A publication fo inflammatory as this, could hardly escape 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 subscribe his name to the pamphlet, the vigilance of those in pursuit of him had discovered. To elude the search after him, he, together with his wife, took an obfcure lodging in a house in Lambeth marfh, and lay there concealed till the fcent after him was grown cold.

In the fame year, 1739, an event arofe that gave occafion to Johnson 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, fuch 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 suburbs, were fitted up for the purpose, and called play-houses. The ufurpation and the principles of the times put a stop to stage entertainments: at the restoration they were revived, and the places for reprefentation conftructed in the form of theatres: their number, at no time after that period, exceeded four, and in the year 1728, and long before, it was reduced to three, namely, Drury lane, Lincoln's-inn fields, and the French playhoufe in the Hay-market. In that

year,

year, a man, of the name of Odell, took a throwster's fhop in Ayliffe ftreet, Goodman's fields, and collecting together a number of strolling players of both fexes, opened it as a theatre. Its contiguity to the city, foon made it a place of great resort, 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, ufeful 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 fome few new plays; among the reft a tragedy, intitled, King Charles the 'First,' containing fentiments fuited to the characters of republicans, fectaries and enthusiasts, and a scenical representation of the events of that prince's difaftrous reign, better forgotten than remembered. Sober perfons thought that the revival of the memory of past transactions of such a kind as these were, would serve no good purpose, but, on the contrary, perpetuate that enmity between the friends to and opponents of our ecclefiaftical and civil establishment, which they

⚫ I once, while I was chairman of the Middlesex feffions, tried an indictment for a riot committed in one of these coffee-houses, and in the course of the evidence discovered, that it was kept by a woman, a ftiff quaker, and was ftrangely puzzled to reconcile in my mind fuch a folecism in manners as the profef fion of purity with the practice of lewdnefs. She appeared in court in the plain and neat garb of the people of that perfuafion, and was the wife of a feafaring man, who being abroad, had left her to pursue this lawless occupation. I reproved her for her courfe of life, but could not make her fenfible that it was fcandabus.

had

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had heretofore excited; and for fuffering fuch reprefentations as ti.efe, 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 abuse 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 idleness and to pleasure that their clerks could not refift: they regretted to fee the corruptions of Covent-garden extended, and the feats of industry hold forth allurements to vice and debauchery. The principal of thefe was Sir John Barnard, a wife and venerable man, and a good citizen: he, as a magistrate, 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, Pafquin,' a dramatic fatire on the times, and brought it on the stage 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 reasons for bring a bill into the houfe of commons for prohibit

ing the acting of any interlude, tragedy, comedy, opera, play, farce, &c. without the authority of his Majesty's letters-patent or a licence from the lord-chamberlain. In this bill a claufe was inferted on the motion of Sir John Barnard, and a very judicious one it was, by which it was made penal, even with any fuch patent or licence, to act or represent any fuch interlude, &c. in any part of Great Britain, except in the city of Weftminster and fuch other places as his Majesty, in perfon, fhould refide in.

Before 1737, the the year in which this bill was brought in, the property of Goodman's-fields playhouse had paffed into the hands of Mr. Henry Giffard, who, encouraged by a fubscription, pulled it down, and, under the direction of Shephard, the architect, the fame that afterwards built Covent-garden theatre, had erected a new one. This man, while the bill was depending, petitioned against it, and, in his printed cafe, reprefented the injury he was likely to fuftain: all the specious arguments of the great fums he had expended on the purchase of the house, and rebuilding it, in fcenes, cloaths, &c. were urged with their utmost force, and his right to an equivalent stated; but all to no effect: the bill paffed, and the statute is now part of the law of the land. It is true, an evafion of it was afterwards contrived by an advertisement of a concert, with a play given gratis, but that fubterfuge was foon aban

doned.

The operation of this ftatute was two-fold; it fubjected theatrical representations to a licence, and fuppreffed a nuisance. And here let me obferve, that although of plays it is faid that they teach morality, and

of

of the stage that it is the mirror of human life, thefe affertions are mere declamation, and have no foundation in truth or experience: on the contrary, a playhouse, and the regions about it, are the very hot-beds of vice: how elfe comes it to pass that no fooner is a playhouse opened in any part of the kingdom, than it becomes furrounded by an halo of brothels? Of this truth, the neighbourhood of the place I am now speaking of has had experience; one parish alone, adjacent thereto, having to my knowledge, expended the fum of 1300l. in profecutions for the purpose of removing those inhabitants, whom, for instruction in the science of human life, the playhouse had drawn thither.

Mr. Brooke, the author above-mentioned, having with his eyes open, and the ftatute of the tenth of George the second staring him in the face, written a tragedy, in which, as will be presently fhewn, under pretence of a laudable zeal for the cause of liberty, he inculcates principles, not only anti-monarchical, but fcarcely confiftent with any fyftem of civil fubordination; what wonder is it, that, under a monarchical government, a licence for fuch a theatrical reprefentation fhould be refused? or that fuch a refusal should be followed by a prohibition of the acting it?

This interpofition of legal authority was looked upon by the author's friends, in which number were included all the Jacobites in the kingdom, as an infraction of a natural right, and as affecting the cause of liberty. To express their resentment of this injury, they advised him to fend it to the prefs, and by a fubscription to the publication, of near a thousand perfons, encouraged others to the like attempts. By means of the printed copy any one is enabled to judge of its

general