[In the following essay, originally published in 1764, Baker comments on Ford's The Lover's Melancholy and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, noting that the former was warmly received when first acted while the subject matter of the latter is simply too shocking for audiences.]

[The Lover's Melancholy] is highly commended in four copies of verses by friends of the author; and he has himself greatly embellished it by an apt introduction of several fancies from other writers, particularly the story of the contention between the musician and the nightingale, from Strada's Prolusions, and the description and definition of melancholy, from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. This play was acted in the same week, and by the same company, as Ben Jonson's comedy of The New Inn. The success of them, however, was totally opposite to each other: Ford's play was received with great applause, while Ben's met with general disapprobation. Whoever will recollect the spleen which the latter is acknowledged to have possessed, will not be surprised to find that he resented the fate of his performance in very warm terms; and, to be revenged on Ford, who headed the supporters of Shakespeare's fame, against Jonson's invectives, he charged him with having stolen The Lovers' Melancholy from Shakspeare's papers, with the connivance of Heminge and Condel, who, with Ford, had the revisal of them. In this dispute the poets of the times took part with either party, as passion or interest directed them; and, among other pieces which the contest produced, was a pamphlet, entitled “Old Ben's Light Heart made heavy, by young John's Melancholy Lover;” a performance once in the possession of Mr. Macklin the player, but now lost.

We cannot help considering this play ['Tis Pity She's a Whore] as the masterpiece of this great author's works. There are some particulars in it, both with respect to conduct, character, spirit, and poetry, that would have done honour to the pen of the immortal Shakspeare himself. Langbaine has, however, pointed out a fault, which we must, though unwillingly, subscribe to, and which relates to a very essential point, viz. the morals of the play; which is, his having painted the incestuous love between Giovanni and his sister Annabella in much too beautiful colours; and, indeed, the author himself seems by his title to have been aware of this objection, and conscious that he has rendered the last-mentioned character, notwithstanding all her faults, so very lovely, that every auditor would naturally cry out to himself, 'T is Pity She's a Whore. In consequence of this incestuous passion also, on which the whole plot of the play turns, the catastrophe of it is too shocking for an audience to bear, notwithstanding every recollection of its being no more than fiction.