The Project Gutenberg eBook of Burleque Plays and Poems, Introduction by Henry Morley.

The word Burlesque came to us through the French from the Italian "burlesco"; "burla" being mockery or raillery, and implying always an object. Burlesque must, burlarsi di uno, mock at somebody or something, and when intended to give pleasure it is nothing if not good-natured. One etymologist associates the word with the old English "bourd," a jest; the Gaelic "burd," he says, means mockery, and "buirleadh," is language of ridicule. Yes, and "burrail" is the loud romping of children, and "burrall" is weeping and wailing in a deep-toned howl. Another etymologist takes the Italian "burla," waggery or banter, as diminutive from the Latin "burra," which means a rough hair, but is used by Ausonius in the sense of a jest. That etymology no doubt fits burlesque to a hair, but, like Launce's sweetheart, it may have more hair than wit.

The first burlesque in this volume—Chaucer's "Rime of Sir Thopas," written towards the close of the fourteenth century—is a jest upon long-winded story-tellers, who expatiate on insignificant detail; for in his day there were many metrical romances written by the ancestors of Mrs. Nickleby. Riding to Canterbury with the other pilgrims, Chaucer good-humouredly takes to himself the part of the companion who jogs along with even flow of words, luxuriating in all trivial detail until he brings Sir Thopas face to face with an adventure, for he meets a giant with three heads. But even then there is the adventure to be waited for. The story-teller finds that he must trot his knight back home to fetch his armour, and when he "is comen again to toune," it takes so many words to get him his supper, get his armour on, and trot him out again, that the inevitable end comes, with rude intrusion of some faint-hearted lording who has not courage to listen until the point of the story can be descried from afar. So the best of the old story-tellers, in a book full of examples of tales told as they should be, burlesqued misuse of his art, and the "Rime of Sir Thopas" became a warning buoy over the shallows. "I cannot," said Sir Thomas Wyatt, in Henry VIII.'s reign,

The second burlesque in this volume, Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle," written in eight days, appeared in 1611, six years after the publication of the First Part, and four years earlier than the Second Part, of Don Quixote. The first English translation of Don Quixote (Shelton's) appeared in 1612. The Knight of the Burning Pestle is, like Don Quixote, a burlesque upon the tasteless affectations of the tales of[Pg 6] chivalry. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher worked together as playwrights in the reign of James I. All their plays were produced during that reign. Beaumont died in the same year as Shakespeare, having written thirteen plays in fellowship with Fletcher. Forty more were written by Fletcher alone, but the name of Beaumont is, by tradition of a loving fellowship, associated with them all. "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" is all the merrier for being the work of men who were themselves true poets. It should be remembered that this play was written for a theatre without scenery, in which gentlemen were allowed to hire stools on the stage itself for a nearer view of the actors; and it is among this select part of the audience that the citizen intrudes and the citizen's wife is lifted up, when she cries, "Husband, shall I come up, husband?" "Ay, cony; Ralph, help your mistress up this way; pray, gentlemen, make her a little room; I pray you, sir, lend me your hand to help up my wife.... Boy, let my wife and I have a couple of stools, and then begin."

The next burlesque in our collection is "The Rehearsal," which was produced in 1671 to ridicule the extravagance of the "heroic" plays of the Restoration. The founder of this school in England was Sir William Davenant who was living and was Poet Laureate—and wearer of the bays, therefore, was Bayes—when the jest was begun by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and other wits of the day. The jest was so long in hand that, in 1668, when Davenant died, and Dryden succeeded him as Laureate, the character of Bayes passed on to him. The plaster on the nose pointed at Davenant, who had lost great part of his nose. The manner of speaking, and the "hum and buzz," pointed at Dryden, who was also in 1671 the great master of what was called heroic drama. Bold rhodomontade was, on the stage, preferred to good sense at a time when the new French criticism was enforcing above all things "good sense" upon poets, as a reaction against the strained ingenuities that had come in under Italian influence. Let us leave to Italy her paste brilliants, said Boileau, in his Art Poétique, produced at the same time as "The Rehearsal," all should tend to good sense. But Dryden in his plays (not in his other poems) boldly translated Horace's serbit humi tutus, into

The particular excellence attained by flying out of sight of sense is burlesqued in the Duke of Buckingham's "Rehearsal."

John Philips, the delicate and gentle son of a vicar of Bampton, read Milton with delight from his boyhood and knew Virgil almost by heart. At college he wrote, for the edification of a comrade who did not know how to keep a shilling in his pocket, "The Splendid Shilling," a poem first published in 1705—which set forth, in Miltonic style applied to humblest images, the comfort of possessing such a coin. The Miltonic grandeur of tone John Philips happily caught from a long and loving study of the English poet whom he reverenced above others, and "The Splendid Shilling" has a special charm as a burlesque in which nobody is ridiculed.

The burlesque poem called "Namby Pamby," of which the title has been added to the English vocabulary, was written by Henry Carey, in ridicule of the little rhymes inscribed to certain babies of distinguished persons by Ambrose Philips, or, as he is translated into nursery language, "Namby Pamby Pilli-pis." Ambrose Philips was a friend and companion of[Pg 7] Addison's, and a gentleman who prospered fairly in Whig government circles. Pope's annoyance at the praise given to Ambrose Philips's pastorals which appeared in the same Miscellany with his own, and Addison's praise in the Spectator of his friend's translation of Racine's Andromache as "The Distrest Mother," have caused Ambrose Philips to be better remembered in the history of literature than might otherwise have been necessary. When he wrote no longer of

and took to nursery lyrics, he gave Henry Carey an opportunity of putting a last touch to his monument for the instruction of posterity. The two specimens here given of the original poems that suggested "Namby Pamby" are addressed severally to two babes in the nursery of Daniel Pulteney, Esq. Another of the babies who inspired him was an infant Carteret, whose name Carey translated into "Tartaretta Tartaree." Some lines here and there, seven in all, which are not the wittier for being coarse, have been left out of "Namby Pamby." This burlesque was first published in 1725 or 1726; my copy is of the fifth edition, dated 1726, and was appended to "A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling; its Dignity, Antiquity, and Excellence, with a Word upon Pudding, and many other Useful Discoveries of great Benefit to the Publick. To which is added, Namby Pamby, A Panegyric on the new Versification address'd to A—— P——, Esq."

Henry Fielding produced his "Tom Thumb" in 1730, and added the notes of Scriblerus Secundus in 1731, following the example set by the Dunciad as published in April 1729, with the "Prolegomena of Scriblerus and Notes Variorum." Paul Whitehead added notes of a Scriblerus Tertius to his "Gymnasiad" in 1744. Fielding was twenty-four years old when he added to his "Tom Thumb" the notes that transmit to us lively examples of the stilted language of the stage by which, as a gentleman's son left to his own resources, he was then endeavouring to live. This was four years before his marriage, and ten years before he revealed his transcendent powers as a novelist.

Henry Carey's "Chrononhotonthologos," three years later, in 1734, carried on the war against pretentious dulness on the stage. The manner of the great actors was, like the plays of their generation, pompous and rhetorical, full of measured sound and fury signifying nothing. Garrick, who made his first appearance as an actor in 1741, put an end to this. "If the young fellow is right," said Quin, "We are all in the wrong;" little suspecting that they really were all in the wrong. Henry Carey, a musician by profession, played in the orchestra and also supplied the stage with ballad and burlesque farces and operas. But also he wrote "Namby Pamby." It was said of him that "he led a life free from reproach, and hanged himself October 4th, 1743."

"The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement," was a contribution to "The Anti-Jacobin," by George Canning, and his friends George Ellis and John Hookham Frere. Canning had established "The Anti-Jacobin," of which the first number was published on the 20th of November, 1797. Its poetry, generally levelled through witty burlesque at the false sentiment[Pg 8] of the day, was collected in 1801 into a handsome quarto. This includes "The Rovers," which is a lively caricature of the sentimental German drama. Goethe's "Stella," as read in the translation used by the caricaturists, is not less comical than the caricature. I have a copy of the "Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin," in which one of the original writers has, for the friend to whom he gave the book, marked with his pen and ink details of authorship. From this it appears that the description of the dramatis personæ in "The Rovers" was by Frere, the Prologue by Canning and Ellis, the opening scene by Frere as far as Rogero's famous song, which was by Canning and Ellis. All that follows to the beginning of the fourth act was by Canning, except that Frere wrote the scene in the second act on the delivery of a newspaper to Beefington and Puddingfield. The fourth act and the final stage directions were by Frere, except the Recitative and Chorus of Conspirators. These were by George Ellis.

"Bombastes Furioso," first produced in 1810, was by William Barnes Rhodes, who had published a translation of Juvenal in 1801 and "Epigrams" in 1803. He formed a considerable dramatic library, of which there was a catalogue printed in 1825.

Next comes in this collection the series of burlesques of the styles of poets famous and popular in 1812, published in that year as "Rejected Addresses," by Horace and James Smith. Of these brothers, sons of an attorney, one was an attorney, the other a stockbroker, one aged thirty-seven, the other thirty-three, when the book appeared which made them famous, and of which the first edition is reprinted in this volume. The book went through twenty-four editions. James Smith wrote no more, but Horace to the last amused himself with literature. "Is it not odd," Leigh Hunt wrote of him to Shelley, "that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, was a stockbroker! And he writes poetry too; he writes poetry, and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to make money, and does make it, and is still generous." The Fitzgerald who is subject of the first burlesque used to recite his laudatory poems at the annual dinners of the Literary Fund, and is the same who was referred to in the opening lines of Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers:"

This Miscellany closes with some of the "Odes and Addresses to Great People," with which Thomas Hood, at the age of twenty-six, first made his mark as a wit. The little book from which these pieces are taken was the joint work of himself and John Hamilton Reynolds, whose sister he had married. It marks the rise of the pun in burlesque writing through Thomas Hood, who, when dying of consumption, suggested for his epitaph, "Here lies one who spat more blood and made more puns than any other man."

The Rime of Sir Thopas.

THE RIME OF SIR THOPAS.

THE
Knight of the Burning Pestle.

ACT I.—Scene I.

ACT II.—Scene I.

ACT III.—Scene I.

ACT IV.—Scene I.

ACT V.—Scene I.

The Rehearsal.

PROLOGUE.

ACT I.—Scene I.

Bayes. Sir, it is not within my small capacity to do favours, but receive 'em; especially from a person that does wear the honourable title you are pleased to impose, sir, upon this—sweet sir, your servant.

Smith. Your humble servant, sir.

Johns. But wilt thou do me a favour, now?

Bayes. Ay, sir, what is't?

Johns. Why, to tell him the meaning of thy last play.

Bayes. How, sir, the meaning? Do you mean the plot?

Johns. Ay, ay; anything.

Bayes. Faith, sir, the intrigo's now quite out of my head; but I have a new one in my pocket that I may say is a virgin; it has never yet been blown upon. I must tell you one thing: 'tis all new wit, and, though I say it, a better than my last; and you know well enough how that took. In fine, it shall read, and write, and act, and plot, and show, ay, and pit, box, and gallery, egad, with any play in Europe.[1] This morning is its last rehearsal, in their habits, and all that, as it is to be acted; and if you and your friend will do it but the honour to see it in its virgin attire; though, perhaps, it may blush, I shall not be[Pg 80] ashamed to discover its nakedness unto you. I think it is in this pocket. [Puts his hand in his pocket.

Johns. Sir, I confess I am not able to answer you in this new way; but if you please to lead, I shall be glad to follow you, and I hope my friend will do so too.

Smith. Sir, I have no business so considerable as should keep me from your company.

Bayes. Yes, here it is. No, cry you mercy: this is my book of Drama Commonplaces, the mother of many other plays.

Johns. Drama Commonplaces! pray what's that?

Bayes. Why, sir, some certain helps that we men of art have found it convenient to make use of.

Smith. How, sir, helps for wit?

Bayes. Ay, sir, that's my position. And I do here aver that no man yet the sun e'er shone upon has parts sufficient to furnish out a stage, except it were by the help of these my rules.[2]

Johns. What are those rules, I pray?

Bayes. Why, sir, my first rule is the rule of transversion, or Regula Duplex; changing verse into prose, or prose into verse, alternativè as you please.

Smith. Well; but how is this done by a rule, sir?

Bayes. Why thus, sir; nothing so easy when understood. I take a book in my hand, either at home or elsewhere, for that's all one; if there be any wit in't, as there is no book but has some, I transverse it; that is, if it be prose, put it into verse (but that takes up some time), and if it be verse, put it into prose.

Johns. Methinks, Mr. Bayes, that putting verse into prose should be called transprosing.

Bayes. By my troth, sir, 'tis a very good notion; and hereafter it shall be so.

Smith. Well, sir, and what d'ye do with it then?

Bayes. Make it my own. 'Tis so changed that no man can know it. My next rule is the rule of record, by way of table-book. Pray observe.

Johns. We hear you, sir; go on.

Bayes. As thus. I come into a coffee-house, or some other place where witty men resort, I make as if I minded nothing; do you mark? but as soon as any one speaks, pop I slap it down, and make that too my own.

Johns. But, Mr. Bayes, are you not sometimes in danger of their making you restore, by force, what you have gotten thus by art?

[Pg 81]

Bayes. No, sir; the world's unmindful: they never take notice of these things.

Smith. But pray, Mr. Bayes, among all your other rules, have you no one rule for invention?

Bayes. Yes, sir, that's my third rule that I have here in my pocket.

Smith. What rule can that be, I wonder?

Bayes. Why, sir, when I have anything to invent, I never trouble my head about it, as other men do; but presently turn over this book, and there I have, at one view, all that Persius, Montaigne, Seneca's Tragedies, Horace, Juvenal, Claudian, Pliny, Plutarch's Lives, and the rest, have ever thought upon this subject: and so, in a trice, by leaving out a few words, or putting in others of my own, the business is done.

Johns. Indeed, Mr. Bayes, this is as sure and compendious a way of wit as ever I heard of.

Bayes. Sir, if you make the least scruples of the efficacy of these my rules, do but come to the playhouse, and you shall judge of 'em by the effects.

Smith. We'll follow you, sir. [Exeunt.

Enter three Players on the stage.

1st Play. Have you your part perfect?

2nd Play. Yes, I have it without book; but I don't understand how it is to be spoken.

3rd Play. And mine is such a one, as I can't guess for my life what humour I'm to be in; whether angry, melancholy, merry, or in love. I don't know what to make on't.

1st Play. Phoo! the author will be here presently, and he'll tell us all. You must know, this is the new way of writing, and these hard things please forty times better than the old plain way. For, look you, sir, the grand design upon the stage is to keep the auditors in suspense; for to guess presently at the plot, and the sense, tires them before the end of the first act: now here, every line surprises you, and brings in new matter. And then, for scenes, clothes, and dances, we put quite down all that ever went before us; and those are the things, you know, that are essential to a play.

2nd Play. Well, I am not of thy mind; but, so it gets us money, 'tis no great matter.

Enter Bayes, Johnson, and Smith.

Bayes. Come, come in, gentlemen. You're very welcome, Mr.—a—. Ha' you your part ready?

[Pg 82]

1st Play. Yes, sir.

Bayes. But do you understand the true humour of it?

1st Play. Ay, sir, pretty well.

Bayes. And Amaryllis, how does she do? does not her armour become her?

3rd Play. Oh, admirably!

Bayes. I'll tell you now a pretty conceit. What do you think I'll make 'em call her anon, in this play?

Smith. What, I pray?

Bayes. Why, I make 'em call her Armaryllis, because of her armour: ha, ha, ha!

Johns. That will be very well indeed.

Bayes. Ay, 'tis a pretty little rogue; but—a—come, let's sit down. Look you, sirs, the chief hinge of this play, upon which the whole plot moves and turns, and that causes the variety of all the several accidents, which, you know, are the things in nature that make up the grand refinement of a play, is, that I suppose two kings of the same place; as for example, at Brentford, for I love to write familiarly. Now the people having the same relations to 'em both, the same affections, the same duty, the same obedience, and all that, are divided among themselves in point of devoir and interest, how to behave themselves equally between 'em: these kings differing sometimes in particular; though, in the main, they agree. (I know not whether I make myself well understood.)

Johns. I did not observe you, sir: pray say that again.

Bayes. Why, look you, sir (nay, I beseech you be a little curious in taking notice of this, or else you'll never understand my notion of the thing), the people being embarrass'd by their equal ties to both, and the sovereigns concern'd in a reciprocal regard, as well to their own interest, as the good of the people, make a certain kind of a—you understand me—upon which, there do arise several disputes, turmoils, heart-burnings, and all that—in fine, you'll apprehend it better when you see it.

[Exit, to call the Players.

Smith. I find the author will be very much obliged to the players, if they can make any sense out of this.

Enter Bayes.

Bayes. Now, gentlemen, I would fain ask your opinion of one thing. I have made a prologue and an epilogue, which may both serve for either; that is, the prologue for the epilogue, or the epilogue for the prologue;[3] (do you mark?) nay, they may both serve too, egad, for any other play as well as this.

Smith. Very well; that's indeed artificial.

[Pg 83]

Bayes. And I would fain ask your judgments, now, which of them would do best for the prologue? for, you must know there is, in nature, but two ways of making very good prologues: the one is by civility, by insinuation, good language, and all that, to—a—in a manner, steal your plaudit from the courtesy of the auditors: the other, by making use of some certain personal things, which may keep a hank upon such censuring persons, as cannot otherways, egad, in nature, be hindered from being too free with their tongues. To which end, my first prologue is, that I come out in a long black veil, and a great huge hangman behind me, with a furr'd cap, and his sword drawn; and there tell 'em plainly, that if out of good-nature, they will not like my play, egad, I'll e'en kneel down, and he shall cut my head off. Whereupon they all clapping—a—

Smith. Ay, but suppose they don't.

Bayes. Suppose! sir, you may suppose what you please; I have nothing to do with your suppose, sir; nor am at all mortified at it; not at all, sir; egad, not one jot, sir. Suppose, quoth-a!—ha, ha, ha! [Walks away.

Johns. Phoo! prithee, Bayes, don't mind what he says; he is a fellow newly come out of the country, he knows nothing of what's the relish, here, of the town.

Bayes. If I writ, sir, to please the country, I should have follow'd the old plain way; but I write for some persons of quality, and peculiar friends of mine, that understand what flame and power in writing is; and they do me the right, sir, to approve of what I do.

Johns. Ay, ay, they will clap, I warrant you; never fear it.

Bayes. I'm sure the design's good; that cannot be denied. And then, for language, egad, I defy 'em all, in nature, to mend it. Besides, sir, I have printed above a hundred sheets of paper to insinuate the plot into the boxes;[4] and, withal, have appointed two or three dozen of my friends to be ready in the pit, who, I'm sure, will clap, and so the rest, you know, must follow; and then, pray, sir, what becomes of your suppose? Ha, ha, ha!

Johns. Nay, if the business be so well laid, it cannot miss.

Bayes. I think so, sir; and therefore would choose this to be the prologue. For, if I could engage 'em to clap, before they see the play, you know it would be so much the better; because then they were engag'd; for let a man write ever so well, there are, now-a-days, a sort of persons they call critics, that, egad, have no more wit in them than so many hobby-horses; but they'll laugh at you, sir, and find fault, and censure things that,[Pg 84] egad, I'm sure, they are not able to do themselves. A sort of envious persons that emulate the glories of persons of parts, and think to build their fame by calumniating of persons [5] that, egad, to my knowledge, of all persons in the world, are, in nature, the persons that do as much despise all that as—a— In fine, I'll say no more of 'em.

Johns. Nay, you have said enough of 'em, in all conscience; I'm sure more than they'll e'er be able to answer.

Bayes. Why, I'll tell you, sir, sincerely and bonâ fide, were it not for the sake of some ingenious persons and choice female spirits, that have a value for me, I would see 'em all hang'd, egad, before I would e'er more set pen to paper, but let 'em live in ignorance like ingrates.

Johns. Ay, marry! that were a way to be reveng'd of 'em indeed; and, if I were in your place, now, I would do so.

Bayes. No, sir; there are certain ties upon me that I cannot be disengag'd from;[6] otherwise, I would. But pray, sir, how do you like my hangman?

Smith. By my troth, sir, I should like him very well.

Bayes. By how do you like it, sir? (for, I see, you can judge) would you have it for a prologue, or the epilogue?

Johns. Faith, sir, 'tis so good, let it e'en serve for both.

Bayes. No, no; that won't do. Besides, I have made another.

Johns. What other, sir?

Bayes. Why, sir, my other is Thunder and Lightning.

Johns. That's greater; I'd rather stick to that.

Bayes. Do you think so? I'll tell you then; tho' there have been many witty prologues written of late, yet, I think, you'll say this is a non pareillo: I'm sure nobody has hit upon it yet. For here, sir, I make my prologue to be a dialogue; and as, in my first, you see, I strive to oblige the auditors by civility, by good nature, good language, and all that; so, in this, by the other way, in terrorem, I choose for the persons Thunder and Lightning. Do you apprehend the conceit?

Johns. Phoo, phoo! then you have it cock-sure. They'll be hang'd before they'll dare affront an author that has 'em at that lock.

Bayes. I have made, too, one of the most delicate dainty similes in the whole world, egad, if I knew but how to apply it.

[Pg 85]

Smith. Let's hear it, I pray you.

ACT II.—Scene I.

ACT III.—Scene I.

ACT IV.—Scene I.

SCENE II.

ACT. V.—Scene I.

EPILOGUE.

The Splendid Shilling.

Two "Odes."

NAMBY PAMBY:

A WORD UPON PUDDING.

What is a tart, a pie, or a pasty, but meat or fruit enclos'd in a wall or covering of pudding? What is a cake, but a bak'd pudding; or a Christmas pie, but a minc'd-meat pudding? As for cheese-cakes, custards, tansies, &c., they are manifest puddings, and all of Sir John's own contrivance; custard being as old, if not older, than Magna Charta. In short, pudding is of the greatest dignity and antiquity; bread itself, which is the very staff of life, being, properly speaking, a bak'd wheat pudding.

To the satchel, which is the pudding-bag of ingenuity, we are indebted for the greatest men in church and state. All arts and sciences owe their original to pudding or dumpling. What is a bagpipe, the mother of all music, but a pudding of harmony?[Pg 139] Or what is music itself, but a palatable cookery of sounds? To little puddings or bladders of colours we owe all the choice originals of the greatest painters. And indeed, what is painting, but a well-spread pudding, or cookery of colours?

The head of man is like a pudding. And whence have all rhymes, poems, plots, and inventions sprang, but from that same pudding? What is poetry, but a pudding of words? The physicians, tho' they cry out so much against cooks and cookery, yet are but cooks themselves; with this difference only, the cooks' pudding lengthens life, the physicians' shortens it. So that we live and die by pudding. For what is a clyster, but a bag-pudding? a pill, but a dumpling? or a bolus, but a tansy, tho' not altogether so toothsome? In a word: physic is only a puddingizing or cookery of drugs. The law is but a cookery of quibbles and contentions,[64] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * is but a pudding of * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Some swallow everything whole and unmix'd; so that it may rather be call'd a heap than a pudding. Others are so squeamish, the greatest mastership in cookery is requir'd to make the pudding palatable. The suet which others gape and swallow by gobs, must for these puny stomachs be minced to atoms; the plums must be pick'd with the utmost care, and every ingredient proportion'd to the greatest nicety, or it will never go down.

The universe itself is but a pudding of elements. Empires, kingdoms, states and republics, are but puddings of people differently made up. The celestial and terrestrial orbs are decipher'd to us by a pair of globes or mathematical puddings.

The success of war and fate of monarchies are entirely dependent on puddings and dumplings. For what else are cannonballs but military puddings? or bullets, but dumplings; with this difference only, they do not sit so well on the stomach as a good marrow pudding or bread pudding.

In short, there is nothing valuable in art or nature, but what, more or less, has an allusion to pudding or dumpling. Why, then, should they be held in disesteem? Why should dumpling-eating be ridiculed, or dumpling-eaters derided? Is it not pleasant and profitable? Is it not ancient and honourable? Kings, princes, and potentates have in all ages been lovers of pudding. Is it not, therefore, of royal authority? Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests and deacons, have, time out of mind, been great pudding-eaters. Is it not, therefore, a holy and religious institution? Philosophers, poets, and learned men in[Pg 140] all faculties, judges, privy councillors, and members of both houses, have, by their great regard to pudding, given a sanction to it that nothing can efface. Is it not, therefore, ancient, honourable, and commendable?

Why do, therefore, the enemies of good eating, the starveling authors of Grub Street, employ their impotent pens against pudding and pudding-headed, alias honest men? Why do they inveigh against dumpling-eating, which is the life and soul of good-fellowship; and dumpling-eaters, who are the ornaments of civil society?

But, alas! their malice is their own punishment. The hireling author of a late scandalous libel, intituled, "The Dumpling-Eaters Downfall," may, if he has any eyes, now see his error, in attacking so numerous, so august, a body of people. His books remain unsold, unread, unregarded; while this treatise of mine shall be bought by all who love pudding or dumpling; to my bookseller's great joy, and my no small consolation. How shall I triumph, and how will that mercenary scribbler be mortified, when I have sold more editions of my books than he has copies of his? I, therefore, exhort all people, gentle and simple, men, women, and children, to buy, to read, to extol these labours of mine, for the honour of dumpling-eating. Let them not fear to defend every article; for I will bear them harmless. I have arguments good store, and can easily confute, either logically, theologically, or metaphysically, all those who dare oppose me.

Let not Englishmen, therefore, be ashamed of the name of Pudding-eaters; but, on the contrary, let it be their glory. For let foreigners cry out ne'er so much against good eating, they come easily into it when they have been a little while in our land of Canaan; and there are very few foreigners among us who have not learn'd to make as great a hole in a good pudding, or sirloin of beef, as the best Englishman of us all.

Why should we then be laughed out of pudding and dumpling? or why ridicul'd out of good living? Plots and politics may hurt us, but pudding cannot. Let us, therefore, adhere to pudding, and keep ourselves out of harm's way; according to the golden rule laid down by a celebrated dumpling-eater now defunct:

THE TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES: OR, THE LIFE
AND DEATH OF
Tom Thumb the Great.

The town hath seldom been more divided in its opinion than concerning the merit of the following scenes. Whilst some publicly affirm that no author could produce so fine a piece but Mr. P——, others have with as much vehemence insisted that no one could write anything so bad but Mr. F——.

Nor can we wonder at this dissension about its merit, when the learned world have not unanimously decided even the very nature of this tragedy. For though most of the universities in Europe have honoured it with the name of "Egregium et maximi pretii opus, tragœdiis tam antiquis quàm novis longè anteponendum;" nay, Dr. B—— hath pronounced, "Citiùs Mævii Æneadem quàm Scribleri istius tragœdiam hanc crediderim, cujus autorem Senecam ipsum tradidisse haud dubitârim:" and the great Professor Burman hath styled Tom Thumb "Heroum omnium tragicorum facilè principem;" nay, though it hath, among other languages, been translated into Dutch, and celebrated with great applause at Amsterdam (where burlesque never came) by the title of Mynheer Vander Thumb, the burgomasters received it with that reverent and silent attention which becometh an audience at a deep tragedy. Notwithstanding all this, there have not been wanting some who have represented these scenes in a ludicrous light; and Mr. D—— hath been heard to say, with some concern, that he wondered a tragical and Christian nation would permit a representation on its theatre so visibly designed to ridicule and extirpate everything that is great and solemn among us.

This learned critic and his followers were led into so great an error by that surreptitious and piratical copy which stole last year into the world; with what injustice and prejudice to our author will be acknowledged, I hope, by every one who shall happily peruse this genuine and original copy. Nor can I help remarking, to the great praise of our author, that, however imperfect the former was, even that faint resemblance of the true Tom Thumb contained sufficient beauties to give it a run of upwards of forty nights to the politest audiences. But, notwithstanding that applause which it received from all the best judges, it was as severely censured by some few bad ones, and, I believe rather maliciously than ignorantly, reported to have been intended a burlesque on the loftiest parts of tragedy, and designed to banish what we generally call fine things from the stage.

Now, if I can set my country right in an affair of this importance, I shall lightly esteem any labour which it may cost. And this I the rather undertake, first, as it is indeed in some measure incumbent on me to vindicate myself from that surreptitious copy before mentioned, published by some ill-meaning people under my name; secondly, as knowing myself more capable of doing justice to our author than any other man, as I have given myself more pains to arrive at a thorough understanding of this little piece, having for ten years together read nothing else; in which time, I think, I may modestly presume, with the help of my English dictionary, to comprehend all the meanings of every word in it.

But should any error of my pen awaken Clariss. Bentleium to enlighten the world with his annotations on our author, I shall not think that the least reward or happiness arising to me from these my endeavours.

I shall waive at present what hath caused such feuds in the learned world, whether this piece was originally written by Shakespeare, though certainly that, were it true, must add a considerable share to its merit, especially with such who are so generous as to buy and commend what they never read, from an implicit faith in the author only: a faith which our age abounds in as much as it can be called deficient in any other.

Let it suffice, that "The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb," was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Nor can the objection made by Mr. D——, that the tragedy must then have been antecedent to the history, have any weight, when we consider that, though "The History of Tom Thumb" printed by and for Edward M—r, at the Looking-glass on London Bridge, be of a later date, still must we suppose this history to have been transcribed from some other, unless we suppose the writer thereof to be inspired: a gift very faintly contended for by the writers of our age. As to this[Pg 143] history's not bearing the stamp of second, third, or fourth edition, I see but little in that objection; editions being very uncertain lights to judge of books by: and perhaps Mr. M—r may have joined twenty editions in one, as Mr. C—l hath ere now divided one into twenty.

Nor doth the other argument, drawn from the little care our author hath taken to keep up to the letter of this history, carry any greater force. Are there not instances of plays wherein the history is so perverted, that we can know the heroes whom they celebrate by no other marks than their names? nay, do we not find the same character placed by different poets in such different lights, that we can discover not the least sameness, or even likeness, in the features? The Sophonisba of Mairet and of Lee is a tender, passionate, amorous mistress of Massinissa: Corneille and Mr. Thomson give her no other passion but the love of her country, and make her as cool in her affection to Massinissa as to Syphax. In the two latter she resembles the character of Queen Elizabeth; in the two former she is the picture of Mary Queen of Scotland. In short, the one Sophonisba is as different from the other as the Brutus of Voltaire is from the Marius, jun., of Otway, or as the Minerva is from the Venus of the ancients.

Let us now proceed to a regular examination of the tragedy before us, in which I shall treat separately of the Fable, the Moral, the Characters, the Sentiments, and the Diction. And first of the Fable; which I take to be the most simple imaginable; and, to use the words of an eminent author, "one, regular, and uniform, not charged with a multiplicity of incidents, and yet affording several revolutions of fortune, by which the passions may be excited, varied, and driven to their full tumult of emotion." Nor is the action of this tragedy less great than uniform. The spring of all is the love of Tom Thumb for Huncamunca; which caused the quarrel between their majesties in the first act; the passion of Lord Grizzle in the second; the rebellion, fall of Lord Grizzle and Glumdalca, devouring of Tom Thumb by the cow, and that bloody catastrophe, in the third.

Nor is the Moral of this excellent tragedy less noble than the Fable; it teaches these two instructive lessons, viz., that human happiness is exceeding transient, and that death is the certain end of all men: the former whereof is inculcated by the fatal end of Tom Thumb; the latter, by that of all the other personages.

The Characters are, I think, sufficiently described in the dramatis personæ; and I believe we shall find few plays where greater care is taken to maintain them throughout, and to preserve in every speech that characteristical mark which distinguishes them from each other. "But," says Mr. D——, "how well doth the character of Tom Thumb (whom we must[Pg 144] call the hero of this tragedy, if it hath any hero) agree with the precepts of Aristotle, who defineth, 'tragedy to be the imitation of a short but perfect action, containing a just greatness in itself?' &c. What greatness can be in a fellow whom history related to have been no higher than a span?" This gentleman seemeth to think, with Serjeant Kite, that the greatness of a man's soul is in proportion to that of his body, the contrary of which is affirmed by our English physiognominical writers. Besides, if I understand Aristotle right, he speaketh only of the greatness of the action, and not of the person.

As for the Sentiments and the Diction, which now only remain to be spoken to, I thought I could afford them no stronger justification than by producing parallel passages out of the best of our English writers. Whether this sameness of thought and expression which I have quoted from them proceeded from an agreement in their way of thinking, or whether they have borrowed from our author, I leave the reader to determine. I shall adventure to affirm this of the Sentiments of our author, that they are generally the most familiar which I have ever met with, and at the same time delivered with the highest dignity of phrase; which brings me to speak of his diction. Here I shall only beg one postulatum, viz., that the greatest perfection of the language of a tragedy is, that it is not to be understood; which granted (as I think it must be), it will necessarily follow that the only way to avoid this is by being too high or too low for the understanding, which will comprehend everything within its reach. Those two extremities of style Mr. Dryden illustrates by the familiar image of two inns, which I shall term the aërial and the subterrestrial.

Horace goes further, and showeth when it is proper to call at one of these inns, and when at the other:—

That he approveth of the sesquipedalia verba is plain; for, had not Telephus and Peleus used this sort of diction in prosperity, they could not have dropped it in adversity. The aërial inn, therefore (says Horace), is proper only to be frequented by princes and other great men in the highest affluence of fortune; the subterrestrial is appointed for the entertainment of the poorer sort of people only, whom Horace advises,

The true meaning of both which citations is, that bombast is the proper language for joy, and doggrel for grief; the latter of which is literally implied in the sermo pedestris, as the former is in the sesquipedalia verba.

Cicero recommendeth the former of these: "Quid est tam furiosum vel tragicum quàm verborum sonitus inanis, nullâ subjectâ sententiâ neque scientiâ." What can be so proper for tragedy as a set of big sounding words, so contrived together as to convey no meaning? which I shall one day or other prove to be the sublime of Longinus. Ovid declareth absolutely for the latter inn:

Tragedy hath, of all writings, the greatest share in the bathos; which is the profound of Scriblerus.

I shall not presume to determine which of these two styles be properer for tragedy. It sufficeth that our author excelleth in both. He is very rarely within sight through the whole play, either rising higher than the eye of your understanding can soar, or sinking lower than it careth to stoop. But here it may perhaps be observed that I have given more frequent instances of authors who have imitated him in the sublime than in the contrary. To which I answer, first, bombast being properly a redundancy of genius, instances of this nature occur in poets whose names do more honour to our author than the writers in the doggrel, which proceeds from a cool, calm, weighty way of thinking. Instances whereof are most frequently to be found in authors of a lower class. Secondly, that the works of such authors are difficultly found at all. Thirdly, that it is a very hard task to read them, in order to extract these flowers from them. And lastly, it is very difficult to transplant them at all; they being like some flowers of a very nice nature, which will flourish in no soil but their own: for it is easy to transcribe a thought, but not the want of one. The "Earl of Essex," for instance, is a little garden of choice rarities, whence you can scarce transplant one line so as to preserve its original beauty. This must account to the reader for his missing the names of several of his acquaintance, which he had certainly found here, had I ever read their works; for which, if I have not a just esteem, I can at least say with Cicero, "Quæ non contemno, quippè quæ nunquam legerim." However, that the reader may meet with due satisfaction in this point, I have a young commentator from the university, who is reading over all the modern tragedies, at five shillings a dozen, and collecting all that they have stole from our author, which shall be shortly added as an appendix to this work.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

Chrononhotonthologos:

THE MOST TRAGICAL TRAGEDY, THAT EVER WAS TRAGEDIZ'D BY ANY COMPANY OF TRAGEDIANS.

PROLOGUE.

The Rovers;
OR, THE DOUBLE ARRANGEMENT.

PROLOGUE.

ACT I.—Scene I.

Song.
BY ROGERO.

We have received, in the course of the last week, several long, and to say the truth, dull letters, from unknown hands, reflecting, in very severe terms, on Mr. Higgins, for having, as it is affirmed, attempted to pass upon the world, as a faithful sample of the productions of the German Theatre, a performance no way resembling any of those pieces, which have of late excited, and which bid fair to engross the admiration of the British public.

As we cannot but consider ourselves as the guardians of Mr. Higgins's literary reputation, in respect to every work of his which is conveyed to the world through the medium of our paper (though, what we think of the danger of his principles, we have already sufficiently explained for ourselves, and have, we trust, succeeded in putting our readers upon their guard against them)—we hold ourselves bound not only to justify the fidelity of the imitation, but (contrary to our original intention) to give a further specimen of it in our present number, in order to bring the question more fairly to issue between our author and his calumniators.

In the first place, we are to observe that Mr. Higgins professes[Pg 205] to have taken his notion of German plays wholly from the translations which have appeared in our language. If they are totally dissimilar from the originals, Mr. H. may undoubtedly have been led into error; but the fault is in the translators, not in him. That he does not differ widely from the models which he proposed to himself, we have it in our power to prove satisfactorily; and might have done so in our last number, by subjoining to each particular passage of his play, the scene in some one or other of the German plays, which he had in view when he wrote it. These parallel passages were faithfully pointed out to us by Mr. H. with that candour which marks his character; and if they were suppressed by us (as in truth they were), on our heads be the blame, whatever it may be. Little, indeed, did we think of the imputation which the omission would bring upon Mr. H., as, in fact, our principal reason for it was the apprehension that, from the extreme closeness of the imitation in most instances, he would lose in praise for invention more than he would gain in credit for fidelity.

The meeting between Matilda and Cecilia, for example, in the first act of the "Rovers," and their sudden intimacy, has been censured as unnatural. Be it so. It is taken almost word for word from "Stella," a German (or professedly a German) piece now much in vogue; from which also the catastrophe of Mr. Higgins's play is in part borrowed, so far as relates to the agreement to which the ladies come, as the reader will see by-and-by, to share Casimere between them.

The dinner scene is copied partly from the published translation of the "Stranger," and partly from the first scene of "Stella." The song of Rogero, with which the first act concludes, is admitted on all hands to be in the very first taste; and if no German original is to be found for it, so much the worse for the credit of German literature.

An objection has been made by one anonymous letter-writer, to the names of Puddingfield and Beefington, as little likely to have been assigned to English characters by any author of taste or discernment. In answer to this objection, we have, in the first place, to admit that a small, and we hope not an unwarrantable alteration has been made by us since the MS. has been in our hands. These names stood originally Puddincrantz and Beefinstern, which sounded to our ears as being liable, especially the latter, to a ridiculous inflection—a difficulty that could only be removed by furnishing them with English terminations. With regard to the more substantial syllables of the names, our author proceeded in all probability on the authority of Goldoni, who, though not a German, is an Italian writer of considerable reputation; and who, having heard that the English were distinguished for their love of liberty and beef, has judiciously compounded the two words Runnymede and beef, and thereby[Pg 206] produced an English nobleman, whom he styles Lord Runnybeef.

To dwell no longer on particular passages—the best way perhaps of explaining the whole scope and view of Mr. H.'s imitation, will be to transcribe the short sketch of the plot, which that gentleman transmitted to us, together with his drama; and which it is perhaps the more necessary to give at length, as the limits of our paper not allowing of the publication of the whole piece, some general knowledge of its main design may be acceptable to our readers, in order to enable them to judge of the several extracts which we lay before them.

PLOT.

Rogero, son of the late Minister of the Count of Saxe Weimar, having, while he was at college, fallen desperately in love with Matilda Pottingen, daughter of his tutor, Doctor Engelbertus Pottingen, Professor of Civil Law; and Matilda evidently returning his passion, the doctor, to prevent ill consequences, sends his daughter on a visit to her aunt in Wetteravia, where she becomes acquainted with Casimere, a Polish officer, who happens to be quartered near her aunt's, and has several children by him.

Roderic, Count of Saxe Weimar, a prince of tyrannical and licentious disposition, has for his Prime Minister and favourite, Gaspar, a crafty villain, who had risen to his post by first ruining, and then putting to death, Rogero's father. Gaspar, apprehensive of the power and popularity which the young Rogero may enjoy at his return to Court, seizes the occasion of his intrigue with Matilda (of which he is apprised officially by Doctor Pottingen) to procure from his master an order for the recall of Rogero from college, and for committing him to the care of the prior of the Abbey of Quedlinburgh, a priest, rapacious, savage, and sensual, and devoted to Gaspar's interests—sending at the same time private orders to the prior to confine him in a dungeon.

Here Rogero languishes many years. His daily sustenance is administered to him through a grated opening at the top of a cavern, by the landlady of the Golden Eagle at Weimar, with whom Gaspar contracts, in the Prince's name, for his support; intending, and more than once endeavouring, to corrupt the waiter to mingle poison with the food, in order that he may get rid of Rogero for ever.

In the meantime Casimere, having been called away from the neighbourhood of Matilda's residence to other quarters, becomes enamoured of, and marries Cecilia, by whom he has a family; and whom he likewise deserts after a few years' cohabitation, on pretence of business which calls him to Kamtschatka.

Doctor Pottingen, now grown old and infirm, and feeling the want of his daughter's society, sends young Pottingen in search of her, with strict injunctions not to return without her; and to bring with her either her present lover Casimere, or, should that not be possible, Rogero himself, if he can find him; the doctor having set his heart upon seeing his children comfortably settled before his death. Matilda, about the same period, quits her aunt's in search of Casimere; and Cecilia having been advertised (by an anonymous letter) of the falsehood of his Kamtschatka journey, sets out in the post-waggon on a similar pursuit.

It is at this point of time the play opens—with the accidental meeting of Cecilia and Matilda at the inn at Weimar. Casimere arrives there soon after, and falls in first with Matilda, and then with Cecilia. Successive éclaircissements take place, and an arrangement is finally made, by which the two ladies are to live jointly with Casimere.

Young Pottingen, wearied with a few weeks' search, during which he has not been able to find either of the objects of it, resolves to stop at Weimar, and wait events there. It so happens, that he takes up his lodging in the same house with Puddincrantz and Beefinstern, two English noblemen, whom the tyranny of King John has obliged to fly from their country; and who, after wandering about the Continent for some time, have fixed their residence at Weimar.

The news of the signature of Magna Charta arriving, determines Puddincrantz and Beefinstern to return to England. Young Pottingen opens his case to them, and entreats them to stay to assist him in the object of his search. This they refuse; but coming to the inn where they are to set off for Hamburgh, they meet Casimere, from whom they have both received many civilities in Poland.

Casimere, by this time tired of his "Double Arrangement," and having learned from the waiter that Rogero is confined in the vaults of the neighbouring Abbey for love, resolves to attempt his rescue, and to make over Matilda to him as the price of his deliverance. He communicates his scheme to Puddingfield and Beefington, who agree to assist him; as also does young Pottingen. The waiter of the inn proving to be a Knight Templar in disguise, is appointed leader of the expedition. A band of troubadours, who happen to be returning from the Crusades, and a company of Austrian and Prussian Grenadiers returning from the Seven Years' War, are engaged as troops.

The attack on the Abbey is made with success. The Count of Weimar and Gaspar, who are feasting with the prior, are seized and beheaded in the refectory. The prior is thrown into the dungeon, from which Rogero is rescued. Matilda and Cecilia rush in. The former recognizes Rogero, and agrees to[Pg 208] live with him. The children are produced on all sides; and young Pottingen is commissioned to write to his father, the doctor, to detail the joyful events which have taken place, and to invite him to Weimar, to partake of the general felicity.

ACT II.

Act the Third contains the eclaircissements and final arrangement between Casimere, Matilda, and Cecilia: which so nearly resemble the concluding act of "Stella," that we forbear to lay it before our readers.

ACT IV.

Bombastes Furioso.

Scene IV.—A Wood.

FINALE.

Rejected Addresses.

On the 14th of August, 1812, the following advertisement appeared in most of the daily papers:

"The Committee are desirous of promoting a free and fair competition for an Address to be spoken upon the opening of the Theatre, which will take place, on the 10th of October next. They have therefore thought fit to announce to the public, that they will be glad to receive any such compositions, addressed to their Secretary, at the Treasury Office, in Drury Lane, on or before the 10th of September, sealed up, with a distinguishing word, number, or motto, on the cover, corresponding with the inscription on a separate sealed paper containing the name of the author, which will not be opened, unless containing the name of the successful candidate."

Upon the propriety of this plan, men's minds were, as they usually are upon matters of moment, much divided. Some thought it a fair promise of the future intention of the Committee to abolish that phalanx of authors who usurp the stage, to the exclusion of a large assortment of dramatic talent blushing unseen in the background; while others contended, that the scheme would prevent men of real eminence from descending into an amphitheatre in which all Grub Street (that is to say, all London and Westminster) would be arrayed against them. The event has proved both parties to be in a degree right, and in a degree wrong. One hundred and twelve Addresses have been sent in, each sealed and signed, and mottoed, "as per order," some written by men of great, some by men of little, and some by men of no talent.

Many of the public prints have censured the taste of the Committee, in thus contracting for Addresses as they would for nails—by the gross; but it is surprising that none should have censured their temerity. One hundred and eleven of the Addresses must, of course, be unsuccessful: to each of the[Pg 228] authors, thus infallibly classed with the genus irritabile, it would be very hard to deny six staunch friends, who consider his the best of all possible Addresses, and whose tongues will be as ready to laud him as to hiss his adversary. These, with the potent aid of the bard himself, make seven foes per Address, and thus will be created seven hundred and seventy-seven implacable auditors, prepared to condemn the strains of Apollo himself; a band of adversaries which no prudent manager would think of exasperating.

But leaving the Committee to encounter the responsibility they have incurred, the public have at least to thank them for ascertaining and establishing one point, which might otherwise have admitted of controversy. When it is considered that many amateur writers have been discouraged from becoming competitors, and that few, if any, of the professional authors can afford to write for nothing, and of course have not been candidates for the honorary prize at Drury Lane, we may confidently pronounce, that, as far as regards number, the present is undoubtedly the Augustan age of English poetry. Whether or not this distinction will be extended to the quality of its productions, must be decided at the tribunal of posterity, though the natural anxiety of our authors on this score ought to be considerably diminished, when they reflect how few will, in all probability, be had up for judgment.

It is not necessary for the Editor to mention the manner in which he became possessed of this "fair sample of the present state of poetry in Great Britain." It was his first intention to publish the whole; but a little reflection convinced him that, by so doing, he might depress the good, without elevating the bad. He has therefore culled what had the appearance of flowers, from what possessed the reality of weeds, and is extremely sorry that, in so doing, he has diminished his collection to twenty-one. Those which he has rejected may possibly make their appearance in a separate volume, or they may be admitted as volunteers in the files of some of the newspapers; or, at all events, they are sure of being received among the awkward squad of the Magazines. In general, they bear a close resemblance to each other: thirty of them contain extravagant compliments to the immortal Wellington, and the indefatigable Whitbread; and, as the last-mentioned gentleman is said to dislike praise in the exact proportion in which he deserves it, these laudatory writers have probably been only building a wall, against which they might run their own heads.

The Editor here begs leave to advance a few words in behalf of that useful and much-abused bird, the Phœnix, and in so doing he is biassed by no partiality, as he assures the reader he not only never saw one, but (mirabile dictu!) never caged one in a simile in the whole course of his life. Not less than sixty-nine[Pg 229] of the competitors have invoked the aid of this native of Arabia; but as from their manner of using him, after they had caught him, he does not by any means appear to have been a native of Arabia Felix, the Editor has left the proprietors to treat with Mr. Polito, and refused to receive this rara avis, or black swan, into the present collection. One exception occurs, in which the admirable treatment of this feathered incombustible entitles the author to great praise. That Address has been preserved, and in the ensuing pages takes the lead, to which its dignity entitles it.

Perhaps the reason why several of the subjoined productions of the Musæ Londinenses have failed of selection, may be discovered in their being penned in a metre unusual upon occasions of this sort, and in their not being written with that attention to stage effect, the want of which, like want of manners in the concerns of life, is more prejudicial than a deficiency of talent. There is an art in writing for the Theatre, technically called touch and go, which is indispensable when we consider the small quantum of patience which so motley an assemblage as a London audience can be expected to afford. All the contributors have been very exact in sending their initials and mottoes. Those belonging to the present collection have been carefully preserved, and each has been affixed to its respective poem. The letters that accompanied the Addresses having been honourably destroyed unopened, it is impossible to state the real authors with any certainty, but the ingenious reader, after comparing the initials with the motto, and both with the poem, may form his own conclusions.

The Editor does not anticipate any disapprobation from thus giving publicity to a small portion of the Rejected Addresses; for, unless he is widely mistaken in assigning the respective authors, the fame of each individual is established on much too firm a basis to be shaken by so trifling and evanescent a publication as the present:

Of the numerous pieces already sent to the Committee for performance, he has only availed himself of three vocal Travesties, which he has selected, not for their merit, but simply for their brevity. Above one hundred spectacles, melodramas, operas, and pantomimes have been transmitted, besides the two first acts of one legitimate comedy. Some of these evince considerable smartness of manual dialogue, and several brilliant repartees of chairs, tables, and other inanimate wits; but the authors seem to have forgotten that in the new Drury Lane the audience can hear as well as see. Of late our theatres have been so constructed that John Bull has been compelled to have very[Pg 230] long ears, or none at all; to keep them dangling about his skull like discarded servants, while his eyes were gazing at piebalds and elephants, or else to stretch them out to an asinine length to catch the congenial sound of braying trumpets. An auricular revolution is, we trust, about to take place; and, as many people have been much puzzled to define the meaning of the new era, of which we have heard so much, we venture to pronounce, that as far as regards Drury Lane Theatre, the new era means the reign of ears. If the past affords any pledge for the future, we may confidently expect from the Committee of that House, everything that can be accomplished by the union of taste and assiduity.

LOYAL EFFUSION.

THE BABY'S DEBUT.

AN ADDRESS WITHOUT A PHŒNIX.

CUI BONO?

To the Secretary of the Managing Committee of Drury Lane Playhouse.

To the gewgaw fetters of rhyme (invented by the monks to enslave the people) I have a rooted objection. I have therefore written an address for your theatre in plain, homespun, yeoman's prose; in the doing whereof I hope I am swayed by nothing but an independent wish to open the eyes of this gulled people, to prevent a repetition of the dramatic bamboozling they have hitherto laboured under. If you like what I have done, and mean to make use of it, I don't want any such aristocratic reward as a piece of plate with two griffins sprawling upon it, or a dog and a jackass fighting for a ha'p'worth of gilt gingerbread, or any such Bartholomew Fair nonsense. All I ask is, that the door-keepers of your playhouse may take all the sets of my Register, now on hand, and force everybody who enters your door to buy one, giving afterwards a debtor and creditor account of what they have received, post-paid, and in due course remitting me the money and unsold Registers, carriage-paid.
I am, &c.,
W. C.

IN THE CHARACTER OF A HAMPSHIRE
FARMER.

When persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, your servant." If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry[Pg 239] enough, and brute beast enough, to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in a breath. In the first place, you are not ladies and gentlemen, but I hope something better—that is to say, honest men and women; and in the next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so much gentlemen, I am not, nor ever will be, your humble servant. You see me here, most thinking people, by mere chance. I have not been within the doors of a playhouse before for these ten years, nor till that abominable custom of taking money at the doors is discontinued, will I ever sanction a theatre with my presence. The stage-door is the only gate of freedom in the whole edifice, and through that I made my way from Bagshaw's in Brydges Street, to accost you. Look about you. Are you not all comfortable? Nay, never slink, mun; speak out, if you are dissatisfied, and tell me so before I leave town. You are now (thanks to Mr. Whitbread) got into a large, comfortable house. Not into a gimcrack palace; not into a Solomon's temple; not into a frost-work of Brobdingnag filagree; but into a plain, honest, homely, industrious, wholesome, brown, brick playhouse. You have been struggling for independence and elbow-room these three years; and who gave it you? Who helped you out of Lilliput? Who routed you from a rat-hole, five inches by four, to perch you in a palace? Again and again I answer, Mr. Whitbread. You might have sweltered in that place with the Greek name till Doomsday, and neither Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Canning, no, nor the Marquis Wellesley, would have turned a trowel to help you out! Remember that. Never forget that. Read it to your children, and to your children's children! And now, most thinking people, cast your eyes over my head to what the builder (I beg his pardon, the architect) calls the proscenium. No motto, no slang, no Popish Latin to keep the people in the dark. No Veluti in speculum. Nothing in the dead languages, properly so called, for they ought to die, ay, and be damned to boot! The Covent Garden manager tried that, and a pretty business he made of it! When a man says Veluti in speculum, he is called a man of letters. Very well, and is not a man who cries O.P. a man of letters too? You ran your O.P. against his Veluti in speculum, and pray which beat? I prophesied that, though I never told anybody. I take it for granted, that every intelligent man, woman, and child, to whom I address myself, has stood severally and respectively in Little Russell Street, and cast their, his, her, and its eyes on the outside of this building before they paid their money to view the inside. Look at the brick-work, English audience! Look at the brick-work! All plain and smooth like a quaker's meeting. None of your Egyptian pyramids, to entomb subscribers' capitals. No overgrown colonnades of stone, like an alderman's gouty legs in white cotton stockings, fit only to use as rammers for paving[Pg 240] Tottenham Court Road. This house is neither after the model of a temple in Athens, no, nor a temple in Moorfields, but it is built to act English plays in, and provided you have good scenery, dresses, and decorations, I dare say you wouldn't break your hearts if the outside were as plain as the pikestaff I used to carry when I was a sergeant. Apropos, as the French valets say, who cut their masters' throats—apropos, a word about dresses. You must, many of you, have seen what I have read a description of—Kemble and Mrs. Siddons in "Macbeth," with more gold and silver plastered on their doublets than would have kept an honest family in butchers' meat and flannel from year's end to year's end! I am informed (now mind, I do not vouch for the fact), but I am informed that all such extravagant idleness is to be done away with here. Lady Macbeth is to have a plain quilted petticoat, a cotton gown, and a mob cap (as the court parasites call it; it will be well for them if, one of these days, they don't wear a mob cap—I mean a white cap, with a mob to look at them), and Macbeth is to appear in an honest yeoman's drab coat, and a pair of black calamanco breeches. Not Salamanca; no, nor Talavera neither, my most noble Marquis, but plain, honest, black calamanco, stuff breeches. This is right; this is as it should be. Most thinking people, I have heard you much abused. There is not a compound in the language but is strung fifty in a rope, like onions, by the Morning Post, and hurled in your teeth. You are called the mob, and when they have made you out to be the mob, you are called the scum of the people, and the dregs of the people. I should like to know how you can be both. Take a basin of broth—not cheap soup, Mr. Wilberforce, not soup for the poor at a penny a quart, as your mixture of horses' legs, brick-dust, and old shoes was denominated, but plain, wholesome, patriotic beef or mutton broth; take this, examine it, and you will find—mind, I don't vouch for the fact, but I am told you will find the dregs at the bottom, and the scum at the top. I will endeavour to explain this to you: England is a large earthenware pipkin. John Bull is the beef thrown into it. Taxes are the hot water he boils in. Rotten boroughs are the fuel that blazes under this same pipkin. Parliament is the ladle that stirs the hodge-podge, and sometimes—but hold, I don't wish to pay Mr. Newman a second visit. I leave you better off than you have been this many a day. You have a good house over your head; you have beat the French in Spain; the harvest has turned out well; the comet keeps its distance; and red slippers are hawked about in Constantinople for next to nothing, and for all this, again and again I tell you, you are indebted to Mr. Whitbread!

THE LIVING LUSTRES.

THE REBUILDING.

DRURY'S DIRGE.

A TALE OF DRURY LANE.

The Night.

The Burning.

The Revival.

JOHNSON'S GHOST.

That which was organized by the moral ability of one, has been executed by the physical efforts of many, and Drury Lane Theatre is now complete. Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet been destined to glow beneath the brush of the varnisher, or vibrate to the hammer of the carpenter, little is thought by the public, and little need be said by the committee. Truth, however, is not to be sacrificed for the accommodation of either, and he who should pronounce that our edifice has received its final embellishment, would be disseminating falsehood without incurring favour, and risking the disgrace of detection without participating the advantage of success.

Professions lavishly effused and parsimoniously verified are alike inconsistent with the precepts of innate rectitude and the practice of external policy: let it not then be conjectured, that because we are unassuming, we are imbecile; that forbearance is any indication of despondency, or humility of demerit. He that is the most assured of success will make the fewest appeals to favour, and where nothing is claimed that is undue, nothing that is due will be withheld. A swelling opening is too often succeeded by an insignificant conclusion. Parturient mountains have ere now produced muscipular abortions, and the auditor who compares incipient grandeur with final vulgarity, is reminded of the pious hawkers of Constantinople, who solemnly perambulate her streets, exclaiming, "In the name of the Prophet—figs!"

Of many who think themselves wise, and of some who are thought wise by others, the exertions are directed to the revival of mouldering and obscure dramas; to endeavours to exalt that which is now rare only because it was always worthless, and[Pg 256] whose deterioration, while it condemned it to living obscurity, by a strange obliquity of moral perception constitutes its title to posthumous renown. To embody the flying colours of folly, to arrest evanescence, to give to bubbles the globular consistency as well as form, to exhibit on the stage the piebald denizen of the stable, and the half-reasoning parent of combs, to display the brisk locomotion of Columbine, or the tortuous attitudinizing of Punch; these are the occupations of others, whose ambition, limited to the applause of unintellectual fatuity, is too innocuous for the application of satire, and too humble for the incitement of jealousy.

Our refectory will be found to contain every species of fruit, from the cooling nectarine and luscious peach, to the puny pippin and the noxious nut. There indolence may repose, and inebriety revel; and the spruce apprentice, rushing in at second account, may there chatter with impunity, debarred by a barrier of brick and mortar from marring that scenic interest in others, which nature and education have disqualified him from comprehending himself.

Permanent stage-doors we have none. That which is permanent cannot be removed, for if removed it soon ceases to be permanent. What stationary absurdity can vie with that ligneous barricado, which, decorated with frappant and tintinabulant appendages, now serves, as the entrance of the lowly cottage, and now as the exit of a lady's bed-chamber; at one time insinuating plastic Harlequin into a butcher's shop, and at another, yawning as the flood-gate to precipitate the Cyprians of St. Giles's into the embraces of Macheath. To elude this glaring absurdity, to give to each respective mansion the door which the carpenter would doubtless have given, we vary our portal with the varying scene, passing from deal to mahogany, and from mahogany to oak, as the opposite claims of cottage, palace, or castle may appear to require.

Amid the general hum of gratulation which flatters us in front, it is fit that some regard should be paid to the murmurs of despondence that assail us in the rear. They, as I have elsewhere expressed it, "who live to please," should not have their own pleasures entirely overlooked. The children of Thespis are general in their censures of the architect in having placed the locality of exit at such a distance from the oily irradiators which now dazzle the eyes of him who addresses you. I am, cries the Queen of Terrors, robbed of my fair proportions. When the king-killing Thane hints to the breathless auditory the murders he means to perpetrate in the castle of Macduff "ere his purpose cool," so vast is the interval he has to travel before he can escape from the stage, that his purpose has even time to freeze. Your condition, cries the Muse of Smiles, is hard, but it is cygnet's down in comparison with mine. The peerless peer of capers[Pg 257] and congees has laid it down as a rule, that the best good thing uttered by the morning visitor should conduct him rapidly to the doorway, last impressions vieing in durability with first. But when on this boarded elongation it falls to my lot to say a good thing, to ejaculate "keep moving," or to chaunt "hic hoc horum genetivo," many are the moments that must elapse ere I can hide myself from public vision in the recesses of O.P. or P.S.

To objections like these, captiously urged and querulously maintained, it is time that equity should conclusively reply. Deviation from scenic propriety has only to vituperate itself for the consequences it generates. Let the actor consider the line of exit as that line beyond which he should not soar in quest of spurious applause: let him reflect that in proportion as he advances to the lamps, he recedes from nature; that the truncheon of Hotspur acquires no additional charm from encountering the cheek of beauty in the stage-box, and that the bravura of Mandane may produce effect, although the throat of her who warbles it should not overhang the orchestra. The Jove of the modern critical Olympus, Lord Mayor of the theatric sky, has, ex cathedrâ, asserted that a natural actor looks upon the audience part of the theatre as the third side of the chamber he inhabits. Surely of the third wall thus fancifully erected, our actors should by ridicule or reason be withheld from knocking their heads against the stucco.

Time forcibly reminds me that all things which have a limit must be brought to a conclusion. Let me, ere that conclusion arrives, recall to your recollection that the pillars which rise on either side of me, blooming in varied antiquity, like two massy evergreens, had yet slumbered in their native quarry, but for the ardent exertions of the individual who called them into life: to his never-slumbering talents you are indebted for whatever pleasure this haunt of the Muses is calculated to afford. If, in defiance of chaotic malevolence, the destroyer of the temple of Diana yet survives in the name of Erostratus, surely we may confidently predict, that the rebuilder of the temple of Apollo will stand recorded to distant posterity in that of—Samuel Whitbread.

THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY.

FIRE AND ALE.

PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS.

DRURY LANE HUSTINGS.
A NEW HALFPENNY BALLAD.

ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS.
Translated by Dr. B.

THEATRICAL ALARM BELL.

As it is now the universally-admitted, and indeed pretty-generally-suspected aim of Mr. Whitbread and the infamous, bloodthirsty, and, in fact, illiberal faction to which he belongs, to burn to the ground this free and happy Protestant city, and establish himself in St. James's Palace, his fellow committee-men have thought it their duty to watch the principles of a theatre built under his auspices. The information they have received from undoubted authority, particularly from an old fruit-woman who had turned king's evidence, and whose name for obvious reasons we forbear to mention, though we have had it some weeks in our possession, has induced them to introduce various reforms: not such reforms as the vile faction clamour for, meaning thereby revolution, but such reforms as are necessary to preserve the glorious constitution of the only free, happy, and prosperous country now left upon the face of the earth. From the valuable and authentic source above alluded to, we have learnt that a sanguinary plot has been formed by some united Irishmen, combined with a gang of Luddites, and a special committee sent over by the Pope at the instigation of the beastly Corsican fiend, for destroying all the loyal part of the audience on the anniversary of that deeply-to-be-abhorred and highly-to-be-blamed stratagem, the gunpowder plot, which falls this year on Thursday, the 5th of November. The whole is under the direction of a delegated committee of O.P.'s, whose treasonable exploits at Covent Garden you all recollect, and all of whom would have been hung from the chandeliers at that time but for the mistaken lenity of government. At a given signal a well-known O.P. was to cry out from the gallery, "Nosey! Music!" whereupon all the O.P.'s were to produce from their inside pockets a long pair of shears, edged with felt to prevent their making any noise, manufactured expressly by a wretch at Birmingham, one of Mr. Brougham's evidences, and now in custody. With these they were to cut off the heads of all the loyal N.P.'s in the house, without distinction of sex or age. At the signal, similarly given, of "Throw him over," which it now appears always alluded to the overthrow of our never-sufficiently-enough-to-be-deeply-and-universally-to-be-venerated constitution, all the heads of the N.P.'s were to be thrown at the fiddlers, to prevent their appearing in evidence, or perhaps as a false and illiberal insinuation that they have no[Pg 273] heads of their own. All that we know of the further designs of these incendiaries is, that they are by-a-great-deal-too-much too-horrible-to-be-mentioned.

The manager has acted with his usual promptitude on this trying occasion. He has contracted for 300 tons of gunpowder, which are at this moment placed in a small barrel under the pit, and a descendant of Guy Faux, assisted by Colonel Congreve, has undertaken to blow up the house, when necessary, in so novel and ingenious a manner, that every O.P. shall be annihilated, while not a whisker of the N.P.'s shall be singed. This strikingly displays the advantages of loyalty and attachment to government. Several other hints have been taken from the theatrical regulations of the not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-to-be-universally-execrated monster Bonaparte. A park of artillery, provided with chain-shot, is to be stationed on the stage, and play upon the audience in case of any indication of misplaced applause or popular discontent (which accounts for the large space between the curtain and the lamps); and the public will participate our satisfaction in learning that the indecorous custom of standing up with the hat on is to be abolished, as the Bow Street officers are provided with daggers, and have orders to stab all such persons to the heart, and send their bodies to Surgeons' Hall; gentlemen who cough are only to be slightly wounded. Fruit-women bawling "Bill of the Play" are to be forthwith shot, for which purpose soldiers will be stationed in the slips, and ball-cartridge is to be served out with the lemonade. If any of the spectators happen to sneeze or spit they are to be transported for life, and any person who is so tall as to prevent another seeing, is to be dragged out and sent on board the tender, or, by an instrument taken out of the pocket of Procrustes, to be forthwith cut shorter, either at the head or foot, according as his own convenience may dictate.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, have the committee, through my medium, set forth the not-in-a-hurry-to-be-paralleled plan they have adopted for preserving order and decorum within the walls of their magnificent edifice. Nor have they, while attentive to their own concerns, by any means overlooked those of the cities of London and Westminster. Finding, on enumeration, that they have with a with-two-hands-and-one-tongue-to-be-applauded liberality, contracted for more gunpowder than they want, they have parted with the surplus to the mattock-carrying and hustings-hammering high bailiff of Westminster, who has, with his own shovel, dug a large hole in the front of the parish church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, that, upon the least symptom of ill-breeding in the mob at the general election, the whole of the market may be blown into the air. This, ladies and gentlemen, may at first make provisions rise, but we pledge the credit of our theatre that they will soon fall again, and people be supplied[Pg 274] as usual with vegetables in the in-general-strewed-with-cabbage-stalks-but-on-Saturday-night-lighted-up-with-lamps market of Covent Garden.

I should expatiate more largely on the other advantages of the glorious constitution of these by-the-whole-of-Europe-envied realms, but I am called away to take an account of the ladies, and other artificial flowers, at a fashionable rout, of which a full and particular account will hereafter appear. For the present, my fashionable intelligence is scanty, on account of the opening of Drury Lane; and the ladies and gentlemen who honour me with their attention, will not be surprised if they find nothing under my usual head!

THE THEATRE.

A PREFACE OF APOLOGIES.

If the following poem should be fortunate enough to be selected for the opening Address, a few words of explanation may be deemed necessary, on my part, to avert invidious misrepresentation. The animadversion I have thought it right to make on the noise created by tuning the orchestra, will, I hope, give no lasting remorse to any of the gentlemen employed in the band. It is to be desired that they would keep their instruments ready tuned, and strike off at once. This would be an accommodation to many well-meaning persons who frequent the theatre, who not being blest with the ear of St. Cecilia, mistake the tuning for the overture, and think the latter concluded before it is begun.

was originally written "one hautboy will," but having providentially been informed, when this poem was upon the point of being sent off, that there is but one hautboy in the band, I averted the storm of popular and managerial indignation from the head of its blower; as it now stands, "one fiddle" among many, the faulty individual will, I hope, escape detection. The story of the flying playbill is calculated to expose a practice, much too common, of pinning playbills to the cushions, insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all. If these lines save one playbill only from the fate I have recorded,[Pg 275] I shall not deem my labour ill employed. The concluding episode of Patrick Jennings, glances at the boorish fashion of wearing the hat in the one-shilling gallery. Had Jennings thrust his between his feet at the commencement of the play, he might have leaned forward with impunity, and the catastrophe I relate would not have occurred. The line of handkerchiefs formed to enable him to recover his loss, is purposely so crossed in texture and materials, as to mislead the reader in respect of the real owner of any one of them. For, in the satirical view of life and manners, which I occasionally present, my clerical profession has taught me how extremely improper it would be by any allusion, however slight, to give any uneasiness, however trivial, to any individual, however foolish or wicked. G. C.

THE THEATRE.

To the Managing Committee of the New Drury Lane Theatre.

Happening to be wool-gathering at the foot of Mount Parnassus, I was suddenly seized with a violent travestie in the head. The first symptoms I felt were several triple rhymes floating about my brain, accompanied by a singing in my throat, which quickly communicated itself to the ears of everybody about me, and made me a burthen to my friends, and a torment to Doctor Apollo, three of whose favourite servants, that is to say, Macbeth, his butcher, Mrs. Haller, his cook, and George Barnwell, his book-keeper, I waylaid in one of my fits of insanity, and mauled after a very frightful fashion. In this woeful crisis I accidentally heard of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, which cures every disorder incident to Grub Street. I send you enclosed a more detailed specimen of my case; if you could mould it into the shape of an Address to be said or sung on the first night of your performance, I have no doubt that I should feel the immediate effects of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, of which they tell me one hiss is a dose.

Case No. I.
MACBETH.

Case No. II.
THE STRANGER.

Case No. III. GEORGE BARNWELL.

PUNCH'S APOTHEOSIS.

RECITATIVE.

Odes and Addresses to Great People.

ODE TO MR. GRAHAM.
THE AERONAUT.

ODE TO MR. M'ADAM.

ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN.

TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQUIRE,

AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY.

LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE
FROM BRIDGET JONES,

ODE TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE,
THE GREAT LESSEE!

ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQUIRE,

ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D.

ROUTLEDGE'S EXCELSIOR SERIES
OF STANDARD AUTHORS,

ROUTLEDGE'S STANDARD LIBRARY,

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The usual language of the Honourable Edward Howard, Esq., at the rehearsal of his plays.

[2]

He who writ this, not without pain and thought,

From French and English theatres has brought

Th' exactest rules, by which a play is wrought.

The unity of action, place, and time;

The scenes unbroken; and a mingled chime,

Of Johnson's humour, with Corneille's rhyme.

Prologue to the Maiden Queen.

[3] See the two prologues to the "Maiden Queen."

[4] There were printed papers given the audience before the acting the "Indian Emperor;" telling them that it was the sequel of the "Indian Queen," part of which play was written by Mr. Bayes, &c.

[5] "Persons, egad, I vow to Gad, and all that," is the constant style of Failer in the "Wild Gallant:" for which, take this short speech, instead of many:

"Failer. Really, madam, I look upon you, as a person of such worth, and all that, that I vow to Gad, I honour you of all persons in the world; and tho' I am a person that am inconsiderable in the world, and all that, madam, yet for a person of your worth and excellency I would," &c.—"Wild Gallant," p. 8.

[6] He contracted with the King's company of actors, in the year 1668, for a whole share, to write them four plays a year.

[7] In ridicule of this:

"So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh,

Look up, and see it gathering in the sky;

Each calls his mate to shelter in the groves,

Leaving, in murmurs, their unfinish'd loves;

Perch'd on some dropping branch, they sit alone,

And coo, and hearken to each other's moan."

"Conquest of Granada," Part ii. p. 48.

[8] "I am the evening dark as night."—"Slighted Maid," p. 49.

[9]

"Let the men 'ware the ditches.

Maids look to their breeches,

We'll scratch them with briars and thistles."—"Slighted Maid," p. 49.

[10] Abraham Ivory had formerly been a considerable actor of women's parts; but afterwards stupefied himself so far, with drinking strong waters, that, before the first acting of this farce, he was fit for nothing but to go of errands; for which, and mere charity, the company allowed him a weekly salary.

[11]

Drake, Sen. "Draw up our men;

And in low whispers give our orders out."

"Play House to be Let," p. 100.

See the "Amorous Prince," pp. 20, 22, 39, 69, where all the chief commands, and directions, are given in whispers.

[12] Mr. William Wintershull was a most excellent, judicious actor; and the best instructor of others; he died in July, 1679.

[13] He was a great taker of snuff; and made most of it himself.

[14] "The Lost Lady," by Sir Robert Stapleton.

[15] Compare this with Prince Leonidas in "Marriage A-la-mode."

[16] In imitation of this passage:—

"As some fair tulip, by a storm opprest,

Shrinks up, and folds its silken arms to rest;

And, bending to the blast, all pale, and dead,

Hears from within the wind sing round its head:

So shrouded up your beauty disappears;

Unveil, my love, and lay aside your fears:

The storm, that caus'd your fright, is past and gone."

"Conquest of Granada," Part i. p. 55.

[17] Such easy turns of state are frequent in our modern plays; where we see princes dethroned, and governments changed, by very feeble means, and on slight occasions: particularly in "Marriage A-la-mode;" a play writ since the first publication of this farce. Where (to pass by the dulness of the state-part, the obscurity of the comic, the near resemblance Leonidas bears to our Prince Prettyman, being sometimes a king's son, sometimes a shepherd's; and not to question how Amalthea comes to be a princess, her brother, the king's great favourite, being but a lord) it is worth our while to observe, how easily the fierce and jealous usurper is deposed, and the right heir placed on the throne; and it is thus related by the said imaginary princess:—

"Amalth. Oh, gentlemen! if you have loyalty,

Or courage, show it now. Leonidas,

Broke on a sudden from his guards, and snatching

A sword from one, his back against the scaffold,

Bravely defends himself; and owns aloud

He is our long lost king, found for this moment;

But, if your valours help not, lost for ever.

Two of his guards mov'd by the sense of virtue,

Are turn'd for him; and there they stand at bay,

Against a host of foes."—"Marriage A-la-mode," p. 61.

This shows Mr. Bayes to be a man of constancy, and firm to his resolution, and not to be laughed out of his own method; agreeable to what he says in the next act: "As long as I know my things are good, what care I what they say?"

[18]

"I know not what to say, or what to think!

I know not when I sleep, or when I wake!"—

"Love and Friendship," p. 46.

"My doubts and fears my reason do dismay:

I know not what to do, or what to say."—"Pandora," p. 46.

[19] Prince Prettyman and Tom Thimble; Failer, and Bibber his tailor, in the "Wild Gallant," pp. 5, 6.

[20] "Nay, if that be all, there's no such haste. The courtiers are not so forward to pay their debts."—"Wild Gallant," p. 9.

[21]

"Take a little Bibber,

And throw him in the river;

And if he will trust never,

Then there let him lie ever.

Bibber. Then say I,

Take a little Failer,

And throw him to the jailer,

And there let him lie

Till he has paid his tailor."—"Wild Gallant," p. 12.

[22] A great word with Mr. Edward Howard.

[23] In imitation of this:—

"On seas, and in battles, through bullets and fire,

The danger is less, than in hopeless desire;

My death's wound you gave me, tho' far off I bear

My fall from your sight, not to cost you a tear:

But if the kind flood on a wave would convey,

And under your window my body would lay;

When the wound on my breast you happen to see,

You'll say with a sigh, it was given by me."

This is the latter part of a song, made by Mr. Bayes on the death of Captain Digby, son of George, Earl of Bristol, who was a passionate admirer of the Duchess Dowager of Richmond, called by the author Armida. He lost his life in a sea-fight against the Dutch, the 28th of May, 1672.

[24] Mr. Edward Howard's words.

[25] See the two kings in "The Conquest of Granada."

[26]

"Albert. Curtius. I've something to deliver to your ear.

Cur. Anything from Alberto is welcome."—"Amorous Prince," p. 39.

[27] See the Prince in "Marriage A-la-mode."

[28] "Let my horses be brought ready to the door, for I'll go out of town this evening.

Into the country I'll with speed,

With hounds and hawks my fancy feed, &c.

Now I'll away, a country life

Shall be my mistress, and my wife."

"English Monsieur," pp. 36, 38, 39.

[29] "And what's this maid's name?"—"English Monsieur," p. 40.

[30] "I bring the morning pictur'd in a cloud."—"Siege of Rhodes," part i. p. 10.

[31] "Mr. Comely in love."—"English Monsieur," p. 49.

[32] Sir William D'Avenant's play of "Love and Honour."

[33] "But honours says not so."—"Siege of Rhodes," part i. p. 19.

[34] "Love in a Nunnery," p. 34.

[35] Col. Henry Howard, son of Thomas, Earl of Berkshire, made a play called the "United Kingdoms," which began with a funeral; and had also two kings in it. This gave the duke a just occasion to set up two kings in Brentford, as it is generally believed; tho' others are of opinion, that his grace had our two brothers, King Charles and the Duke of York, in his thoughts. It was acted at the Cockpit, in Drury Lane, soon after the Restoration; but miscarrying on the stage, the author had the modesty not to print it; and therefore, the reader cannot reasonably expect any particular passages of it. Others say, that they are Boabdelin and Abdalla, the two contending kings of Granada; and Mr. Dryden has, in most of his serious plays, two contending kings of the same place.

[36] "Conquest of Granada," in two parts.

[37]

"On seas I bore thee, and on seas I died,

I died: and for a winding-sheet, a wave

I had; and all the ocean for my grave."

"Conquest of Granada," part ii. p. 113.

[38] Almanzor in the "Conquest of Granada."

[39] In ridicule of this:—

"My earthly part,

Which is my tyrant's right, death will remove;

I'll come all soul and spirit to your love.

With silent steps I'll follow you all day;

Or else before you in the sunbeams play.

I'll lead you hence to melancholy groves,

And there repeat the scenes of our past loves;

At night, I will within your curtains peep,

With empty arms embrace you, while you sleep.

In gentle dreams I often will be by,

And sweep along before your closing eye.

All dangers from your bed I will remove;

But guard it most from any future love.

And when at last in pity you will die,

I'll watch your birth of immortality:

Then, turtle like, I'll to my mate repair,

And teach you your first flight in open air."—"Tyrannic Love," p. 25.

[40] See the scene in the "Villain." Where the host furnishes his guests with a collation out of his clothes; a capon from his helmet, a tansey out of the lining of his cap, cream out of his scabbard, &c.

[41] In ridicule of this:—

"Almah. Who dares to interrupt my private walk?

Alman. He who dares love, and for that love must die;

And, knowing this, dares yet love on, am I."

"Granada," part ii. pp. 114, 115.

[42] It was at first, "dares die."—Ibid.

[43]

"Alman. I would not now, if thou wouldst beg me, stay;

But I will take my Almahide away."—"Conquest of Granada," p. 32.

[44] In ridicule of this:—

"Alman. Thou dar'st not marry her, while I'm in sight;

With a bent brow, thy priest and thee I'll fright:

And, in that scene, which all thy hopes and wishes should content,

The thoughts of me shall make thee impotent."—Ibid. p. 5.

[45]

"Spite of myself, I'll stay, fight, love, despair;

And all this I can do, because I dare."—"Tyrannic Love," part ii. p. 89.

[46] In ridicule of this:—

"Max. Thou liest. There's not a god inhabits there,

But, for this Christian, would all heaven forswear:

Even Jove would try new shapes her love to win,

And in new birds, and unknown beasts would sin;

At least, if Jove could love like Maximin."—

"Tyrannic Love," p. 17.

[47]

"Some god now, if he dare relate what pass'd;

Say, but he's dead, that god shall mortal be."—Ibid. p. 7.

"Provoke my rage no farther, lest I be

Reveng'd at once upon the gods, and thee."—Ibid. p. 8.

"What had the gods to do with me, or mine."—Ibid. p. 57.

[48]

"Poets, like lovers, should be bold, and dare;

They spoil their business with an over-care:

And he, who servilely creeps after sense,

Is safe; but ne'er can reach to excellence."—

"Prologue to Tyrannic Love."

[49]

"What various noises do my ears invade;

And have a concert of confusion made?"—"Siege of Rhodes," p. 4.

[50] In ridicule of this:—

"Naker. Hark, my Damilcar, we are call'd below.

Dam. Let us go, let us go:

Go to relieve the care,

Of longing lovers in despair.

Naker. Merry, merry, merry, we sail from the east,

Half tippled at a rainbow feast.

Dam. In the bright moonshine, while winds whistle loud,

Tivy, tivy, tivy, we mount and we fly,

All racking along in a downy white cloud;

And lest our leap from the sky should prove too far,

We slide on the back of a new-falling star.

Naker. And drop from above,

In a jelly of love.

Dam. But now the sun's down, and the element's red,

The spirits of fire against us make head.

Naker. They muster, they muster, like gnats in the air:

Alas! I must leave thee, my fair;

And to my light-horsemen repair.

Dam. O stay! for you need not to fear 'em to-night;

The wind is for us, and blows full in their sight:

And o'er the wide ocean we fight.

Like leaves in the autumn, our foes will fall down,

And hiss in the water....

Both. And hiss in the water, and drown.

Naker. But their men lie securely intrench'd in a cloud,

And a trumpeter-hornet to battle sounds loud.

Dam. Now mortals that spy

How we tilt in the sky,

With wonder will gaze;

And fear such events as will ne'er come to pass.

Naker. Stay you to perform what the man will have done.

Dam. Then call me again when the battle is won.

Both. So ready and quick is a spirit of air,

To pity the lover, and succour the fair,

That silent and swift, that little soft god,

Is here with a wish, and is gone with a nod."—

"Tyrannic Love," pp. 24, 25.

[51] See "Tyrannic Love," act iv. sc. 1.

[52] In ridicule of this:—

"What new misfortunes do these cries presage?

1st Mess. Haste all you can, their fury to assuage:

You are not safe from their rebellious rage.

2nd Mess. This minute, if you grant not their desire,

They'll seize your person, and your palace fire."—

"Granada," part ii. p. 71.

[53] "Aglaura," and the "Vestal Virgin," are so contrived by a little alteration towards the latter end of them, that they have been acted both ways, either as tragedies or comedies.

[54] There needs nothing more to explain the meaning of this battle, than the perusal of the first part of the "Siege of Rhodes," which was performed in recitative music, by seven persons only: and the passage out of the "Playhouse to be Let."

[55] The "Siege of Rhodes" begins thus:—

"Admiral. Arm, arm, Valerius, arm."

[56] The third entry thus:—

"Solym. Pyrrhus, draw down our army wide;

Then, from the gross, two strong reserves divide,

And spread the wings,

As if we were to fight,

In the lost Rhodians' sight,

With all the western kings.

Each with Janizaries line;

The right and left to Haly's sons assign;

The gross, to Zangiban;

The main artillery

To Mustapha shall be:

Bring thou the rear, we lead the van."

[57]

"More pikes! more pikes! to reinforce

That squadron, and repulse the horse."—"Playhouse to be Let," p. 72.

[58]

"Point all the cannon, and play fast;

Their fury is too hot to last.

That rampire shakes; they fly into the town.

Pyr. March up with those reserves to that redoubt;

Faint slaves, the Janizaries reel!

They bend! they bend! and seem to feel

The terrors of a rout.

Must. Old Zanger halts, and reinforcement lacks.

Pyr. March on!

Must. Advance those pikes, and charge their backs."—"Siege of Rhodes."

[59] In ridicule of this:—

"Phœb. Who calls the world's great light!

Aur. Aurora, that abhors the night.

Phœb. Why does Aurora, from her cloud,

To drowsy Phœbus cry so loud?"—

"Slighted Maid," p. 8.

[60] "The burning mount Vesuvio."—"Slighted Maid," p. 81.

[61] "Drink, drink wine, Lippara wine."—Ibid.

[62] Valeria, daughter to Maximin, having killed herself for the love of Porphyrius; when she was to be carried off by the bearers, strikes one of them a box on the ear, and speaks to him thus:—

"Hold, are you mad, confounded dog?

I am to rise, and speak the epilogue."—"Tyrannic Love."

[63] Two noted alehouses in Oxford, 1700.

[64] The cat ran away with this part of the copy, on which the Author had unfortunately laid some of Mother Crump's sausages.

[65] Corneille recommends some very remarkable day wherein to fix the action of a tragedy. This the best of our tragical writers have understood to mean a day remarkable for the serenity of the sky, or what we generally call a fine summer's day: so that, according to this their exposition, the same months are proper for tragedy which are proper for pastoral. Most of our celebrated English tragedies, as Cato, Mariamne, Tamerlane, &c., begin with their observations on the morning. Lee seems to have come the nearest to this beautiful description of our author's:—

"The morning dawns with an unwonted crimson,

The flowers all odorous seem, the garden birds

Sing louder, and the laughing sun ascends

The gaudy earth with an unusual brightness:

All nature smiles."—"Cæs. Borg."

Massinissa, in the new Sophonisba, is also a favourite of the sun:—

"The sun too seems

As conscious of my joy, with broader eye

To look abroad the world, and all things smile

Like Sophonisba."

Memnon, in the Persian Princess, makes the sun decline rising, that he may not peep on objects which would profane his brightness:—

"The morning rises slow,

And all those ruddy streaks that used to paint

The day's approach are lost in clouds, as if

The horrors of the night had sent 'em back,

To warn the sun he should not leave the sea,

To peep," &c.

[66] This line is highly conformable to the beautiful simplicity of the ancients. It hath been copied by almost every modern:—

"Not to be is not to be in woe."—"State of Innocence."

"Love is not sin but where 'tis sinful love."—"Don Sebastian."

"Nature is nature, Lælius."—"Sophonisba."

"Men are but men, we did not make ourselves."—"Revenge."

[67] Dr. B—y reads. The mighty Tall-mast Thumb. Mr. D—s, The mighty Thumbing Thumb. Mr. T—d reads, Thundering. I think Thomas more agreeable to the great simplicity so apparent in our author.

[68] That learned historian Mr. S—n, in the third number of his criticism on our author, takes great pains to explode this passage. "It is," says he, "difficult to guess what giants are here meant, unless the giant Despair in the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' or the giant Greatness in the 'Royal Villain;' for I have heard of no other sort of giants in the reign of king Arthur." Petrus Burmannus makes three Tom Thumbs, one whereof he supposes to have been the same person whom the Greeks call Hercules; and that by these giants are to be understood the Centaurs slain by that hero. Another Tom Thumb he contends to have been no other than the Hermes Trismegistus of the ancients. The third Tom Thumb he places under the reign of king Arthur; to which third Tom Thumb, says he, the actions of the other two were attributed. Now, though I know that this opinion is supported by an assertion of Justus Lipsius, "Thomam illum Thumbum non alium quam Herculem fuisse satis constat," yet shall I venture to oppose one line of Mr. Midwinter against them all:

"In Arthur's court Tom Thumb did live."

"But then," says Dr. B—y, "if we place Tom Thumb in the court of king Arthur, it will be proper to place that court out of Britain, where no giants were ever heard of." Spenser, in his "Fairy Queen," is of another opinion, where, describing Albion, he says:—

"Far within a savage nation dwelt

Of hideous gants."

And in the same canto:—

"Then Elfar, with two brethren giants had

The one of which had two heads—

The other three."

Risum teneatis, amici.

[69] "To whisper in books," says Mr. D—s, "is arrant nonsense." I am afraid this learned man does not sufficiently understand the extensive meaning of the word whisper. If he had rightly understood what is meant by the "senses whisp'ring the soul," in the Persian Princess, or what "whisp'ring like winds" is in Aurengzebe, or like thunder in another author, he would have understood this. Emmeline in Dryden sees a voice, but she was born blind, which is an excuse Panthea cannot plead in Cyrus, who hears a sight:

"Your description will surpass

All fiction, painting, or dumb show of horror,

That ever ears yet heard, or eyes beheld."

When Mr. D—s understands these, he will understand whispering in books.

[70]

"Some ruffian stept into his father's place,

And more than half begot him."—"Mary Queen of Scots."

[71]

"For Ulamar seems sent express from Heaven,

To civilize this rugged Indian clime."—"Lib. Asserted."

[72] "Omne majus continet in se minus, sed minus non in se majus continere potest," says Scaliger in Thumbo. I suppose he would have cavilled at these beautiful lines in the "Earl of Essex:"

"Thy most inveterate soul,

That looks through the foul prison of thy body."

And at those of Dryden:

"The palace is without too well design'd;

Conduct me in, for I will view thy mind."—"Aurengzebe."

[73] Mr. Banks hath copied this almost verbatim:

"It was enough to say, here's Essex come,

And nurses still'd their children with the fright."—"Earl of Essex."

[74] The trumpet in a tragedy is generally as much as to say: Enter king, which makes Mr. Banks, in one of his plays, call it the trumpet's formal sound.

[75] Phraortes, in the Captives, seems to have been acquainted with king Arthur:

"Proclaim a festival for seven days' space,

Let the court shine in all its pomp and lustre,

Let all our streets resound with shouts of joy;

Let music's care-dispelling voice be heard;

The sumptuous banquet and the flowing goblet

Shall warm the cheek and fill the heart with gladness.

Astarbe shall sit mistress of the feast."

[76]

"Repentance frowns on thy contracted brow."—"Sophonisba."

"Hung on his clouded brow, I mark'd despair."—Ibid.

"A sullen gloom

Scowls on his brow."—"Busiris."

[77] Plato is of this opinion, and so is Mr. Banks:—

"Behold these tears sprung from fresh pain and joy."—"Earl of Essex."

[78] These floods are very frequent in the tragic authors:—

"Near to some murmuring brook I'll lay me down,

Whose waters, if they should too shallow flow,

My tears shall swell them up till I will drown."—Lee's "Soph."

"Pouring forth tears at such a lavish rate,

That were the world on fire they might have drown'd

The wrath of heaven, and quench'd the mighty ruin."—"Mithridates."

One author changes the waters of grief to those of joy:

"These tears, that sprung from tides of grief,

Are now augmented to a flood of joy."—"Cyrus the Great."

Another:

"Turns all the streams of heat, and makes them flow

In pity's channel."—"Royal Villain."

One drowns himself:

"Pity like a torrent pours me down,

Now I am drowning all within a deluge."—"Anna Bullen."

Cyrus drowns the whole world:

"Our swelling grief

Shall melt into a deluge, and the world

Shall drown in tears."—"Cyrus the Great."

[79] An expression vastly beneath the dignity of tragedy, says Mr. D—s, yet we find the word he cavils at in the mouth of Mithridates less properly used, and applied to a more terrible idea:

"I would be drunk with death."—"Mithridates."

The author of the new Sophonisba taketh hold of this monosyllable, and uses it pretty much to the same purpose:—

"The Carthaginian sword with Roman blood

Was drunk."

I would ask Mr. D—s which gives him the best idea, a drunken king, or a drunken sword?

Mr. Tate dresses up king Arthur's resolution in heroic:

"Merry, my lord, o' th' captain's humour right,

I am resolved to be dead drunk to-night."

Lee also uses this charming word:

"Love's the drunkenness of the mind."—"Gloriana."

[80] Dryden hath borrowed this, and applied it improperly:

"I'm half-seas o'er in death."—"Cleom."

[81] This figure is in great use among the tragedians:

"'Tis therefore, therefore 'tis."—"Victim."

"I long, repent, repent, and long again."—"Busiris."

[82] A tragical exclamation.

[83] This line is copied verbatim in the Captives.

[84] We find a candlestick for this candle in two celebrated authors:

"Each star withdraws

His golden head, and burns within the socket."—"Nero."

"A soul grown old and sunk into the socket."—"Sebastian."

[85] This simile occurs very frequently among the dramatic writers of both kinds.

[86] Mr. Lee hath stolen this thought from our author:

"This perfect face, drawn by the gods in council,

Which they were long in making."—"Luc. Jun. Brut."

"At his birth the heavenly council paused,

And then at last cried out, This is a man!"

Dryden hath improved this hint to the utmost perfection:

"So perfect, that the very gods who form'd you wonder'd

At their own skill, and cried, A lucky hit

Has mended our design! Their envy hinder'd,

Or you had been immortal, and a pattern,

When Heaven would work for ostentation sake,

To copy out again."—"All for Love."

Banks prefers the works of Michael Angelo to that of the gods:

"A pattern for the gods to make a man by,

Or Michael Angelo to form a statue."

[87] It is impossible, says Mr. W——, sufficiently to admire this natural easy line.

[88] This tragedy, which in most points resembles the ancients, differs from them in this—that it assigns the same honour to lowness of stature which they did to height. The gods and heroes in Homer and Virgil are continually described higher by the head than their followers, the contrary of which is observed by our author. In short, to exceed on either side is equally admirable; and a man of three foot is as wonderful a sight as a man of nine.

[89]

"My blood leaks fast, and the great heavy lading

My soul will quickly sink."—"Mithridates."

"My soul is like a ship."—"Injured Love."

[90] This well-bred line seems to be copied in the Persian Princess:

"To be your humblest and most faithful slave."

[91] This doubt of the king puts me in mind of a passage in the "Captives," where the noise of feet is mistaken for the rustling of leaves:—

"Methinks I hear

The sound of feet:

No; 'twas the wind that shook yon cypress boughs."

[92] Mr. Dryden seems to have had this passage in his eye in the first page of Love Triumphant.

[93] Don Carlos, in the Revenge, suns himself in the charms of his mistress:

"While in the lustre of her charms I lay."

[94] A tragical phrase much in use.

[95] This speech hath been taken to pieces by several tragical authors, who seem to have rifled it, and share its beauties among them:

"My soul waits at the portal of thy breast,

To ravish from thy lips the welcome news."—"Anna Bullen."

"My soul stands list'ning at my ears."—"Cyrus the Great."

"Love to his tune my jarring heart would bring,

But reason overwinds, and cracks the string."—"D. of Guise."

"I should have loved

Though Jove, in muttering thunder, had forbid it."—"New Sophonisba."

"And when it (my heart) wild resolves to love no more,

Then is the triumph of excessive love."—Ibid.

[96] Massinissa is one-fourth less happy than Tom Thumb.

"Oh! happy, happy, happy!"—Ibid.

[97]

"No by myseif."—"Anna Bullen."

[98]

"Who caused

This dreadful revolution in my fate,

Ulamar. Who but a dog—who but a dog?"—"Liberty As."

[99]

"A bride,

Who twenty years lay loving by your side."—Banks.

[100]

"For, borne upon a cloud, from high I'll fall,

And rain down royal vengeance on you all."—"Alb. Queens."

[101] An information very like this we have in the tragedy of Love, where Cyrus, having stormed in the most violent manner, Cyaxares observes very calmly, "Why, nephew Cyrus, you are moved?"

[102]

"'Tis in your choice.

Love me, or love me not."—"Conquest of Granada."

[103] There is not one beauty in this charming speech but what hath been borrow'd by almost every tragic writer.

[104] Mr. Banks has (I wish I could not say too servilely) imitated this of Grizzle in his Earl of Essex:

"Where art thou, Essex," &c.

[105] The Countess of Nottingham, in the Earl of Essex, is apparently acquainted with Dollallolla.

[106] Grizzle was not probably possessed of that glue of which Mr. Banks speaks in his Cyrus:

"I'll glue my ears to every word."

[107]

"Screech-owls, dark ravens, and amphibious monsters,

Are screaming in that voice."—"Mary Queen of Scots."

[108] The reader may see all the beauties of this speech in a late ode, called the "Naval Lyrick."

[109] This epithet to a dolphin doth not give one so clear an idea as were to be wished; a smiling fish seeming a little more difficult to be imagined than a flying fish. Mr. Dryden is of opinion that smiling is the property of reason, and that no irrational creature can smile:

"Smiles not allow'd to beasts from reason move."—"State of Innocence."

[110] These lines are written in the same key with those in the Earl of Essex:

"Why, say'st thou so? I love thee well, indeed

I do, and thou shalt find by this 'tis true."

Or with this in Cyrus:

"The most heroic mind that ever was."

And with above half of the modern tragedies.

[111] Aristotle, in that excellent work of his, which is very justly styled his masterpiece, earnestly recommends using the terms of art, however coarse or even indecent they may be. Mr. Tate is of the same opinion.

"Bru. Do not, like young hawks, fetch a course about.

Your game flies fair.

Fra. Do not fear it.

He answers you in your hawking phrase."—"In Love."

I think these two great authorities are sufficient to justify Dollallolla in the use of the phrase, "Hie away, hie!" when in the same line she says she is speaking to a setting-dog.

[112] We meet with such another pair of scales in Dryden's King Arthur:

"Arthur and Oswald, and their different fates,

Are weighing now within the scales of heaven."

Also in Sebastian:—

"This hour my lot is weighing in the scales."

[113] Mr. Rowe is generally imagined to have taken some hints from this scene in his character of Bajazet; but as he, of all the tragic writers, bears the least resemblance to our author in his diction, I am unwilling to imagine he would condescend to copy him in this particular.

[114] This method of surprising an audience, by raising their expectation to the highest pitch, and then baulking it, hath been practised with great success by most of our tragical authors.

[115] Almeyda, in Sebastian, is in the same distress:—

"Sometimes methinks I hear the groan of ghosts,

Thin hollow sounds and lamentable screams;

Then like a dying echo from afar,

My mother's voice that cries, Wed not, Almeyda;

Forewarn'd, Almeyda, marriage is thy crime."

[116] "As very well he may, if he hath any modesty in him," says Mr. D—s. The author of Busiris is extremely zealous to prevent the sun's blushing at any indecent object; and therefore on all such occasions he addresses himself to the sun, and desires him to keep out of the way.

"Rise never more, O sun! let night prevail.

Eternal darkness close the world's wide scene."—"Busiris."

"Sun, hide thy face, and put the world in mourning."—Ibid.

Mr. Banks makes the sun perform the office of Hymen, and therefore not likely to be disgusted at such a sight:

"The sun sets forth like a gay brideman with you."—"Mary Queen of Scots."

[117] Neurmahal sends the same message to heaven:

"For I would have you, when you upwards move,

Speak kindly of us to our friends above."—"Aurengzebe."

We find another to hell in the Persian Princess:

"Villain, get thee down

To hell, and tell them that the fray's begun."

[118] Anthony gives the same command in the same words.

[119]

"Oh! Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou, Marius?"—Otway's "Marius."

[120] Nothing is more common than these seeming contradictions; such as—

"Haughty weakness."—"Victim."

"Great small world."—"Noah's Flood."

[121] Lee hath improved this metaphor:

"Dost thou not view joy peeping from my eyes,

The casements open'd wide to gaze on thee?

So Rome's glad citizens to windows rise,

When they some young triumpher fain would see."—"Gloriana."

[122] Almahide hath the same contempt for these appetities:

"To eat and drink can no perfection be.—"Conquest of Granada."

The Earl of Essex is of a different opinion, and seems to place the chief happiness of a general therein:

"Were but commanders half so well rewarded,

Then they might eat."—Banks's "Earl of Essex."

But, if we may believe one who knows more than either, the devil himself, we shall find eating to be an affair of more moment than is generally imagined:

"Gods are immortal only by their food."—

"Lucifer, in the State of Innocence."

[123] "This expression is enough of itself," says Mr. D., "utterly to destroy the character of Huncamunca!" Yet we find a woman of no abandoned character in Dryden adventuring farther, and thus excusing herself:

"To speak our wishes first, forbid it pride,

Forbid it modesty; true, they forbid it,

But Nature does not. When we are athirst,

Or hungry, will imperious Nature stay,

Nor eat, nor drink, before 'tis bid fall on?"—

"Cleomenes."

Cassandra speaks before she is asked: Huncamunca afterwards. Cassandra speaks her wishes to her lover: Huncamunca only to her father.

[124]

"Her eyes resistless magic bear:

Angels, I see, and gods, are dancing there,"—Lee's "Sophonisba."

[125] Mr. Dennis, in that excellent tragedy called Liberty Asserted, which is thought to have given so great a stroke to the late French king, hath frequent imitations of this beautiful speech of king Arthur:

"Conquest light'ning in his eyes, and thund'ring in his arm."

"Joy lighten'd in her eyes."

"Joys like light'ning dart along my soul."

[126]

"Jove, with excessive thund'ring tired above,

Comes down for ease, enjoys a nymph, and then

Mounts dreadful, and to thund'ring goes again."—"Gloriana."

[127] This beautiful line, which ought, says Mr. W——, to be written in gold, is imitated in the New Sophonisba:

"Oh! Sophonisba; Sophonisba, oh!

Oh! Narva; Narva, oh!"

The author of a song called Duke upon Duke hath improved it:

"Alas! O Nick! O Nick, alas!"

Where, by the help of a little false spelling, you have two meanings in the repeated words.

[128] Edith, in the Bloody Brother, speaks to her lover in the same familiar language:

"Your grace is full of game."

[129]

"Traverse the glitt'ring chambers of the sky,

Borne on a cloud in view of fate I'll lie,

And press her soul while gods stand wishing by."—"Hannibal."

[130]

"Let the four winds from distant corners meet,

And on their wings first bear it into France;

Then back again to Edina's proud walls,

Till victim to the sound th' aspiring city falls."—"Albion Queens."

[131] I do not remember any metaphors so frequent in the tragic poets as those borrowed from riding post.

"The gods and opportunity ride post."—"Hannibal."

"Let's rush together,

For death rides post."—"Duke of Guise."

"Destruction gallops to thy murder post."—"Gloriana."

[132] This image, too, very often occurs:

"Bright as when thy eye

First lighted up our loves."—"Aurengzebe."

"'Tis not a crown alone lights up my name."—"Busiris."

[133] There is great dissension among the poets concerning the method of making man. One tells his mistress that the mould she was made in being lost, Heaven cannot form such another. Lucifer, in Dryden, gives a merry description of his own formation:

"Whom heaven, neglecting, made and scarce design'd,

But threw me in for number to the rest."—"State of Innocence."

In one place the same poet supposes man to be made of metal:

"I was form'd

Of that coarse metal which, when she was made,

The gods threw by for rubbish."—"All for Love."

In another of dough:

"When the gods moulded up the paste of man,

Some of their clay was left upon their hands.

And so they made Egyptians."—"Cleomenes."

In another of clay:

"Rubbish of remaining clay."—Sebastian."

One makes the soul of wax:

"Her waxen soul begins to melt apace."—"Anna Bullen."

Another of flint:

"Sure our souls have somewhere been acquainted

In former beings, or, struck out together,

One spark to Afric flew, and one to Portugal."—"Sebastian."

To omit the great quantities of iron, brazen, and leaden souls which are so plenty in modern authors—I cannot omit the dress of a soul as we find it in Dryden:

"Souls shirted but with air."—"King Arthur."

Nor can I pass by a particular sort of soul in a particular sort of description in the New Sophonisba.

"Ye mysterious powers,

Whether thro' your gloomy depths I wander,

Or on the mountains walk, give me the calm,

The steady smiling soul, where wisdom sheds

Eternal sunshine, and eternal joy."

[134] This line Mr. Banks has plunder'd entire in his Anna Bullen.

[135]

"Good Heaven! the book of fate before me lay,

But to tear out the journal of that day.

Or, if the order of the world below

Will not the gap of one whole day allow,

Give me that minute when she made her vow."—

"Conquest of Granada."

[136] I know some of the commentators have imagined that Mr. Dryden, in the altercative scene between Cleopatra and Octavia, a scene which Mr. Addison inveighs against with great bitterness, is much beholden to our author. How just this their observation is I will not presume to determine.

[137] "A cobbling poet indeed," says Mr. D.; and yet I believe we may find as monstrous images in the tragic authors. I'll put down one: "Untie your folded thoughts, and let them dangle loose as a bride's hair."—"Injured Love."

Which line seems to have as much title to a milliner's shop as our author's to a shoemaker's.

[138] Mr. L—— takes occasion in this place to commend the great care of our author to preserve the metre of blank verse, in which Shakespeare, Jonson, and Fletcher, were so notoriously negligent; and the moderns, in imitation of our author, so laudably observant:

"Then does

Your majesty believe that he can be

A traitor?"—"Earl of Essex."

Every page of Sophonisba gives us instances of this excellence.

[139]

"Love mounts and rolls about my stormy mind."—"Aurengzebe."

"Tempests and whirlwinds thro' my bosom move."—"Cleom."

[140]

"With such a furious tempest on his brow,

As if the world's four winds were pent within

His blustering carcase."—"Anna Bullen."

[141] Verba Tragica.

[142] This speech has been terribly mauled by the poet.

[143]

"My life is worn to rags,

Not worth a prince's wearing"—"Love Triumphant."

[144]

"Must I beg the pity of my slave?

Must a king beg? But love's a greater king,

A tryant, nay, a devil, that possesses me.

He tunes the organ of my voice and speaks,

Unknown to me, within me."—"Sebastian."

[145]

"When thou wert form'd heaven did a man begin;

But a brute soul by chance was shuffled in."—"Aurengzebe."

[146]

"I am a multitude

Of walking griefs."—"New Sophonisba."

[147]

"I will take thy scorpion blood,

And lay it to my grief till I have ease."—"Anna Bullen."

[148] Our author, who everywhere shows his great penetration into human nature, here outdoes himself: where a less judicious poet would have raised a long scene of whining love, he, who understood the passions better, and that so violent an affection as this must be too big for utterance, chooses rather to send his characters off in this sullen and doleful manner, in which admirable conduct he is imitated by the author of the justly celebrated Eurydice. Dr. Young seems to point at this violence of passion:

"Passion chokes

Their words, and they're the statues of despair."

And Seneca tells us, "Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent." The story of the Egyptian king in Herodotus is too well known to need to be inserted; I refer the more curious reader to the excellent Montaigne, who hath written an essay on this subject.

[149]

"To part is death.

'Tis death to part.

Ah!

Oh!"—"Don Carlos."

[150]

"Nor know I whether

What am I, who, or where."—"Busiris."

"I was I know not what, and am I know not how."—"Gloriana."

[151] To understand sufficiently the beauty of this passage, it will be necessary that we comprehend every man to contain two selfs. I shall not attempt to prove this from philosophy, which the poets make so plainly evident.

One runs away from the other:

"Let me demand your majesty,

Why fly you from yourself?"—"Duke of Guise."

In a second, one self is a guardian to the other:

"Leave me the care of me."—"Conquest of Granada."

Again:

"Myself am to myself less near."—Ibid.

In the same, the first self is proud of the second:

"I myself am proud of me."—"State of Innocence."

In a third, distrustful of him:

"Fain I would tell, but whisper it in my ear.

That none besides might hear, nay, not myself."—"Earl of Essex."

In a fourth, honours him:

"I honour Rome,

And honour too myself."—"Sophonisba."

In a fifth, at variance with him:

"Leave me not thus at variance with myself."—"Busiris."

Again, in a sixth:

"I find myself divided from myself."—"Medea."

"She seemed the sad effigies of herself."—Banks.

"Assist me, Zulema, if thou would'st be

The friend thou seem'st, assist me against me."—"Alb. Q."

From all which it appears that there are two selfs; and therefore Tom Thumb's losing himself is no such solecism as it hath been represented by men rather ambitious of criticising than qualified to criticise.

[152] Mr. F. imagines this parson to have been a Welsh one, from his simile.

[153] Our author hath been plundered here, according to custom:

"Great nature, break thy chain that links together

The fabric of the world, and make a chaos

Like that within my soul."—"Love Triumphant."

"Startle Nature, unfix the globe,

And hurl it from its axletree and hinges."—"Albion Queens."

"The tott'ring earth seems sliding off its props."

[154]

"D—n your delay, ye torturers, proceed:

I will not hear one word but Almahide."—"Conq. of Gran."

[155] Mr. Dryden hath imitated this in All for Love.

[156] This Miltonic style abounds in the New Sophonisba.

"And on her ample brow

Sat majesty."

[157]

"Your ev'ry answer still so ends in that,

You force me still to answer you, Morat."—"Aurengzebe.

[158]

"Morat, Morat, Morat! you love the name."—Ibid.

[159] "Here is a sentiment for the virtuous Huncamunca!" says Mr. D—s. And yet, with the leave of this great man, the virtuous Panthea, in Cyrus, hath a heart every whit as ample:

"For two I must confess are gods to me,

Which is my Abradatus first, and thee."—"Cyrus the Great."

Nor is the lady in Love Triumphant more reserved, though not so intelligible:

"I am so divided,

That I grieve most for both, and love both most."

[160] A ridiculous supposition to any one who considers the great and extensive largeness of hell, says a commentator; but not so to those who consider the great expansion of immaterial substance. Mr. Banks makes one soul to be so expanded, that heaven could not contain it.

"The heavens are all too narrow for her soul."—"Virtue Betrayed."

The Persian Princess hath a passage not unlike the author of this:

"We will send such shoals of murder'd slaves,

Shall glut hell's empty regions."

This threatens to fill hell, even though it was empty; Lord Grizzle, only to fill up the chinks, supposing the rest already full.

[161] Mr. Addison is generally thought to have had this simile in his eye when he wrote that beautiful one at the end of the third act of his Cato.

[162] This beautiful simile is founded on a proverb which does honour to the English language:

"Between two stools the breech falls to the ground."

I am not so well pleased with any written remains of the ancients as with those little aphorisms which verbal tradition hath delivered down to us under the title of proverbs. It were to be wished that, instead of filling their pages with the fabulous theology of the pagans, our modern poets would think it worth their while to enrich their works with the proverbial sayings of their ancestors. Mr. Dryden hath chronicled one in heroic:

"Two ifs scarce make one possibility."—"Conq. of Granada."

My Lord Bacon is of opinion that whatever is known of arts and sciences might be proved to have lurked in the Proverbs of Solomon. I am of the same opinion in relation to those above-mentioned; at least I am confident that a more perfect system of ethics, as well as economy, might be compiled out of them than is at present extant, either in the works of the ancient philosophers, or those more valuable, as more voluminous ones of the modern divines.

[163] Of all the particulars in which the modern stage falls short of the ancients, there is none so much to be lamented as the great scarcity of ghosts. Whence this proceeds I will not presume to determine. Some are of opinion that the moderns are unequal to that sublime language which a ghost ought to speak. One says, ludicrously, that ghosts are out of fashion; another, that they are properer for comedy; forgetting, I suppose, that Aristotle hath told us that a ghost is the soul of tragedy; for so I render the [Greek: psychê ho mythos tês tragôdias], which M. Dacier, amongst others, hath mistaken; I suppose misled by not understanding the Fabula of the Latins, which signifies a ghost as well as fable.

"Te premet nox, fabulæque manes."—Horace.

Of all the ghosts that have ever appeared on the stage, a very learned and judicious foreign critic gives the preference to this of our author. These are his words, speaking of this tragedy:—"Nec quidquam in illâ admirabilius quàm phasma quoddam horrendum, quod omnibus aliis spectris, quibuscum scatet Angelorum tragœdia, longè (pace D—ysii V. Doctiss. dixerim) prætulerim."

[164] We have already given instances of this figure.

[165] Almanzor reasons in the same manner:

"A ghost I'll be;

And from a ghost, you know, no place is free."—"Conq. of Gran."

[166] "The man who writ this wretched pun," says Mr. D., "would have picked your pocket:" which he proceeds to show not only bad in itself, but doubly so on so solemn an occasion. And yet, in that excellent play of Liberty Asserted, we find something very much resembling a pun in the mouth of a mistress, who is parting with the lover she is fond of:

"Ul. Oh, mortal woe! one kiss, and then farewell.

Irene. The gods have given to others to fare well,

O! miserably must Irene fare."

Agamemnon, in the Victim, is full as facetious on the most solemn occasion—that of sacrificing his daughter:

"Yes, daughter, yes; you will assist the priest;

Yes, you must offer up your—vows for Greece."

[167]

"I'll pull thee backwards by thy shroud to light,

Or else I'll squeeze thee, like a bladder, there.

And make thee groan thyself away to air."—"Conq. of Gran."

"Snatch me, ye gods, this moment into nothing."—"Cyrus the Great."

[168]

"So, art thou gone? Thou canst no conquest boast,

I thought what was the courage of a ghost."—"Conq. of Gran."

King Arthur seems to be as brave a fellow as Almanzor, who says most heroically: "In spite of ghosts I'll on."

[169] The ghost of Lausaria, in Cyrus, is a plain copy of this, and is therefore worth reading:

"Ah, Cyrus!

Thou may'st as well grasp water, or fleet air,

As think of touching my immortal shade."—"Cyrus the Great."

[170]

"Thou better part of heavenly air."—"Conquest of Granada."

[171] "A string of similes," says one, "proper to be hung up in the cabinet of a prince."

[172] This passage hath been understood several different ways by the commentators. For my part I find it difficult to understand it at all. Mr. Dryden says—

"I've heard something how two bodies meet,

But how two souls join I know not."

So that, till the body of a spirit be better understood, it will be difficult to understand how it is possible to run him through it.

[173] Cydaria is of the same fearful temper with Dollalolla:

"I never durst in darkness be alone."—"Ind. Emp."

[174]

"Think well of this, think that, think every way."—"Sophon."

[175] These quotations are more usual in the comic than in the tragic writers.

[176] "This distress," says Mr. D—, "I must allow to be extremely beautiful, and tends to heighten the virtuous character of Dollallolla, who is so exceeding delicate, that she is in the highest apprehension from the inanimate embrace of a bolster. An example worthy of imitation for all our writers of tragedy."

[177]

"Credat Judæus Appella,

Non ego,"

says Mr. D. "For, passing over the absurdity of being equal to odds, can we possibly suppose a little insignificant fellow—I say again a little insignificant fellow—able to vie with a strength which all the Samsons and Herculeses of antiquity would be unable to encounter?" I shall refer this incredulous critic to Mr. Dryden's defence of his Almanzor; and, lest that should not satisfy him, I shall quote a few lines from the speech of a much braver fellow than Almanzor, Mr. Johnson's Achilles:

"Though human race rise in embattled hosts,

To force her from my arms—Oh! son of Atreus!

By that immortal pow'r, whose deathless spirit

Informs this earth, I will oppose them all."—"Victim."

[178] "I have heard of being supported by a staff," says Mr. D., "but never of being supported by a helmet." I believe he never heard of sailing with wings, which he may read in no less a poet than Mr. Dryden:

"Unless we borrow wings and sail through air."—"Love Triumphant.

What will he say to a kneeling valley?

"I'll stand

Like a safe valley, that low bends the knee

To some aspiring mountain."—"Injured Love."

I am ashamed of so ignorant a carper, who doth not know that an epithet in tragedy is very often no other than an expletive. Do not we read in the New Sophonisba of "grinding chains, blue plagues, white occasions, and blue serenity?" Nay, it is not the adjective only, but sometimes half a sentence is put by way of expletive, as "Beauty pointed high with spirit," in the same play; and "In the lap of blessing, to be most curst," in the Revenge.

[179] A victory like that of Almanzor:

"Almanzor is victorious without fight."—"Conquest of Granada."

[180]

"Well have we chose an happy day for fight;

For every man, in course of time, has found

Some days are lucky, some unfortunate."—"King Arthur."

[181] We read of such another in Lee:

"Teach his rude wit a flight she never made,

And send her post to the Elysian shade."—"Gloriana."

[182] These lines are copied verbatim in the Indian Emperor.

[183] "Unborn thunder rolling in a cloud."—"Conquest of Granada."

[184]

"Were heaven and earth in wild confusion hurl'd,

Should the rash gods unhinge the rolling world,

Undaunted would I tread the tott'ring ball,

Crush'd, but unconquer'd, in the dreadful fall."—"Female Warrior."

[185] See the History of Tom Thumb, p. 141.

[186]

"Amazement swallows up my sense,

And in the impetuous whirl of circling fate

Drinks down my reason."—"Persian Princess."

[187]

"I have outfaced myself.

What! am I two? Is there another me?"—"King Arthur."

[188] The character of Merlin is wonderful throughout; but most so in this prophetic part. We find several of these prophecies in the tragic authors, who frequently take this opportunity to pay a compliment to their country, and sometimes to their prince. None but our author (who seems to have detested the least appearance of flattery) would have passed by such an opportunity of being a political prophet.

[189] "I saw the villain, Myron; with these eyes I saw him."—"Busiris." In both which places it is intimated that it is sometimes possible to see with other eyes than your own.

[190] "This mustard," says Mr. D., "is enough to turn one's stomach. I would be glad to know what idea the author had in his head when he wrote it." This will be, I believe, best explained by a line of Mr. Dennis:

"And gave him liberty, the salt of life."—"Liberty Asserted."

The understanding that can digest the one will not rise at the other.

[191]

"Han, Are you the chief whom men famed Scipio call?

Scip. Are you the much more famous Hannibal?"—"Hannibal."

[192] Dr Young seems to have copied this engagement in his Busiris:

Myr. Villain!

Mem. Myron!

Myr. Rebel!

Mem. Myron!

Myr. Hell!

Mem. Mandane!

[193] This last speech of my Lord Grizzle hath been of great service to our poets:

"I'll hold it fast

As life, and when life's gone I'll hold this last;

And if thou tak'st it from me when I'm slain,

I'll send my ghost and fetch it back again."—"Conq. of Gran."

[194]

"My soul should with such speed obey,

It should not bait at heaven to stop its way."

[195] Lee seems to have had this last in his eye:

"'Twas not my purpose, sir, to tarry there:

I would but go to heaven to take the air."—"Gloriana."

"A rising vapour rumbling in my brains."—"Cleomenes."

[196]

"Some kind sprite knocks softly at my soul,

To tell me fate's at hand."

[197] Mr. Dryden seems to have had this simile in his eye, when he says:

"My soul is packing up, and just on wing."—"Conq. of Gran."

"And in a purple vomit pour'd his soul."—"Cleomenes."

[198]

"The devil swallows vulgar souls

Like whipt cream."—"Sebastian."

[199]

"How I could curse my name of Ptolemy!

It is so long, it asks an hour to write it.

By heaven! I'll change it into Jove or Mars!

Or any other civil monosyllable,

That will not tire my hand."—"Cleomenes."

[200] Here is a visible conjunction of two days in one, by which our author may have either intended an emblem of a wedding, or to insinuate that men in the honeymoon are apt to imagine time shorter than it is. It brings into my mind a passage in the comedy called the Coffee-House Politician:

"We will celebrate this day at my house to-morrow."

[201] These beautiful phrases are all to be found in one single speech of King Arthur, or the British Worthy.

[202]

"I was but teaching him to grace his tale

With decent horror."—"Cleomenes."

[203] We may say with Dryden:

"Death did at length so many slain forget,

And left the tale, and took them by the great."

I know of no tragedy which comes nearer to this charming and bloody catastrophe than Cleomenes, where the curtain covers five principal characters dead on the stage. These lines too—

"I ask'd no questions then, of who kill'd who?

The bodies tell the story as they lie—"

seem to have belonged more properly to this scene of our author; nor can I help imagining they were originally his. The Rival Ladies, too, seem beholden to this scene:

"We're now a chain of lovers link'd in death;

Julia goes first, Gonsalvo hangs on her,

And Angelina hangs upon Gonsalvo,

As I on Angelina."

No scene, I believe, ever received greater honours than this. It was applauded by several encores, a word very unusual in tragedy. And it was very difficult for the actors to escape without a second slaughter. This I take to be a lively assurance of that fierce spirit of liberty which remains among us, and which Mr. Dryden, in his essay on Dramatic Poetry, hath observed. "Whether custom," says he, "hath so insinuated itself into our countrymen, or nature hath so formed them to fierceness, I know not; but they will scarcely suffer combats and other objects of horror to be taken from them." And indeed I am for having them encouraged in this martial disposition; nor do I believe our victories over the French have been owing to anything more than to those bloody spectacles daily exhibited in our tragedies, of which the French stage is so entirely clear.

[204] A See the "Robbers." a German tragedy, in which robbery is put in so fascinating a light, that the whole of a German University went upon the highway in consequence of it.

[205] See "Cabal and Love," a German tragedy, very severe against Prime Ministers and reigning Dukes of Brunswick. This admirable performance very judiciously reprobates the hire of German troops for the American war in the reign of Queen Elizabeth—a practice which would undoubtedly have been highly discreditable to that wise and patriotic princess, not to say wholly unnecessary, there being no American war at that particular time.

[206] See the "Stranger; or, Reform'd Housekeeper," in which the former of these morals is beautifully illustrated; and "Stella," a genteel German comedy, which ends with placing a man bodkin between two wives, like Thames between his two banks, in the "Critic." Nothing can be more edifying than these two dramas. I am shocked to hear that there are some people who think them ridiculous.

[207] These are the warnings very properly given to readers, to beware how they judge of what they cannot understand. Thus, if the translation runs "lightning of my soul, fulguration of angels, sulphur of hell;" we should recollect that this is not coarse or strange in the German language, when applied by a lover to his mistress; but the English has nothing precisely parallel to the original Mulychause Archangelichen, which means rather "emanation of the archangelican nature"—or to Smellmynkern Vankelfer, which, if literally rendered, would signify "made of stuff of the same odour whereof the devil makes flambeaux." See Schüttenbrüch on the German Idiom.

[208] This is an excellent joke in German; the point and spirit of which is but ill-rendered in a translation. A Noddy, the reader will observe, has two significations—the one a "knave at all-fours;" the other a "fool or booby." See the translation by Mr. Render of "Count Benyowsky; or, the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka," a German tragi-comi-comi-tragedy: where the play opens with a scene of a game at chess (from which the whole of this scene is copied), and a joke of the same point and merriment about pawns—i.e., boors being a match for kings.

[209] This word in the original is strictly "fellow-lodgers"—"co-occupants of the same room, in a house let out at a small rent by the week." There is no single word in English which expresses so complicated a relation, except, perhaps, the cant term of "chum," formerly in use at our universities.

[210] The balalaika is a Russian instrument, resembling the guitar.—See the play of "Count Benyowsky," rendered into English.

[211] See "Count Benyowsky; or, the Conspiracy of Kamschatka," where Crustiew, an old gentleman of much sagacity, talks the following nonsense:

Crustiew [with youthful energy and an air of secrecy and confidence.] "To fly, to fly, to the Isles of Marian—the island of Tinian—a terrestrial paradise. Free—free—a mild climate—a new created sun—wholesome fruits—harmless inhabitants—and Liberty—tranquillity."

[212] See "Count Benyowsky." as before.

[213] See "Count Benyowsky."

[214] See "Count Benyowsky" again; from which play this and the preceding references are taken word for word. We acquit the Germans of such reprobate silly stuff. It must be the translator's.

[215] We believe this song to be copied, with a small variation in metre and meaning, from a song in "Count Benyowsky; or, the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka,"—where the conspirators join in a chorus, for fear of being overheard.

[216] Geisers, the boiling springs in Iceland.

[217] Query, purly?—Printer's Devil.

[218] Captain Kater, the Moon's Surveyor.

[219] The Doctor's composition for a nightcap.

CHAUCER'S	HENRY CAREY'S
RIME OF THOPAS.	NAMBY PAMBY and
	CHRONONHOTONTHOLOGOS.
BEAUMONT & FLETCHER'S
KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE.	CANNING, FRERE & ELLIS'S
	ROVERS.
GEORGE VILLIERS, Duke of Buckingham's
REHEARSAL.	W. B. RHODES'S
	BOMBASTES FURIOSO.
JOHN PHILIPS'S	HORACE & JAMES SMITH'S
SPLENDID SHILLING.	REJECTED ADDRESSES.
	and some of
FIELDING'S	THOMAS HOOD'S
TOM THUMB THE GREAT.	ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Burlesque Plays and Poems

BURLESQUE PLAYS AND POEMS

INTRODUCTION.

The Rime of Sir Thopas.

THE RIME OF SIR THOPAS.

THE Knight of the Burning Pestle.

ACT I.—Scene I.

ACT II.—Scene I.

ACT III.—Scene I.

ACT IV.—Scene I.

ACT V.—Scene I.

The Rehearsal.

PROLOGUE.

ACT I.—Scene I.

ACT II.—Scene I.

ACT III.—Scene I.

ACT IV.—Scene I.

SCENE II.

ACT. V.—Scene I.

EPILOGUE.

The Splendid Shilling.

Two "Odes."

To Miss Margaret Pulteney, Daughter of Daniel Pulteney, Esq., in the Nursery. April 27, 1727.

To Miss Charlotte Pulteney, in her Mother's Arms. May 1, 1724.

NAMBY PAMBY:

A WORD UPON PUDDING.

THE TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES: OR, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Tom Thumb the Great.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

Chrononhotonthologos:

PROLOGUE.

The Rovers; OR, THE DOUBLE ARRANGEMENT.

PROLOGUE.

ACT I.—Scene I.

Song. BY ROGERO.

PLOT.

ACT II.

ACT IV.

Bombastes Furioso.

Scene IV.—A Wood.

FINALE.

Rejected Addresses.

LOYAL EFFUSION.

THE BABY'S DEBUT.

AN ADDRESS WITHOUT A PHŒNIX.

CUI BONO?

To the Secretary of the Managing Committee of Drury Lane Playhouse.

IN THE CHARACTER OF A HAMPSHIRE FARMER.

THE LIVING LUSTRES.

THE REBUILDING.

DRURY'S DIRGE.

A TALE OF DRURY LANE.

The Night.

The Burning.

The Revival.

JOHNSON'S GHOST.

THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY.

FIRE AND ALE.

PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS.

DRURY LANE HUSTINGS. A NEW HALFPENNY BALLAD.

ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. Translated by Dr. B.

THEATRICAL ALARM BELL.

THE THEATRE.

A PREFACE OF APOLOGIES.

THE THEATRE.

To the Managing Committee of the New Drury Lane Theatre.

Case No. I. MACBETH.

Case No. II. THE STRANGER.

Case No. III. GEORGE BARNWELL.

PUNCH'S APOTHEOSIS.

RECITATIVE.

Odes and Addresses to Great People.

ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. THE AERONAUT.

ODE TO MR. M'ADAM.

ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN.

TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQUIRE,

AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY.

LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE FROM BRIDGET JONES,

THE
Knight of the Burning Pestle.

To Miss Margaret Pulteney, Daughter of Daniel
Pulteney, Esq., in the Nursery.
April 27, 1727.

To Miss Charlotte Pulteney, in her Mother's Arms.
May 1, 1724.

THE TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES: OR, THE LIFE
AND DEATH OF
Tom Thumb the Great.

The Rovers;
OR, THE DOUBLE ARRANGEMENT.

Song.
BY ROGERO.

IN THE CHARACTER OF A HAMPSHIRE
FARMER.

DRURY LANE HUSTINGS.
A NEW HALFPENNY BALLAD.

ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS.
Translated by Dr. B.

Case No. I.
MACBETH.

Case No. II.
THE STRANGER.

ODE TO MR. GRAHAM.
THE AERONAUT.

LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE
FROM BRIDGET JONES,

ODE TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE,
THE GREAT LESSEE!

ROUTLEDGE'S EXCELSIOR SERIES
OF STANDARD AUTHORS,