, to be sure, when he
graced the "Beggars' Opera," but the audiences took the will for the
deed, applauded his gaiety of action, and quickly pardoned his lyric
short-comings. We are equally lenient nowadays to many a comic-opera
comedian, so called. Chetwood tells us that Walker was the supposed
author of two pieces, "The Quakers' Opera," and a tragedy styled "The
Fate of Villainy." The latter, it appears, "he brought to Ireland
in the year 1744, and prevailed on the proprietors (of the Dublin
theatre) to act it, under the title of 'Love and Loyalty.' The second
night was given out for his benefit; but not being able to pay in half
the charge of the common expences, the doors were order'd to be kept
shut."

"But, I remember," laconically adds Chetwood, "few people came to ask
the reason. However, I fear this disappointment hasten'd his death;
for he survived it but three days; dying in the 44th year of his age,
a martyr to what often stole from him a good understanding."

"He who delights in drinking out of season,
Takes wond'rous pains to drown his manly reason."

Poor Walker! He is not the only actor who has perished from a mixture
of wine and injured vanity.

To return to the success of the "Non-juror," Cibber writes: "All the
reason I had to think it no bad performance was, that it was acted
eighteen days running, and that the party that were hurt by it (as I
have been told) have not been the smallest number of my back friends
ever since. But happy was it for this play that the very subject
was its protection; a few smiles of silent contempt were the utmost
disgrace that on the first day of its appearance it was thought safe
to throw upon it; as the satire was chiefly employ'd on the enemies of
the Government, they were not so hardy as to own themselves such by
any higher disapprobation or resentment."[A]

[Footnote A: The production of the "Non-juror" added Pope to the list
of Cibber's enemies, the great poet's father having been a Non-juror.]

Yet Cibber's enemies never failed to make things unpleasant for him if
they could do so without running too great a risk. There was Nathaniel
Mist, for instance, who published a Jacobite paper called _Mist's
Weekly Journal_. This vindictive gentleman, whose political heresies
once brought him to the pillory and a prison, began a systematic
attack upon the actor-manager, and kept up the warfare for fifteen
years. Once, when Colley was ill of a fever, Mist made up h