Note 4 — CATALOGUE OF HOGARTH'S PRINTS.[1]

Dr. Faustus was first brought out at Lincoln's-Inn Fields in 1723, and the success of it reduced the rival theatre to produce a like entertainment at their house in 1725. From a scarce pamphlet in octavo, without date, called "Tragi-comical Reflections, of a moral and political Tendency, occasioned by the present State of the two Rival Theatres in Drury-Lane and Lincoln's-Inn Fields, by Gabriel Rennel, Esq." I shall transcribe an illustration of these plates: "A few years ago, by the help of Harleykin, and Dr. Faustus, and Pluto and Proserpine, and other infernal persons, the New-House was raised to as high a pitch of popularity and renown as ever it had been known to arrive at. Tho' the actors there consisted chiefly of Scotch, and Irish, and French Strollers, who were utterly unacquainted with the English Stage, and were remarkably deficient in elocution and gesture: yet so much was the art of juggling at that time in vogue, and so extreamly was the nation delighted with Raree-Shows, and foreign representations, that all people flocked to the New-House, whilst the Old one was altogether deserted, tho' it then could glory in as excellent a set of English actors as ever had trod upon any stage. In the midst of this joyful prosperity and success, the Managers of the New-House were not without secret uneasiness and discontent, whenever they considered how slippery a ground they stood upon, and how much a juster title their rivals had to the favour and affections of the people. They were therefore always intent upon forming designs and concerting measures for the entire subversion of the Old-House. For this purpose, they constantly kept in pay a standing army of Scaramouches, who were sent about the town to possess it with aversion and resentment against the Old Players, whose virtues had rendered them formidable, and whose merit was their greatest crime. These Scaramouches, in so corrupt and degenerate a time, when blindness and folly, and a false taste every where reigned, were every where looked on as men of a superior skill to all other actors, and consequently had a greater influence than the rest, and could lead after them a larger number of followers. It was by means of the incessant clamour and outcry that these miscreants raised, and of the lies and forgeries which they scattered about the nation, that the common people were spirited up to commit the most extravagant acts of insolence and outrage on the Managers of the Old-House. They were made the sport and derision of fools, and were delivered up to an enraged and deluded populace, as a prey to the fury of wild beasts. Their enemies were continually plotting and conspiring their destruction, and yet were continually prosecuting them for Sham-Plots and pretended Conspiracies, and suborning witnesses to prove them guilty of attempts to undermine and blow up the New-House.

"During the course of those violent and illegal proceedings, the New Actors were not wanting in any pains or expence to gratify and increase the then popular taste for Raree-Shows, and Hocus-Pocus Tricks. Scenes and Machines, and Puppets, and Posture-Masters, and Actors, and Singers, with a new set of Heathen Gods and Goddesses, and several other foreign Decorations and Inventions, were sent for from France and Italy, and were ready to be imported with the first fair wind. But quarrels falling out among the Managers of the House, and one or two of the principal Actors happening to quit the Stage, and the people growing tired with so much foul play, and with the same deceptio visus so often repeated, the scene changed at once, the vox populi turned against the New-House, which sunk under a load of infamy and contempt, and was deserted not only by the Spectators, but even by its Actors, who, to save themselves from the justice of an abused and enraged people, were forced to fly out of the nation, and to beg for protection and subsistence from their wicked Confederates and Fellow-Jugglers abroad."