In many respects it did not deserve to be, for Vanbrugh, with more wit and humour, and more judgment in adaptation than Ravenscroft, sought to bring back comedy to the uncleanliness in which the latter writer had left it. There came a cry, however, from the outer world against this condition of things. Lord Gardenstone, a lord of seat, I believe, and not a lord of state, as it is said in the North, indignantly remarked of the "Confederacy":--"This is one of those plays which throw infamy on the English stage and general taste, though it is not destitute of wit and humour. A people must be in the last degree depraved among whom such public entertainments are produced and encouraged. In this symptom of degenerate manners we are, I believe, unmatched by any nation that is, or ever was, in the world." In the "Confederacy," Dogget's fame as an actor culminated. He dressed Moneytrap with the care of a true artist. On an old, threadbare, black coat, he tacked new cuffs and collar to make its rustiness more apparent. Genest, quoting Wilks, adds that the neck of the coat was stuffed so as to make the wearer appear round-shouldered, and give greater prominency to the head. Wearing large square-toed shoes with huge buckles over his own ordinary pair, made his legs appear smaller than they really were. Dogget, we are told, could paint and mould his face to any age. Kneller recognised in him a superior artist. Sir Godfrey remarks that "_he_ could only copy nature from the originals before him, but that Dogget could vary them at pleasure and yet keep a close likeness." It must be confessed the public were more pleased with this piece than with Rowe's "Ulysses," in which Penelope gave so bright an example of conjugal duty and maternal love, in the person of Mrs. Barry, to the Ulysses of Betterton, and the Telemachus of Booth. That public would, perhaps, have cared more for the grace and nature of Addison's "Rosamond," produced at Drury Lane, in March 1707, with its exquisite flattery cunningly administered to the warrior who then dwelt near Woodstock, had it been set by a less incompetent musician than William's old band-master, Clayton, the conceited person, who undertook to improve on Italian example, and who violated the accents and prosody of our language, as well as all rules of musical composition. It is singular, however, that neither Arne nor Arnold have been much more successful, in resetting Addison's opera, than Clayton himself. The piece was played but three times, and the author's witty articles against the absurdities of Italian opera are supposed, by some writers, to have owed their satire to the failure of "Rosamond." One great and happy success Addison achieved through this piece, which compensated for any disappointment springing from it. Poetical warrant of its excellence was sent to him from many a quarter; but the brightest wreath, the most elegant, refined, graceful, and the most welcome of all, emanated from his own University.