And considering what numbers at that time might come to it as prejudiced spectators, it may be allow'd that the undertaking was not less hazardous than laudable." And hazardous the project certainly seemed; for, while the uprising in the interests of the Pretender had been ostensibly crushed, the spirit of "divine right" was as strong as ever; there were many worthy gentlemen who drank secret bumpers to the King--"over the water"-- and the Hanoverian throne had as yet a precarious lodgment on English soil.

It was expected, therefore, that these malcontents would have anything but an appetite for the theatrical feast set before them in the shape of the "Non-Juror," and would prove none the less disgusted because the play happened to be an adaptation of Moliere's "Tartuffe." As the latter comedy depicts a self-indulgent, crawling hypocrite of the worst type, and is an eloquent sermon against sham, it may be imagined that the Jacobites were not over enthusiastic when they learned that the moral of "Tartuffe" was to be applied to them.[A] [Footnote A: Tartuffe, according to French tradition, is a caricature of the famous Pere la Chaise (Confessor to Louis Quatorze), who had a weakness for the pleasures of the table, including truffles (tartuffes).

After Cibber's day, Moliere's play was again adapted into English, under the title of "The Hypocrite."] "Upon the 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.