No L—y of that time has written plays that are remembered. The John Lacy whom Charles II. admired so much that he had his picture painted in three of his characters, died in 1681, leaving four comedies and an alteration of Shakespeare's
Taming of the Shrew
. He was a handsome man: first dancing-master, then quarter-master, then an admired comedian. Henley would hardly have used a blank in referring to a well-known writer who died thirty years before. There was another John Lacy advertising in the Post Boy, Aug. 3, 1714, The Steeleids, or the Trial of Wits, a Poem in three cantos, with a motto:
Then will I say, swelled with poetic rage,
That I, John Lacy, have reformed the age.
| [No. 397] | Thursday, June 5, 1712 | Addison |