s agree;
which is, that by the Squeak of their Voices the Heroes of each are
Eunuchs; and as the Wit in both Pieces are equal, I must prefer the
Performance of Mr _Powell_, because it is in our own Language.

I am, &c.'

[Footnote 1: Masquerades took rank as a leading pleasure of the town
under the management of John James Heidegger, son of a Zurich clergyman,
who came to England in 1708, at the age of 50, as a Swiss negotiator. He
entered as a private in the Guards, and attached himself to the service
of the fashionable world, which called him 'the Swiss Count,' and
readily accepted him as leader. In 1709 he made five hundred guineas by
furnishing the spectacle for Motteux's opera of 'Tomyris, Queen of
Scythia'. When these papers were written he was thriving upon the
Masquerades, which he brought into fashion and made so much a rage of
the town that moralists and satirists protested, and the clergy preached
against them. A sermon preached against them by the Bishop of London,
January 6th, 1724, led to an order that no more should take place than
the six subscribed for at the beginning of the month. Nevertheless they
held their ground afterwards by connivance of the government. In 1728,
Heidegger was called in to nurse the Opera, which throve by his bold
puffing. He died, in 1749, at the age of 90, claiming chief honour to
the Swiss for ingenuity.

'I was born,' he said, 'a Swiss, and came to England without a
farthing, where I have found means to gain, L5000 a-year,--and to
spend it. Now I defy the ablest Englishman to go to Switzerland and
either gain that income or spend it there.']

[Footnote 2: The 'History of Susanna' had been an established puppet
play for more than two generations. An old copy of verses on Bartholomew
Fair in the year 1665, describing the penny and twopenny puppet plays,
or, as they had been called in and since Queen Elizabeth's time,
'motions,' says

"Their Sights are so rich, is able to bewitch
The heart of a very fine man-a;
Here's 'Patient Grisel' here, and 'Fair Rosamond' there,
And 'the History of Susanna.'"

Pepys tells of the crowd waiting, in 1667, to see Lady Castlemaine come
out from the puppet play of 'Patient Grisel.'

The Powell mentioned in this essay was a deformed cripple whose
Puppet-Show, called Punch's Theatre, owed its pre-eminence to his own
power of satire. This he delivered chiefly through Punch, the clown of
the puppets, who appear