So goes the quatrain included on the title page of a satiric rebuke of the two Harlequin Doctor Faustus afterpieces that had premiered near the end of 1723. The satire, by Edward (Ned) Ward (1667-1731), was offered in seventy pages of rhymed verse under the title, The Dancing Devils, or the Roaring Dragon. A Dumb Farce, issued in 1724, when the two productions were still at the height of their popularity. Ward's attack was one of many that appeared in the next few years, during which Drury Lane and John Rich's Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre continued to turn tidy profits from revivals of the Harlequin Doctor Faustus pieces. To answer Ward's uncertainty as to where the ‘fault’ might have begun, the clear majority of critical reaction assigns blame to the theatre managers. Even before Rich's response to Drury Lane's sudden hit had received its first performance, one journalist complained:

Isaac Fawkes (d 1732) amassed a fortune as a popular magician who performed in booths at Southwark and Bartholomew fairs during the summer months, and various venues in London in winter, including John (Johann Jacob) Heidegger's (1666-1749) Haymarket Theatre (the opera house), on evenings when the popular masquerades were offered.