations as thefe, they execrated not fo much the author as the manager. In this inftance, the indignation of the public was ill-directed: the arguments arifing from this fuppofed abufe of hiftrionical liberty were not local; they proved too much, and rather applied to ftage entertainments in general than to the conduct of a particular manager. But others looked on this new-erected theatre with an eye more penetrating: the merchants of London, then a grave fagacious body of men, found that it was a temptation to idlenefs and to pleafure that their clerks could not refift; they regretted to fee the corruptions of Covent-garden extended, and the feats of induftry hold forth allurements to vice and debauchery. The principal of these was Sir John Barnard, a wife and venerable man, and a good citizen: he, as a magiftrate, had for fome time been watching for fuch information, as would bring the actors at Goodman's-fields playhouse within the reach of the vagrant laws; but none was laid before him that he could, with prudence, act upon. At length, however, an opportunity offered, which he not only embraced, but made an admirable ufe of: Mr. Henry Fielding, then a young barrister without practice, a dramatic poet, and a patriot, under the extreme preffure of neceffity, had, in the year 1736, written a comedy, or a farce, we may call it either or both, intitled, Palquin,' a dramatic fatire on the times, and brought it on the ftage of the little playhouse in the Hay-market, which, being calculated to encourage popular clamour, and containing in it many reflections on the public councils, furnished reafons for . bring |