"in themselves designed
To shower the greatest blessings on Mankind."
Queen Common Sense seemingly receives her deathblow; but her ghost finally rises victorious, and so justifies the author's contention that his "is almost the only play where she has got the better lately." The vigour with which Mr Pasquin here 'laid about him,' in such matters as the legal abuses relating to imprisonment for debt, may be inferred from the following passage. Queen Common Sense is speaking to the representative of bad Law, and tells him she has heard that men
"unable to discharge their debts
At a short warning, being sued for them,
Have, with both power and will their debts to pay,
Lain all their lives in prison, for their costs.
Law. That may perhaps be some poor person's case
Too mean to entertain your royal ear.
Q.C.S. My Lord, while I am Queen I shall not think
One man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd."
So too, the great genius of Fielding, when in long after years harnessed to the drudgery of a London magistrate, held no porter's brawl or beggar's quarrel too mean "to be redress'd."
The immediate success of Pasquin attests, as we have said, the readiness of London audiences in 1736 to applaud an honest and humorous presentation of wicked Ministers, corrupt clergy, lawyers, and doctors, inane Laureates, and degrading public entertainments. Mrs Delany, gathering London news for Dean Swift, writes on April 22, "When I went out of Town last Autumn, the reigning madness was Farinelli; I find it now turned on Pasquin, a dramatic satire on the times. It has had almost as long a run as the Beggar's Opera; but in my opinion not with equal merit, though it has [humour]." [5] We are told how the piece drew numerous enthusiastic audiences "from Grosvenor, Cavendish, Hanover, and all the other fashionable Squares, as also from Pall Mall and the Inns of Court" And on the 26th of May a benefit performance for the author was announced as the "60th. Day." The vogue of the satire even demanded a key, as may be seen in an advertisement in the London Daily Post for May 17: This Day is published, Price Four-Pence. A Key to Pasquin, address'd to Henry Fielding Esqre.
Mr Pasquin's own advertisements for his little theatre are not without the zest with which our beef-eating ancestors attacked politics, social abuses and one another. The announcement for March 5, ran as follows:--
"By the Great Mogul's Company of English Comedians, Newly Imported. At the New Theatre in the Haymarket, this Day, March 5, will be presented
PASQUIN,
A Dramatick SATYR on the times.
Being a Rehearsal of two PLAYS, viz. a Comedy call'd The ELECTION; and a Tragedy, call'd The Life and Death of COMMON SENSE....
N.B.--Mr Pasquin intending to lay about him with great Impartiality, hopes the Town will all attend, and very civilly give their Neighbours what the find belongs to 'em.
N.B.--The Cloaths are old, but the Jokes entirely new...."