Herewith we come to the Drury Lane season of 1716-17. Booth, Wilks, and Cibber had a famous company, in which Quin quietly made his way to the head,[103] and Mrs. Horton's beauty acted with good effect on Mrs. Oldfield. In the way of novelty, Mrs. Centlivre produced a tragedy, the "Cruel Gift," in which nobody dies, and lovers are happily married. The most notable affair, however, was the comedy, "Three Hours after Marriage," in which Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot, three grave men, who pretended to instruct and improve mankind, insulted modesty, virtue, and common decency, in the grossest way, by speech or inuendo. There is not so much filth in any other comedy of this century, and the trio of authors stand stigmatised for their attempt to bring in the old corruption. In strange contrast we have Mrs. Manley, a woman who began life with unmerited misfortune, and carried it on with unmitigated profligacy, producing a highly moral, semi-religious drama, "Lucius." But while moral poets were polluting the stage, and immoral women undertaking to purify it, a reverend Archdeacon of Stowe, the historian, Lawrence Echard, in conjunction with Lestrange, put on the stage of Drury Lane, a translation of the "Eunuchus" of Terence. It did not survive the third night; but the audience might have remarked how much more refinedly the Carthaginian of old could treat a delicate subject than the Christian poets of a later era--or, to speak correctly, than the later poets of a Christian era. In this season I find the first trace of a "fashionable night," and a later hour for beginning the play than any of subsequent times. I quote from Genest:--"18 June, 1717. By particular desire of several Ladies of Quality. 'Fatal Marriage.' Biron, Booth; Villeroy, Mills; Isabella, Mrs. Porter; Victoria, Mrs. Younger. An exact computation being made of the number which the Pit and Boxes will hold, they are laid together; and no person can be admitted without tickets. By desire, the play is not to begin till nine o'clock, by reason of the heat of the weather--nor the house to be opened till eight." What a change from the time when Dryden's Lovely exclaimed:-- "As punctual as three o'clock at the playhouse!"