Why his Business is to patch up rotten Whores against the Term for Country Lawyers, and Attorneys Clerks; and against Christmas, Easter and Whitsun Holidays, for City Apprentices; and if his Pills [to cure clap] be destroy'd, 'twill ruin him in one Term.
Mountford altered the pageant of the seven sins that he found in Marlowe, changing it in at least one case to bring it up to date. He begins by paraphrasing Marlowe:
Faustus: What art thou the Third?
Envy: I am Envy; begot by a Chimny-sweeper upon an Oyster-wench. I cannot read, and wish all Books burnt.
But then Mountford departs from his source, adding the following lines:
I always curst the Governement, that I was not prefer'd; and was a Male-content in Three Kings Reigns (II, i).
The three kings are, I suppose, Charles I, Charles II, and James II, and the satiric jab is against those who perennially oppose the Establishment. Furthermore, it is easy to imagine that the role of Faustus, whoever played it, could well have been acted as a parody of the "tragical" acting style of the day, with its curious sing-song tone and stylized gestures.
Mountfort's "Dr. Faustus" gives us an often amusing insight into that much despised, ever-popular bastard-child of the Restoration stage: farce. If the direct influence of the commedia is slight, the spirit of improvisational comedy is embodied in the inspired buffoonery of Leigh and Jevon, reinforced by stage-effect and spots of contemporary satire. The play proved a hit and that undoubtedly was the playwright's sole intention. The farce is workmanlike, and as the "Account" prefixed to the 1720 collected plays observes, "THE Life and Death of Doctor FAUSTUS has a great deal of low, but Entertaining Humour; it sufficiently shews his Talents that way."