In the first half of the eighteenth century, for almost a decade, young Henry Fielding was the most prominent and the most productive playwright in England. Between 1728 and 1737 he staged at least twenty-five plays, six of them full-length comedies, the others short farces, burlesques, and ballad-operas. In 1737 his theatrical career was stopped by the Licensing Act, which was aimed by the Walpole government at Fielding personally. In later years appeared two more five-act comedies which he had written during this early period.