the humour, and it seems to please in general better than at first.  The parts in general were not so well played as I could have wished, and in particular the part of Filbert, to speak in the style of the French Gazette.  Penkethman did wonders; Mrs. Bicknell performed miraculously, and there was much honour gained by Miss Younger, though she was but a parish child."[2] Filbert was played by Johnson, Jonas Dock by Penkethman, Joyce ("Peascod’s daughter, left upon the parish”) by Miss Younger, and Kitty by Mrs. Bicknell, mentioned by the author in “Mr. Pope’s Welcome from Greece":—­

  And frolic Bicknell, and her sister young.

The welcome given by the public to the play brought in its train some annoyance to the author:  “I find success, even in the most trivial things, raises the indignation of scribblers,” he wrote to Parnell on March 18th, “for I, for my ‘What D’ye Call It’ could neither escape the fury of Mr. Burnet or the German doctor.  Then, where will rage end when Homer is to be translated?  Let Zoilus hasten to your friend’s assistance, and envious criticism shall be no more."[3] A more biting attack than that of Thomas Burnet’s Grumbler (No. 1, February 14th, 1715) or that of Philip Horneck in “The High German Doctor” was the “Key to ‘The What D’ye Call It,’” written by the actor Griffin in collaboration with Lewis Theobald.  About this Gay wrote to Caryll in April:  “There is a sixpenny criticism lately published upon the tragedy of ‘The What D’ye Call It,’ wherein he with much judgment and learning calls me a blockhead and Mr. Pope a knave.  His grand charge is against ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ being read, which, he says, is directly levelled at Cato’s reading Plato.  To back this censure he goes on to tell you that ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ being mentioned to be the eighth edition makes the reflection evident, the tragedy of ‘Cato’ being just eight times printed.  He has also endeavoured to show that every particular passage of the play alludes to some fine part of the tragedy, which he says I have injudiciously and profanely abused."[4]

Still, Gay could really afford to laugh at those who attacked or parodied him, for the play brought him, if not fame, at least notoriety.  It also brought him some much-needed money.  Pope told Caryll in March that Gay “will have made about L100 out of this farce”; and it is known that for the publishing rights Lintott gave him on February 14th L16 2s. 6d.

Gay, now a popular dramatist as well as an intimate friend of many of the leading men in literary circles, became known to people of high social rank, who, like his brethren of the pen, took him up and made a pet of him.  In the summer of 1715 Lord Burlington, the “generous Burlington” of “Mr. Pope’s Welcome from Greece,” invited him to accompany him to Devonshire, and Gay repaid the compliment by describing his “Visit to Exeter” in a poetical “Epistle to the Right Honourable the Earl of Burlington,” the first lines of which are:—­