"glorious Woman" in whose cause he had drawn his pen was genuine, or
whether--to use Johnson's convenient euphemism concerning Hooke--"he
was acting only ministerially," are matters for speculation. His father,
however, had served under the Duke, and there may have been a
traditional attachment to the Churchills on the part of his family. It
has even been ingeniously suggested that Sarah Fielding was her Grace's
god-child; [Footnote: _Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough_, etc.,
by Mrs. A. T. Thomson, 1839.] but as her mother's name was also Sarah,
no importance can be attached to the suggestion.

_Miss Lucy in Town_, as its sub-title explains, was a sequel to the
_Virgin Unmask'd_, and was produced at Drury Lane in May 1742. As
already stated in chapter ii., Fielding's part in it was small. It is a
lively but not very creditable trifle, which turns upon certain
equivocal London experiences of the Miss Lucy of the earlier piece; and
it seems to have been chiefly intended to afford an opportunity for some
clever imitation of the reigning Italian singers by Mrs. Clive and the
famous tenor Beard. Horace Walpole, who refers to it in a letter to
Mann, between an account of the opening of Ranelagh and an anecdote of
Mrs. Bracegirdle, calls it "a little simple farce," and says that "Mrs.
Clive mimics the Muscovita admirably, and Beard Amorevoli tolerably."
Mr. Walpole detested the Muscovita, and adored Amorevoli, which perhaps
accounts for the nice discrimination shown in his praise. One of the
other characters, Mr. Zorobabel, a Jew, was taken by Macklin, and from
another, Mrs. Haycock (afterwards changed to Mrs. Midnight), Foote is
supposed to have borrowed Mother Cole in _The Minor_. A third character,
Lord Bawble, was considered to reflect upon "a particular person of
quality," and the piece was speedily forbidden by the Lord Chamberlain,
although it appears to have been acted a few months later without
opposition. One of the results of the prohibition, according to Mr.