Perhaps it was this which, taken quite literally, produced the _Biographia
Dramatica's_ canard as to Baker's effeminacy (see above).

After grinding out a greater or less amount of this hack-work,[10] Baker
gave up trying to write. His disappearance from the scene thereafter is
accounted for by his appointment (1711) to a living in Bedfordshire, where
he was Rector of Bolnhurst till his death, and (1716-31) Vicar of
Ravensden. As the Bolnhurst school was founded upon a bequest from him in
1749,[11] he presumably died in that year--but not, I should guess, of
_morbus pediculosus_.

_John Harrington Smith
University of California, Los Angeles_


NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

[Footnote 1: The other was William Burnaby. His plays have been given a
modern editing by F.E. Budd (Scholartis Press, 1931).]

[Footnote 2: Nicoll, _Early Eighteenth Century Drama_, Handlist of Plays.
For all subsequent statements as to dates of production I follow this
source.]

[Footnote 3: It was still too lively, however, to be acted outside London.
The Harvard Theatre Collection has a copy once owned by Joe Haines with
"cuts" designed to soften it for playing in the provinces. Such lines as,
"The Godly never go to Taverns, but get drunk every Night at one another's
Houses," "Citizens are as fond of their Wives, as their Wives are of other
People," and "Virtue's an Impossibility ... every Citizen's Wife pretends