Medbourne produced only his translation of the "Tartuffe," Jevon only one comedy. Mountfort, like Betterton, was an indifferent author. His "Injured Lovers" ends almost as tragically as the apocryphal play in which all the characters being killed at the end of the fourth act, the concluding act is brought to a close by their executors. In Mountfort's loyal tragedy all the principal personages receive their quietus, and the denouement is left in the hands of a solitary and wicked colonel, with a contented mind. "Edward the Third" is so much more natural than the above, that it is by some assigned to Bancroft, while "Zelmane" is only hypothetically attributed to Mountfort, on the ground, apparently, of its absurdities. In the preface to his "Successful Strangers," Mountfort modestly remarks, "I have a natural inclination to poetry, which was born and not bred in me." He showed small inventive power in his bustling comedy, "Greenwich Park," and less respect for a master in minstrelsy, when he turned poor Kit Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" into an impassioned sort of burlesque, with the addition of Harlequin and Scaramouch to give zest to the buffoonery!
Carlisle, the actor who fell at Aghrim, was the author of the "Fortune Hunters;" and Joseph Harris, who was a poor comedian, and the marrer of four adapted and unsuccessful plays, resumed under Queen Anne his original vocation of engraver to the Mint. The age was one of adapters, whose cry was that Shakspeare would not attract, and accordingly George Powell combined authorship with acting, and borrowed from Shirley, from Brome, and from Middleton. Mrs. Pix, and the romancers, produced a few plays, from one of which a recent dramatist has stolen as boldly as George himself was wont to steal. I allude to the "Imposture Defeated," in which Artan (a demon) enables Hernando, a physician, to foretell the fate of each patient, according as Artan takes his stand at the foot or at the head of the bed. One word will suffice for Dogget's contribution to stage literature. He was the author of one lively, but not edifying, piece, entitled the "Country Wake," in which he provided himself with a taking part called Hob, and one for Mrs. Bracegirdle--Flora. In a modified form, this piece was known to our grandfathers as "Flora;" or, "Hob in the Well."