[1] He is remembered for his popular songs and his burlesques of the serious plays of John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, Elkanah Settle and Sir William Davenant.
Duffet's plays show a close familiarity with the lower and criminal classes of London society, perhaps suggesting first-hand knowledge.
Duffett was the one author who took the greatest advantage of this new development in theatrical fashion, prior to Henry Fielding and other writers of the following century.
The King's Company was in major difficulty in the years after its grand venue, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, burned down in 1672.
"As pearls before swine, so were Shakspere's plays in the eyes of the hog Duffet"[6] is one of many hostile comments in the relevant literature.
In contrast to most of Duffet's drama, Beauty's Triumph was a masque, staged, as its title page attests, "by the Scholars of Mr. Jeffrey Banister and Mr. James Hart, at their new Boarding School for Young Ladies and Gentlewomen ... at Chelsea".