Baker followed with Tunbridge-Walks:  Or, The Yeoman of Kent, D.L.  Jan. 1703, a play good enough to pass into the repertory and to be revived many times in the course of the century.  The variety of company and the holiday atmosphere of the English watering-place had inspired good comedies of intrigue, manners, and character eccentricities before this date (e.g.  Shadwell’s Epsom Wells and Rawlins’ Tunbridge-Wells).  Baker decorates his scene with such “humours” as Maiden, “a Nice Fellow that values himself upon all Effeminacies;” Squib, a bogus captain; Mrs. Goodfellow, “a Lady that loves her Bottle;” her niece Penelope, “an Heroic Trapes;” and Woodcock, the Yeoman, a rich, sharp, forthright, crusty old fellow with a pretty daughter, Belinda, whom he is determined never to marry but to a substantial farmer of her own class:  her suitor, a clever ne’er-do-well named Reynard, of course tricks the old gentleman by an intrigue and a disguise.  It is Reynard’s sister Hillaria, however, “a Railing, Mimicking Lady” with no money and no admitted scruples, but enough beauty and wit to match when and with whom she chooses, who dominates the play; and though Loveworth, whom she finally permits to win her, is rather substantial than gay, she is gay enough for them both.  The action, though somewhat farcical, has verve throughout, and the dialogue crackles.  And, as regards the nature of comedy, Baker now knows where he stands.  There is no character who could possibly be taken as an “example.”  On the contrary, whenever a pathetic or “exemplary” effect seems imminent Hillaria or Woodcock is always there to knock it on the head.  Thus when Belinda goes into blank verse to lament the paternal tyranny which was threatening to separate her from Reynard,

What Noise and Discord sordid Interest breeds! 
Oh! that I had shar’d a levell’d State of Life,
With quiet humble Maids, exempt from Pride,
And Thoughts of Worldly Dross that marr their Joys,
In Any Sphere, but a Distinguished Heiress,
To raise me Envy, and oppose my Love. 
Fortune, Fortune, Why did you give me Wealth to make me wretched!

Hillaria comes in: 

Belinda in Tears—­Now has that old Rogue been Plaguing her—­Poor Soul!...  Come, Child, Let’s retire, and take a Chiriping Dram, Sorrow’s dry; I’le divert you with the New Lampoon, ’tis a little Smutty; but what then; we Women love to read those things in private. (Exeunt)

Within a year Baker had another play ready—­An Act at Oxford, with the scene laid in the university town and some of the characters Oxford types.  Whether through objections by the University authorities or not (they would perhaps have thought themselves justified in bringing pressure, for Baker certainly does not treat his alma mater with great respect) the play in this form was not acted.  Baker published it in 1704, in the Dedication referring to “the most perfect Enjoyment of Life, I found at Oxford”