on as men of a superior skill to all other actors, and consequently had a greater influence than the rest, and could lead after them a larger number of followers. It was by means of the incessant clamour and outcry that these miscreants raised, and of the lies and forgeries which they scattered about the nation, that the common people were spirited up to commit the most extravagant acts of insolence and outrage on the Managers of the Old-House. They were made the sport and derision of fools, and were delivered up to an enraged and deluded populace, as a prey to the fury of wild beasts. Their enemies were continually plotting and conspiring their destruction, and yet were continually prosecuting them for Sham-Plots and pretended Conspiracies, and suborning witnesses to prove them guilty of attempts to undermine and blow up the New-House. "During the course of those violent and illegal proceedings, the New Actors were not wanting in any pains or expence to gratify and increase the then popular taste for Raree-Shows, and Hocus-Pocus Tricks. Scenes and Machines, and Puppets, and Posture-Masters, and Actors, and Singers, with a new set of Heathen Gods and Goddesses, and several other foreign Decorations and Inventions, were sent for from _France_ _and Italy_, and were ready to be imported with the first fair wind. But quarrels falling out among the Managers of the House, and one or two of the principal Actors happening to quit the Stage, and the people growing tired with so much foul play, and with the same _deceptio visus_ so often repeated, the scene changed at once, the _vox populi_ turned against the New-House, which sunk under a load of infamy and contempt, and was deserted not only by the Spectators, but even by its Actors, who, to save themselves from the justice of an abused and enraged people, were forced to fly out of the nation, and to beg for protection and subsistence from their wicked Confederates and Fellow-Jugglers abroad." * * * * * 1725. 1. Five small prints for the translation of _Cassandra_, in five volumes duodecimo. _W. Hogarth inv. & sculp._