Charges at her Benefit” by which she cleared sixty guineas, certainly points to a prosperous exchequer. Fielding’s own benefit, as appears from the curious ticket attributed to Hogarth and facsimiled by A. M. Ireland, took place on April 25, but we have no record of the amount of his gains. Mrs. Charke farther says that “soon after Pasquin began to droop,” Fielding produced Lillo’s Fatal Curiosity in which she acted Agnes. This tragedy, founded on a Cornish story, is one of remarkable power and passion; but upon its first appearance it made little impression, although in the succeeding year it was acted to greater advantage in combination with another satirical medley by Fielding, the Historical Register for the Year 1736.
Like most sequels, the Historical Register had neither the vogue nor the wit of its predecessor. It was only half as long, and it was even more disconnected in character. “Harmonious Cibber,” as Swift calls him, whose “preposterous Odes” had already been ridiculed in Pasquin and the Author’s Farce, was once more brought on the stage as Ground-Ivy, for his alterations of Shakespeare; and under the name of Pistol, Theophilus Cibber is made to refer to the contention between his second wife, Arne’s sister, and Mrs. Clive, for the honour of playing “Polly” in the Beggar’s Opera, a play-house feud which at the latter end of 1736 had engaged “the Town” almost as seriously as the earlier rivalry of Faustina and Cuzzoni. This continued raillery of the Cibbers is, as Fielding himself seems to have felt, a “Jest a little overacted;” but there is one scene in the piece of undeniable freshness and humour, to wit, that in which Cock, the famous salesman of the Piazzas—the George Robins of
