Who wears Pride’s Face beneath Religion’s Mask. And makes a Pick-Lock of his Piety, To steal away the Liberty of Mankind. But while I live, I’ll never give thee Power. Firebrand. Madam, our Power is not deriv’d from you, Nor any one: ’Twas sent us in a Box From the great Sun himself, and Carriage paid; Phaeton brought it when he overturn’d The Chariot of the Sun into the Sea. Q. C. S. Shew me the Instrument, and let me read it. Fireb. Madam, you cannot read it, for being thrown Into the Sea, the Water has so damag’d it, That none but Priests could ever read it since.”
In the end, Firebrand stabs Common-Sense, but her Ghost frightens Ignorance off the Stage, upon which Sneerwell says—“I am glad you make Common-Sense get the better at last; I was under terrible Apprehensions for your Moral.” “Faith, Sir,” says Fustian, “this is almost the only Play where she has got the better lately.” And so the piece closes. But it would be wrong to quit it without some reference to the numberless little touches by which, throughout the whole, the humours of dramatic life behind the scenes are ironically depicted. The Comic Poet is arrested on his way from “King’s Coffee-House,“ and the claim being “for upwards of Four Pound,” it is at first supposed that “he will hardly get Bail.” He is subsequently inquired after by a Gentlewoman in a Riding-Hood, whom he passes off as a Lady of Quality, but who, in reality, is bringing him a clean shirt. There are difficulties with one of the Ghosts, who has a “Church-yard Cough,” and “is so Lame he can hardly walk the Stage;” while another comes to rehearsal without being properly floured, because the stage barber has gone to Drury Lane “to shave the
