No better proof of Atterbury’s sympathy with Mist and the enemies of the established Government can be given than in the following passage, from a letter written at Montpellier, in March, 1729-30. It is addressed to Sempill, who was a favoured resident at the Chevalier’s Court, but really a spy in the service of the Court in London.――‘I shall be concerned if so honest a man as Mr. Mist should have any just cause of uneasiness. His sufferings, that were intended to distress and disgrace him, ought to render him in the eyes of those for whom he suffered, more valuable; and I hope it will prove so that others may not be discouraged.’ [Sidenote: _THOMSON’S ‘SOPHONISBA.’_] During the next ten years Jacobitisin in the capital made no manifestation, but the Whig poets were rather ostentatious in their loyalty; and the royal family patronised them accordingly. For instance, on the last day of February, 1730, Thomson produced at Drury Lane his tragedy, illustrating the virtue of patriotism, namely, ‘Sophonisba.’ The queen herself had attended the full-dress rehearsals, at which crowded audiences were not so much delighted as they were told they ought to be. However, the notice the queen condescended to take of this essay to keep alive the virtue of patriotism, led the author to dedicate it to Caroline. In that dedication the poet informed both Whigs and Jacobites that the queen ‘commands the hearts of a people more powerful at sea than Carthage, more flourishing in commerce than those first merchants, more secure against conquest, and under a monarchy more free than a commonwealth itself.’ In the prologue it was said of Britain,―― When freedom is the cause, ’tis her’s to fight, And her’s, when freedom is the theme, to write. In the play Mrs. Oldfield splendidly illustrated the spirit of patriotism, in the part of the heroine. Cibber acted the subordinate part of _Scipio_, in which he suffered at the hands of the Jacobites. These had not forgotten the offence in his ‘Nonjuror;’ and joining, hilariously savage with the critics who laughed at Cibber in tragedy, they hissed him off the stage and out of the part on the second night. Williams, a moderately good player, succeeded him as _Scipio_, and he, on the third night, looked so like the ultra-Whig actor, that the Jacobite spectators received him with groans and hisses, which, however, speedily turned to laughter and applause. [Sidenote: _CIBBER MADE POET LAUREATE._] But Colley had his reward. The zeal he had displayed against Jacks and Nonjurors, by producing his famous comedy, now obtained its recompense, and his sufferings their consolation. In 1730, Cibber was appointed to the office of Laureate, with its annual butt of sack, or the equivalent, 50_l._ Every Jacobite who could pen a line, printed it against the laurelled minstrel. Apollo himself was pressed into the Nonjuring faction:――