hypocrisy of the French character," explains Cibber (who
probably looked upon France, Papacy, and the Pretender as a threefold
combination of sin), "I engrafted a stronger wickedness, that of an
English Popish priest lurking under the doctrine of our own Church
to raise his fortune upon the ruin of a worthy gentleman, whom his
dissembled sanctity had seduc'd into the treasonable cause of a Roman
Catholick outlaw. How this design, in the play, was executed, I refer
to the readers of it; it cannot be mended by any critical remarks I
can make in its favour. Let it speak for itself."

The "Non-juror" did speak for itself, too, and that in decided
terms.[A] The production entailed the scorn of the disaffected, and
made for Cibber some lasting enemies, but the friends of government
were strong, Cibber was lauded for his loyalty, and the comedy
achieved a triumph. The vivacity of Oldfield's acting, as Maria,
delighted all beholders, and it was further agreed that the
performance was well given throughout. In the cast were Booth, Mills,
Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Oldfield, and Walker. The Walker here
mentioned was at that time a very young man, not over seventeen or
eighteen years of age, and made his first hit in the "Non-juror." When
the "Beggars' Opera" was subsequently brought out, the mighty Quin
refused to play the highwayman, Macheath, and Walker willingly took
the part and made therein the reputation of his life. But success
turned his unsteady head. "He follow'd Bacchus too ardently, insomuch
that his credit was often drown'd upon the stage, and, by degrees,
almost render'd him useless." Ungrammatical, but to the point, Mr.
Chetwood.

[Footnote A: The success surpassed even expectation. It raised against
Cibber a phalanx of implacable foes--foes who howled at everything
of which he was afterwards the author; but it gained for him his
advancement to the poet-laureateship, and an estimation which caused
some people to place him, for usefulness to the cause of true
religion, on an equality with the author of "The Whole Duty of
Man."--DR. DORAN.]

This Walker was a genius in a small fashion. He possessed an
expressive face and manly figure, with a native buoyancy and humour
which stood him in good stead in the character of Macheath, while he
had the further gift of dominating a tragic scene with an assumption
of tyrannic fire which must have been greatly admired by the
theatre-goers of his time. He could not sing