Join then your voices, be the play excused
For once, though no one living is abused;

but as a matter of fact one purpose of the play was, as Dr. Johnson
said, "to bring into contempt Dr. Woodward, the fossilist, a man not
really or justly contemptible." Woodward was the author of a "History of
Fossils," and his name survives in the Woodwardian Professorship of
Geology at Cambridge. He was introduced as Dr. Cornelius in "Martin
Scriblerus":--

Who nature's treasures would explore,
Her mysteries and arcana know.
Must high as lofty Newton soar,
Must stoop as delving Woodward low.

The bridegroom in the play is called Fossile, and there was no mistaking
the intention. Dr. Woodward had many friends, and these made known their
disgust in the most unmistakable manner when "Three Hours After
Marriage" was produced on January 16th, 1717, at Drury Lane Theatre. It
ran for seven nights. "It had the fate which such outrages deserved,"
Dr. Johnson has written; "the scene in which Woodward was directly and
apparently ridiculed by the introduction of a mummy and a crocodile,
disgusted the audience, and the performance was driven off the stage
with general condemnation."[9] The farce was not only dull, it was
vulgar. And the geologist (played by Johnson) was not the only person
introduced for the purpose of ridicule. Dennis was brought in as Sir
Tremendous, and it was believed that Phoebe Clinket (played by Mrs.
Bicknell) was intended for Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea, who, says
Mr. Austin Dobson, "was alleged to have spoken contemptuously of Gay."