But the play of "The Historical Register of 1736," produced in the spring of 1737, contained allusions of a more pointed and personal kind, and gravely offended the government.

Indeed, the result could hardly have been otherwise.

Walpole himself was brought upon the stage, and under the name of Quidam violently caricatured.

He was exhibited silencing noisy patriots with bribes, and then joining with them in a dance--the proceedings being explained by Medley, another of the characters, supposed to be an author: "Sir, every one of these patriots has a hole in his pocket, as Mr.Quidam the fiddler there knows; so that he intends to make them dance till all the money has fallen through, which he will pick up again, and so not lose a halfpenny by his generosity!" The play, indeed, abounded in satire of the boldest kind, in witty and unsparing invective; as the biographer of Fielding acknowledges, there was much in the work "well calculated both to offend and alarm a wary minister of state." Soon both "Pasquin" and "The Historical Register" were brought under the notice of the Cabinet.

Walpole felt "that it would be inexpedient to allow the stage to become the vehicle of anti-ministerial abuse." The Licensing Act was resolved upon.
The new measure was not avowedly aimed at Fielding, however.