The only other thing which need be referred to in connection with this comedy--the last of his own dramatic works which Fielding ever witnessed upon the stage--is Macklin's doggerel Prologue. Mr. Lawrence attributes this to Fielding; but he seems to have overlooked the fact that in the _Miscellanies_ it is headed, "_Writ_ and Spoken by Mr. Macklin," which gives it more interest as the work of an outsider than if it had been a mere laugh by the author at himself. Garrick is represented as too busy to speak the prologue; and Fielding, who has been "drinking to raise his Spirits," has begged Macklin with his "long, dismal, Mercy-begging Face," to go on and apologise. Macklin then pretends to recognise him among the audience, and pokes fun at his anxieties, telling him that he had better have stuck to "honest _Abram Adams_," who, "in spight of Critics, can make his Readers laugh." The words "in spite of critics" indicate another distinction between Fielding's novels and plays, which should have its weight in any comparison of them. The censors of the pit, in the eighteenth century, seem to have exercised an unusual influence in deciding whether a play should succeed or not; [Footnote: Miller's _Coffee-House_, 1737, for example, was damned by the Templars because it was supposed to reflect on the keepers of "Dick's."--(_Biog. Dramatica_.)] and, from Fielding's frequent references to friends and enemies, it would almost seem as if he believed their suffrages to be more important than a good plot and a witty dialogue. On the other hand, no coterie of Wits and Templars could kill a book like _Joseph Andrews_. To say nothing of the opportunities afforded by the novel for more leisurely character-drawing, and greater by-play of reflection and description--its reader was an isolated and independent judge; and in the long run the difference told wonderfully in favour of the author. Macklin was obviously right in recommending Fielding, even in jest, to stick to Parson Adams, and from the familiar publicity of the advice it may also be inferred, not only that the opinion was one commonly current, but that the novel was unusually popular.