First on the list was fat Charles Johnson, who was even a more frequent lounger at Button's than Ambrose Philips, and who had a play ready for representation every year and a half. It is a curious fact, that his "Successful Pirate," a sort of melodrama, in five acts, the scene in Madagascar, and the action made up of fighting and wooing, aroused the ire of the virtuous Dennis. This censor wrote to the Lord Chamberlain, complaining that in such a piece as the above the stage was prostituted, villainy encouraged, and the theatre disgraced; that same theatre where, a few nights previously, had been acted the "Old Batchelor," and the "Committee," which some people, like Sir Roger, considered a "good Church of England comedy." The piece, however, made no impression; nor was much greater effected by that learned proctor, Taverner's "French Advocates,"[97] nor by the farcical "Humours of the Army," which the ex-soldier Charles Shadwell had partly constructed out of his own military reminiscences, as he sat at his desk in the Revenue Office at Dublin. Equally indifferent were the public to a comedy called the "Wife of Bath," written by a young man who had been a mercer's apprentice in the Strand, and who was now house-steward and man of business to the widowed Duchess of Monmouth at her residence, no longer in the mansion on the south side of Soho Square, about to be turned into auction rooms, but in fresh, pure, rustic, Hedge Lane, which now, as Whitcombe Street, lacks all freshness, purity, and rusticity. The young man's name was Gay; but it was not on this occasion that he was to make it famous. In stern tragedy, the "Heroic Daughter," founded on Corneille's "Cid," wrung no tears,[98] and "Cinna's Conspiracy" raised no emotions. The sole success of the season in this line was Addison's "Cato," first played on the 14th of April, 1713; thus cast: Cato, Booth; Syphax, Cibber; Juba, Wilks; Portius, Powell; Sempronius, Mills; Marcus, Ryan; Decius, Boman; Lucius, Keen; Marcia, Mrs. Oldfield; Lucia, Mrs. Porter. Of the success of this tragedy, a compound of transcendent beauties and absurdity, I shall speak, when treating of Booth, apart. It established that actor as the great master of his art, and it brought into notice young Ryan, the intelligent son of an Irish tailor, a good actor, and a true gentleman. "Cato" had the good fortune to be represented by a band of superior actors, who had been enlightened by the instruction of Addison, and stimulated, at rehearsals, by the sarcasm of Swift. Factions united in applause; purses--not bouquets--were presented to the chief actor, and the Cato night was long one of the traditions about which old players loved to entertain all listeners.