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 Sultan in the New Entertainment." On
the other hand, the Ghost of Queen Common-Sense appears before she is
killed, and is with some difficulty persuaded that her action is
premature. Part of "the Mob" play truant to see a show in the park; Law,
straying without the playhouse passage is snapped up by a Lord Chief-
Justice's Warrant; and a Jew carries off one of the Maids of Honour.
These little incidents, together with the unblushing realism of the Pots
of Porter that are made to do duty for wine, and the extra two-penny
worth of Lightning that is ordered against the first night, are all in
the spirit of that inimitable picture of the _Strolling Actresses
dressing in a Barn_, which Hogarth gave to the world two years later,
and which, very possibly, may have borrowed some of its inspiration from
Fielding's "dramatic satire."

There is every reason to suppose that the profits of _Pasquin_ were far
greater than those of any of its author's previous efforts. In a rare
contemporary caricature, preserved in the British Museum, [Footnote:
Political and Personal Satires, No. 2287.] the "Queen of Common-Sense"
is shown presenting "Henry Fielding, Esq.," with a well-filled purse,
while to "Harlequin" (John Rich of Covent Garden) she extends a halter;
and in some doggerel lines underneath, reference is made to the "show'rs
of Gold" resulting from the piece. This, of course, might be no more