The Project Gutenberg eBook of Love In The Suds, A Town Eclogue, by W. Kenrick.

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LETTER

DAVID GARRICK, Esq.

FROM

WILLIAM KENRICK, LL.D.

Meo deo irato. Ter. Phor.

THE THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

Printed for J. WHEBLE, Pater-noster-Row.

Mdcclxxii.II

To DAVID GARRICK, Esq.

SIR,

The author of the following Eclogue, having requested my assistance to introduce it to the world; it was with more indignation than surprize I was informed of your having used your extensive influence over the press to prevent its being advertised in the News-papers. How are you, Sir, concerned in the Lamentation of Roscius for his Nyky? Does your modesty think no man entitled to the appellation of Roscius but yourself? Does Nyky resemble any nick-named favourite of yours? Or does it follow, that if you have cherished an unworthy favourite, you must bear too near a resemblance to him? Qui capit ille facit; beware of self-accusation, where others bring no charge! Or, granting you right in these particulars, by what right or privilege do you, Sir, set up for a licenser of the press? That you have long successfully usurped that privilege, to swell both your fame and fortune, is well known. Not the puffs of the quacks of Bayswater and Chelsea are so numerous and notorious: but by what authority do you take upon you to shut up the general channel, in which writers usher their performances to the public? If they attack either your talents or your character, in utrumque paratus, you are armed to defend yourself. You have, besides your ingenuous countenance and conscious innocence; Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa; Besides this brazen bulwark, I say, you have a ready pen and a long purse. The press is open to the one, and the bar is ever ready to open with the other. For a poor author, not a printer will publish a paragraph, not a pleader will utter a quibble. You have then every advantage in the contest: It is needless, therefore, to endeavour to intimidate your antagonists by countenancing your retainers to threaten their lives! These intimidations, let me tell you Sir, have an ugly, suspicious look. They are besides needless; the genus irritabile vatum want no such personal provocations; Heaven knows, the life of a play-wright, like that of a spider, is in a state of the most slender dependency. It is well for my rhiming friend that his hangs not on so slight a thread. He thinks, nevertheless, that he has reason to complain, as well as the publick, of your having long preferred the flimzy, translated, patch'd-up and mis-altered pieces of your favourite compilers, to the arduous attempts at originality of writers, who have no personal interest with the manager. In particular, he thinks III the two pieces, you are projecting to get up next winter, for the emolument of your favorite in disgrace, or to reimburse yourself the money, you may have advanced him, might, for the present at least, be laid aside.

But you will ask me, perhaps, in turn, Sir, what right I have to interfere with the business of other people, or with yours? I will answer you. It is because I think your business, as patentee of a theatre-royal, is not so entirely yours, but that the publick also have some concern in it. You, Sir, indeed have long behaved as if you thought the town itself a purchased appurtenance to the theatre; but, tho' the scenes and machines are yours; nay, tho' you have even found means to make comedians and poets your property; it should be with more caution than you practise, that you extend your various arts to make so scandalous a property of the publick.

Again I answer, it is because I have some regard for my friend, and as much for myself, whom you have treated as ill perhaps as you have done any other writer; while under your auspices, some of the persons stigmatised by the satirist, have frequently combined to do me the most essential injury. But nemo me impune lacessit. Not that I mean now to enter into particulars which may be thought to relate too much to myself and too little to the publick. When I shall have leisure to draw a faithful portraiture of Mr. Garrick, not only from his behaviour to me in particular, but from his conduct towards poets, players and the town in general, I doubt not to convince the most partial of his admirers that he hath accumulated a fortune, as manager, by the meanest and most meretricious devices, and that the theatrical props, which have long supported his exalted reputation, as an actor, have been raised on the ruins of the English stage.

In the mean time, I leave you to amuse yourself with the following jeu d'esprit of my friend; hoping, tho' it be a severe correction for the errours of your past favouritism, it may prove a salutary guide to you for the future. With regard to its publication I hope also to stand excused with the reader for thus interposing to defeat the success of those arts, which you so unfairly practise to prevent, from reaching the public eye, whatever is disagreeable to your own.

I am, Sir,
Yours, &c.
W. K. IV

LOVE in the SUDS;

TOWN ECLOGUE.

BEING THE

LAMENTATION of ROSCIUS

FOR THE

LOSS of his NYKY.

Dixin' ego vobis, in hôc esse Atticam elegantiam? Ter.

O me inselicem!——
——quæ laudâram quantum luctus habuerint!

Phæd.

With Annotations by the Editor;

AND AN

APPENDIX,

CONTAINING

QUERIES and ANSWERS

Relative to the Personal Satisfaction, pretended to have been required of the Author of the above Eclogue, by the lamentable Roscius. 1

LOVE in the SUDS;

TOWN ECLOGUE.

Whither away, now, George1, into the city,
And to the village, must thou bear my ditty.
Seek Nyky out, while I in verse complain,
And court the Muse to call him back again.
Bœotian Nymphs, my favorite verse inspire;
As erst ye Nyky taught to strike the lyre.
For he like Phœbus' self can touch the string,
And opera-songs compose—like any thing!
What shall I do, now Nyky's fled away?
For who like him can either sing or say?

IMITATIONS.

Quo te, Mœri, pedes; an quò via ducit in urbem?
Nymphæ, noster amor, Libethrides, nunc mihi carmen,
Quale meo Codro, concedite; proxima Phœbi
Versibus ille facit.——

Quid facerem?

NOTES.

1 The brother and constant companion of Roscius; the Mercury of our theatrical Jupiter, whom he dispatches with his divine commands to mortal poets and miserable actors.

For me, alas! who well compos'd the song
When lovely Peggy2 liv'd, and I was young;
By age impair'd, my piping days are done,
My memory fails, and ev'n my voice is gone.
My feeble notes I yet must strive to raise;
Bœotian Muses! aid my feeble lays:
A little louder, and yet louder still,
Aid me to raise my failing voice at will;
Aid me as loud as Hercules did bawl,
For Hylas lost, lost Nyky back to call;
While London town, and all its suburbs round
In echoes, Nyky, Nyky, back resound.

IMITATIONS.

—— —— Sæpe ego longos
Cantando puerum memini me condere soles
Nunc oblita mihi tot carmina: vox quoque Mœrim
Jam fugit ipsa——
Omnia fert ætas, animum quoque.
—— Musæ paulò majora canamus.
—— Hylan nautæ quo fonte relictum
Clamassent; ut littus Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret.

NOTES.

2 Peggy Woffington, on whom our Roscius, then her inamorato, made a famous song, beginning with the following stanza:

Once more I'll tune the vocal shell,
To hills and dales my passion tell,
A flame which time can never quell,
That burns for thee, my Peggy.

Whom fliest thou, frantic youth, and whence thy fear?
Blest had there never been a grenadier!
Unhappy Nyky, by what frenzy seiz'd,
Couldst thou with such a monstrous thing be pleas'd?
What, tho' thyself a loving horse-marine,3
A common foot-soldier's a thing obscene.
Not fabled Nymphs, by spleen turn'd into cows,
Bellow'd to nasty bulls their amorous vows;
Tho' turn'd their loving horns upon each other,
Butting in play, as brother might with brother.
Unhappy Nyky, whither dost thou stray,
Lost to thy friends, o'er hills and far away?

IMITATIONS.

Quem fugis? Ah demens!——
Et fortunatam, si nunquam armenta fuissent,
Pasiphaën nivei solatur amore juvenci.
Oh, virgo infelix, quæ te dementia cepit?
Prœtides implêrunt falsis mugitibus agros:
At non tum turpes pecudum tamen ulla secuta est
Concubitus: quamvis collo timuisset aratrum,
Et sæpe in levi quæsisset cornua fronte.
Ah, virgo infelix, tu nunc in montibus erras!

NOTES.

Time, however, effects strange things, as the poet says, and many have been the passions which have since agitated, and have been also quelled in the bosom of Roscius.

3 Nyky is a half-pay officer of marines. A horse-marine is a kind of meretricious Hobby-horse, modò vir modò fæmina.

Yet to Euryalus as Nisus true, So shall thy Roscius, Nyky, prove to you;
Whether by impulse mov'd, itself divine,
Or so I'm bound to call it, as it's mine,
A mighty feat presents itself to view,
Which for our mutual gain I yet will do.
Mean-time do thou beware, while I bemoan,
How far thou trustest seas or lands unknown.
To Tyber's stream, or to the banks of Po,
Safe in thy love, safe in thy virtue, go;
Yet even there with caution be thou kind,
And look out sharp and frequently behind.
But ah, beware, nor trust, tho' native Mud,4
The banks of Liffy, or of Shannon's flood;
Or there, if driv'n by fate, be hush'd thy strain?
Nor of thy wayward lot, nor mine complain.

IMITATIONS.

Nisus ait, "Diine hunc ardorem mentibus addunt
Euryale? An sua cuique deus sit dira Cupido?
Aut pugnam, aut aliquid jamdudum invadere magnum
Mens agitat mihi——
Hàc iter est; tu ne qua manus se attollere nobis
A tergo possit, custodi et consule longè."

NOTES.

4 Nyky it seems was born and bred in Ireland; where his christian name was John. How he came by the Jewish appellation of Isaac is not generally known. Whether it was bestowed upon him for his resemblance to the chosen people, or given him by poetical licence, may possibly be a matter of disquisition for future scholiasts.

Lest female Bacchanals, when flush'd with wine,
Serve thee, like Orpheus, for thy song divine;
Nay back return, lest my too plaintive verse
Entail on me the same Orphean curse;
Lest Venus' train of Drury and the Strand
Attack my house by water and by land;
Hot with their midnight orgies, madly tear
My little limbs, and throw them here and there;
Casting, enrag'd at my provoking theme,
Th' inditing brain into the neighbouring stream:
When, as my skull shall float the tide along,
Thy much-lov'd name, the burthen of my song,
Shall still be stutter'd, later than my breath;
Nyky—-Nyk——Ny——till stopt my tongue in death:
Through London-bridge shall Wapping Nyky roar,
And Nyk be even heard to Hampton's shore.5

IMITATIONS.

—— —— Spreto Ciconum quo munere matres
Inter sacra deûm, nocturnique orgia Bacchi,
Discerptum latos juvenem sparsêre per agros.
Tum quoque marmoreâ caput à cervice revulsum,
Gurgite cum medio portans Oeagrius Hebrus
Volveret, Eurydicen vox ipsa et frigida lingua
Ah miseram Eurydicen anima fugiente, vocabat:
Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripæ!

NOTES.

5 The celebrated villa of Roscius.

On Hebrus' banks so tuneful Orpheus died;
His limbs the fields receiv'd, his head the tide.
Nor more its stream renown'd than Thames in fame6:
Here Catherine Hayes serv'd Goodman Hayes the same.
Here on this spot, where now th' Adelphi stands,
Was thrown her husband's noddle from her hands;
His scatter'd limbs left quiv'ring on the shore;
As Thracian wives had play'd their part before.
Oh, horrour, horrour! Nyky back return;
Nor more for grenadiers imprudent burn.

And yet, ah why should Nyky thus be blam'd?
Of manly love ah! why are men asham'd?
A new red coat, fierce cock and killing air
Will captivate the most obdurate fair;
What wonder then if Nyky's tender heart
At such a sight should feel a lover's smart:
No wonder love, that in itself is blind,
Should no distinction in the difference find;
No wonder love should Nyky thus enthrall;
Almighty love, at times, subdues us all;
While, vulgar prejudices soar'd above,
Nyk gave up all the world,—well lost for love.

IMITATIONS.

Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori.

NOTES.

6 See the Tyburn Chronicle and Newgate lamentations pro tempore; particularly that famous ballad, entitled A merry song about murder, beginning with, "In Tyburn-road there liv'd a man," &c.

Yet slight the cause of Nyky's late mishap;
Nyk but mistook the colour of the cap:
A common errour, frequent in the Park,
Where love is apt to stumble in the dark.
Why rais'd the haughty female head so high,
With the tall caps of grenadiers to vie?
Why does it like tremendous figure make,
To subject purblind lovers to mistake?7
Or rather why, in these enlighten'd times,
Should rigid Nature call such errours crimes?
"Thou Nature art my goddess," saith the play;
But even Shakespeare's text hath had its day.
More gentle custom no such rigour knows;
And custom into second nature grows.
Let vulgar passions move the vulgar mind,
Superior souls feel motives more refin'd:
Among the low-bred English slow advance
Th' Italian gusto and bon ton of France.
Strange to the classic lore of Greece and Rome,
And rudely nurs'd in ignorance at home,
The tasteless herd e'en construe into sin,
That poets should in metaphor lie in,
While I, their best man-midwife, must be sham'd,
Whene'er the Fashionable Lover's nam'd.

NOTES.

7 Nyky is near sighted.

But Candour's veil love's foibles still should cover
And Nyk be stil'd a Fashionable Lover.8
To polish'd travellers is only known
That taste which makes the ancient arts our own;
Which shares with Rome in every gem antique;
Which blends the modern with the ancient Greek;
Improves on both, and greatly soars above,
In pure philanthropy, Platonic love;
That love which burns with undistinguish'd rage,
And spares in fondness neither sex nor age?
Ah! therefore why in these enlighten'd times
Sould rigid Nature call such errours crimes?
Must not the taste of Attic wits be nice?
Can antient virtue be a modern vice?
The Mantuan bard, or else his scholiast lies,9
Virgil the chaste, nay Socrates the wise.

NOTES.

"If any author of prolific brains
In this good company feels labour-pains;
If any gentle poet big with rhyme
Has run his reckoning out and gone his time:
Know such that at our hospital of muses
He may lie-in in private if he chuses;
We've single lodgings there for secret sinners
With good encouragement for your beginners."

Prologue to the Fashionable Lover.

It is indeed now plain enough that Roscius has given great encouragement to secret sinners; but I would advise none of our poets to lie in again in private; but to remember the fate of a late tragedy and farce. Poor Clementina, and the lady An hour before marriage, both privately lay-in and miscarried.

9 The Jesuit Ruæus begins the argument of Virgil's second Eclogue with the following explicit declaration, Amabat Virgilius puerum.

The gay Petronius, sophists, wits and bards,
Of old, bestow'd on youth their soft regards;
In modish dalliance pass'd their harmless time
Ev'n modish now in soft Italia's clime.
Could lightenings ever issue from above
To blast poor men for such a crime as love;
When the lewd daughters of incestuous Lot
Were both with child by their own father got?
Poor goody Lot indeed might be in fault,
And justly turn'd to monumental salt:
The matrimonial emblem of a wife:
Needs must be salt a dish to keep for life!
A fable Sodom's fate: in Heav'n above
All is made up of harmony and love;
That such its vengeance I believe not, I;
Historians err and Hebrew Jews will lie.
Sing then, my Muse, a more engaging strain
To lure my Nyky back to Drury-lane.
Tell him the fancied danger all is o'er;
Home he may come and love as heretofore.

IMITATIONS.

Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin.
—— Deos didici securum agere ævum
Nec si quid miri faciat natura, deos id
Tristes ex alto cœli demittere tecto.
—— —— Credat Judæus Apella,
Non ego. ——
Ducite ab urbe domum mea carmina ducite Daphnim.

In vain the vulgar shall for vengeance call,
Or move the justices at Hickes's-hall;
In vain grand juries shall be urg'd by law
In his indictment not to leave a flaw.
Ev'n at the bar should Nyky stand arraign'd,
No verdict 'gainst him should be there obtain'd;
Nay, by the laws and customs of the land,
Tho' trembling Nyky should convicted stand,
The candid jury shall be mov'd t'acquit
A gentleman, an author, and a wit:
For liberal minds with candour ever see
The milder failings of humanity!
Smooth-spoken Mansfield,10 with his vacant face,
In softening accents first shall ope his case;
Which to defend, the want of Merlin's cunning
Shall be supplied by that of Grimbald Dunning.11
E'en at th' Old-Bailey they for Nyk shall plead;
Where would they not, if they were largely fee'd?
Were Nyky summon'd to the bar below,
Well-fee'd these faithful barristers would go;

NOTES.

10 Not the Judge of that name; but the barrister, who, is by no means a judge—— of any thing.

11 See King Arthur, lately revived at Drury-lane Theatre, and attend the pleadings in our courts of law and equity at Westminster, Guildhall, and Lincoln's-inn.

Their tale to Minos would they glibly tell;
Minos the Mansfield, or Chief Judge, of Hell.12
Nor need my Nyky fear a London jury
Will e'er be influenced with a female fury.
Can they who let a prov'd assassin 'scape
Hang up poor Nyky for a friendly rape?
If in the dark to stab, be thought no crime,
What may'nt be hop'd from jurymen in time?
Soon Southern modes, no doubt, they'll reconcile
With the plain manners of our Northern isle;
And e'en new-married citizens be brought
To reckon S——y a venial fault:
When if George Bellas,13 cruel and unkind,
Blast not their loves, with rude tempestuous wind,
In common-council Corydon may burn,
And Corydons for Corydon in turn,
Till every alderman about the chair
Find his Alexis in a new lord-mayor.

IMITATIONS.

Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis.

NOTES.

12 Minos is reported by the poets to have been raised to this high office for his impartiality in the administration of Justice here on earth: what a pity that office is not soon to become vacant; as it might be most luckily filled by as worthy a successor.

13 A boisterous mock-patriot, supposed to be descended from Eolus and Amphitrite, being famous for his mackarel expeditions, his musical knowledge of the fundamental base and public performances on the bassoon.

Sing then, O Muse, a more pathetic strain,
To lure my gentle Nyky back again.
For, sure as Thames resembles Tyber's tide,
Shall Macaronis soon possess Cheapside;
As petty-jury-men in judgment sit,
And ev'ry Corydon, with Nyk, acquit.
Yes by this knife, this useful14 knife, I swear,
Which for my lov'd B——tti's sake I wear;
This knife, whose haft, at Stratford Jubilee,
For ever left its parent mulberry tree;
For thence it grew, tho', tipt with steel so fine,
It now will serve to stab with, or to dine;
That tree, which late on Avon's border grew;
By Shakespeare planted; Warwick lads say true;

IMITATIONS.

Ducite ab urbe domum mea carmina ducite Daphnim.

Α'λλ' ἑκ τοι ἑῥεω, και ἑπἱ μἑγαν ὁρκον ὁμουμαι,
Ναἱ μἁ τὁδε ςκηπρον, τὁ μἑν ουποττε φυλλα και ὁζους
Φυσει, ἑπειδἡ πρωτα τομἡν ἑν ὁρεσσι λελοιπεν,
Οὑδ' ἁναθηλἡσειΟὑδ' ἁναθηλἡσει.

Hom.

Ut sceptrum hoc (sceptrum dextrâ nam fortè gerebat)
Nunquam fronde levi fundet virgulta nec umbras;
Cùm semel in sylvis imo de stirpe recisum,
Matre caret posuitque comas et brachia ferro
Olim arbos, nunc artificis manus ære decoro.
Inclusit patribusque dedit gestare Latinis.

Virg.

NOTES.

14 See the utility of this knife in a late Sessions-paper.

By this most precious relick, here I pledge
Myself to save him from the halter's edge:
And not myself alone, but ev'ry friend
Shall all his interest and assistance lend.
Quaint B——, beholding the rude mob with scorn,
Shall tell how Irish bards are gentle born;
Next I, to captivate the learned bench,
Will strait affirm that Nyky writes good French;15
Thy timid nature Johnson shall maintain,16
In words no dictionary can explain.
Goldsmith, good-natur'd man, shall next defend,
His foster-brother,17 countryman, and friend:
Shall prove the humbler passions, now and then,
Are incidental to us little men;

IMITATIONS.

Hanc ego magnanimi spolium Didymaonis hastam,
Ut semel est avulsa jugis à matre perempta,
Quæ neque jam frondes virides neque proferet umbras,
Fida ministeria et duras obit horrida pugnas
Testor.

Val. Flac.

NOTES.

15 See the Sessions-paper; in which this admirable plea is made use of by Roscius to exculpate a culprit accused of murder.

16 See the same; in which this pompous pseudo-philosopher affects to suppose cowardice incompatible with the character of an Italian bravo.

17 So called from having not long since made one in a poetical triumvirate, which gave occasion to the following verses in imitation of Dryden's famous epigram on Milton;

"Three poets in three distant ages born," &c.

And that the part our gentle Nyky play'd
Was but philosophy in masquerade.18
Let me no longer, then, my loss deplore,
But to his Roscius, Muse, my Nyk restore.

IMITATIONS.

Ducite ab urbe domum mea carmina ducite Daphnim.

NOTES.

Poor Dryden! what a theme hadst thou,
Compar'd to that which offers now?
What are your Britons, Romans, Grecians,
Compar'd with thorough-bred Milesians?
Step into Griffin's shop, he'll tell ye
Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly,
Three poets of one age and nation,
Whose more than mortal reputation,
Mounting in trio to the skies
O'er Milton's fame and Virgil's flies.
Nay, take one Irish evidence for t'other,
Ev'n Homer's self is but their foster-brother.

18 It seems indeed to be growing into fashion for philosophy to go in masquerade, if there be any truth in the subject of the following; which lately appeared in the public prints.

To Doctor Goldsmith, on seeing his name in the list of the mummers at the late masquerade.

"Say should the philosophic mind disdain
That good which makes each humbler bosom vain;
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,
Such little things are great to little man."

Goldsmith.

How widely different, Goldsmith, are the ways
Of doctors now, and those of ancient days!
Theirs taught the truth in academic shades,
Ours haunt lewd hops, and midnight masquerades!
So chang'd the times! say philosophic sage,
Whose genius suits so well this tasteful age,
Is the Pantheon, late a sink obscene,
Become the fountain of chaste Hippocrene?
Or do thy moral numbers quaintly flow
Inspir'd by th' Aganippe of Soho?

For who like him will patch and pilfer plays,
Yielding to me the profit and the praise?
Tho' cheap in French translations Murphy deals;
For cheap he well may vend the goods he steals;
Tho' modest Craddoc scorns to sell his play,
But gives the good-for-nothing thing away;
What tho' the courtly Cumberland succeeds
In writing stuff no man of letters reads;
Tho' sense and language are expell'd the stage;
For nonsense pleases best a senseless age;
What tho' the author of the New Bath Guide
Up to the skies my talents late hath cried;19

NOTES.

Do wisdom's sons gorge cates and vermicelli
Like beastly Bickerstaff or bothering Kelly?
Or art thou tir'd of th' undeserv'd applause
Bestow'd on bards affecting virtue's cause?
Wouldst thou, like Sterne, resolv'd at length to thrive,
Turn pimp and die cock-bawd at sixty-five,
Is this the good that makes the humble vain,
The good philosophy should not disdain
If so, let pride dissemble all it can,
A modern sage is still much less than man.

Morning Chronicle.

19 The compliments passed between these celebrated geniuses indeed were mutual; Mr. A. commending Roscius for his fine acting, and Roscius in return Mr. A. for his fine writing. The panegyric on both sides was equally modest and just; and yet some snarling epigrammatist could not forbear throwing out the following ill-natured jeu d'esprit on the occasion.

On the poetical compliments lately passed between Mess. G. and A.

When mincing masters, met with misses,
Pay mutual compliments for kisses;
Miss Polly sings no doubt divinely,
And master Jacky spouts as finely.
But, how I hate such odious greeting,
When two old stagers have a meeting
Foh! out upon the filthy pother!
What! men beslobber one another!

Tho' humble Hiffernan in pay, I keep,
Still my fast friend, when he is fast asleep;
Tho' long the Hodmandod my friend hath been,
With the land-tortoise earth'd at Turnham-Green:20
Tho' Harry Woodfall, Baldwin, Evans, Say,21
My puffs in fairest order full display;

NOTES.

20 Two amphibious monsters, well known in the republic of letters as editors of the Critical and Monthly Reviews. The latter seems to be compared by the poet to a land-tortoise buried in the earth, on account of the slowness of its motion and the clouds of dust and dullness with which it is surrounded: the former hath been long known by the above appellation from the following humorous description.

Lusus Naturæ Typographus.

Monstrum horrendum informe ingens cui lumen ademptum. Virg.

I thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity so abominably Shakespeare.

In Nature's workshop, on a day,
Her journeymen inclin'd to play,
Half drunk 'twixt cup and can,
Took up a clod, which she with care
Was modelling a huge sea bear,
And swore they'd make't a man.

They tried, but, handling ill their tools,
Formed, like a pack of bungling fools,
A thing so gross and odd;
That, when it roll'd about the dish,
They knew not if 'twere flesh or fish,
A man or Hodmandod.

Yet, to compleat their piece of fun,
They christen'd it Arch Hamilton;
"But what can this thing do?"
Kick it down stairs; the devil's in't
If it won't do to write and print
The Critical Review.Kenrick.

21 Editors and printers of news-papers, well known to the public for their impartiality in regard to Roscius.

Impartially insert each friendly PRO,
Suppressing ever CON of every foe;22
For well I ween, they wot that cons and pros
Will tend my faults and follies to expose:
Tho' mighty Tom doth still my champion prove,
And Lockyer's gauntlet be a chicken glove.

NOTES.

22 A recent instance of this must not pass unnoticed. In the Public Advertiser appeared lately the following quaint panegyric, suggested probably to Roscius himself by his brother George the attorney.

Nature against G——	}	Notice of Process.
		Dame Nature against G—— now by me Her action brings, and thus she grounds her plea. "I never made a man but still You acted like that man at will; Yet ever must I hope in vain To make a man like you again." Hence ruin'd totally by you, She brings her suit, &c. &c.B. Solicitor for the Plaintiff.

In reply to this notice, it is said, the defendant's plea would have appeared in the same paper; but the cause was obliged to be removed by certiorari to another court; when it appeared thus:

Nature against G——	}	Defendant's Plea.
		For G—— I without a fee 'Gainst Nature thus put in his plea. "To make a man, like me, of art, Is not, 'tis true, dame Nature's part; I own that Scrub, fool, knave I've play'd With more success than all my trade; But prove it, plaintiff, if you can, That e'er I acted like a man." Of this we boldly make denial.—— Join issue, and proceed to trial.
		A. Attorney for the Defendant.

Tho' shambling Becket,23 proud to soothe my pride,
Keeps ever shuflling on my right-hand side;
What tho' with well-tim'd flatt'ry, loud he cries,
At each theatric stare, "See, see his eyes!"
What tho' he'll fetch and carry at command,
And kiss, true spaniel-like, his master's hand;
With admiration Nyk ne'er heard me speak,
But press'd the kiss of love upon my cheek;24
Incessant clapp'd at th'end of every speech;
And, had I bidd'n him, would have kiss'd my b——!
Let me no longer, then, my loss deplore,
But to his Roscius, Muse, my Nyk restore.
But hah! what discord strikes my listening ear?
Is Nyky dead, or is some critic near?
Curse on that Ledger and that damn'd Whitehall,25
How players and managers they daily maul!

IMITATIONS.

Ducite ab urbe domum mea carmina ducite Daphnim.

NOTES.

23 The famous Thomas a Becket, feigned by the poets to have been drown'd, when, being half-seas over, in claret, he endeavoured to return to land: on which occasion a wicked wit of the town made the following epitaph for his tomb.

Here lies
That shuffling, shambling, shrugging, shrinking shrimp,
Tom Becket, Mammon's most industrious imp!

24 A customary method it seems, of Nyky's expressing his admiration of the acting of the immortal Roscius.

25 News-papers so called, in which Roscius is not a sharer, and hath not yet come up to the price of their silence.

Curse on that Morning-Chronicle; whose tale
Is never known with spightful wit to fail.
Curse on that Foote; who in ill-fated hour
Trod on the heels of my theatric-power;
Who, ever ready with some biting joke,
My peace hath long and would my heart have broke.
Curse on his horse—one leg! but ONE to break!
"A kingdom for a horse"—to break his neck!
Curse on that Stevens,26 with his Irish breeding,
While I am acting, shall that wretch be reading?
Curse on all rivals, or in fame or profit;
The Fantoccini still make something of it!27

NOTES.

26 George Alexander Stevens the lecturer, not the Macaroni editor of Shakespeare.

27 What formidable rivals to the immortal Roscius? Harlequin, Scaramouch, Chimney-sweeper, Bass-viol, Astrologer, Child, Statue and Parrot! But Roscius having received a formal challenge from Mr. Punch and his merry family, a pitch'd-battle, for which great preparations are now making, will be fought between them next winter; when there is no doubt but the triumphant Roscius will, even at their own weapons, rout them all. There is the less reason to fear this, as he hath already exceeded even Mr.—— 's activity in King Richard. It is but three or four years ago since this mock-monarch died so tamely that he was hissed off the stage; on which occasion the following epigram appeared in the papers.

Roscius redivivus.

George! did'nt I hear the critics hiss,
When I was dead?—"Yes, brother, yes,
You did not die in high rant."
Nay, if they think a dying king
Like Harlequin convuls'd, should spring,
Let —— be hence their tyrant.

Curse on that Kenrick,28 with his caustic pen,
Who scorns the hate, and hates the love of MEN;
Who with such ease envenom'd satire writes,
Deeper his ink than aqua fortis29 bites.
Stand his perpetual-motion30 ever still;
Or, if it move, oh, let it move uphill.
The curse of Sisiphus, oh, let him feel;
The curse of Fortune's still recurring wheel;

NOTES.

Roscius, however, hath chang'd his mind, and acquired new elastic powers; in so much that the following complimentary verses appeared on the agility, which he lately displayed in the performance of that character.

Be dumb, ye criticks, dare to hiss no more
While crowded boxes, pit and galleries roar.
Who says that Roscius feels the hand of Time,
To blast his blooming laurels in their prime?
With ever supple limbs and pliant tongue,
Roscius, like Hebe, will be ever young.
See and believe your eyes——did e'er you see
So great a feat of pure agility?
Nor Hughes nor Astley, vaulting in the air,
Like Roscius makes the struck spectators stare.
Nor Lun nor Woodward ever gave the spring,
He gave last night in Richard, dying king!
Th' immortal actor, who can die so clever,
In spite of fate will live to die for ever!

28
A Briton blunt, bred to plain mathematics,
Who hates French b—gres, and Italian pathics.

29 The plaintive Roscius seems here to have an eye to the following lines:

The wits who drink water, and suck sugar-candy,
Impute the strong spirit of Kenrick to brandy.
They are not so much out: the matter in short is
He sips aqua-vitæ and spits aqua-fortis.Public Adv.

30 This multifarious genius pretends to have discovered the Perpetual motion, but it must be a mere pretence; as he is weak enough to think the public ought to reward him for his discovery, and offers to disclose it on the simple terms of no purchase no pay.

That upward roll'd with anxious toil and pain,
The summit almost gain'd, rolls back again.
Ne'er shall his Falstaff31 come again to life;
Ne'er shall be play'd again his Widow'd Wife;32
Ne'er will I court again his stubborn Muse,
But for a pageant would his play refuse.
While puff and pantomime will gull the town,
'Tis good to keep o'erweening merit down;
With Bickerstaff and Cumberland go shares,
And grind the poets as I grind the players.

IMITATIONS.

Aut petes aut urges ruiturum, Sysiphe, saxum.

NOTES.

31 Falstaff's Wedding, a play written in imitation of Shakespeare; at first rejected, as unfit for the theatre, on account of having so many of Shakespeare's known characters in it; tho' the manager himself afterwards brought on a pageant, in which were almost all Shakespeare's known characters; when finding it difficult to make any of them speak with propriety, he contented himself with instructing them to bite their thumbs, screw up their mouths, and make faces at each other, to the great edification of the audience.—This play indeed was afterwards performed, and tho' received with the most confirmed and general applause, has however never since been acted, either for the author's emolument or the entertainment of the publick.

32 Another comedy, nearly under the same predicament with respect to the town: having been performed but once since its first run, tho' received with similar approbation; the manager in the mean while having brought on, and repeatedly acted, the performances of his favourite play-wrights, to almost empty houses: and yet Roscius hath all the while pretended to have the highest opinion of the talents, and the greatest regard for the interest of the writer.—— The manager claims a legal right, indeed, as patentee, to perform what plays he pleases; but tho' the play-house and patent be his property, he has no liberal right to make, at pleasure, a property of the players, the poets and the publick!

Curse on that Kenrick, foul of spleen and whim!
What are my puffs, and what my gains to him?
If poor and proud, can he of right complain
That wealthier men and wittier are as vain?
Why must he hint that I am past my prime,
To blast my fading laurels ere their time?
Death to my fame, and what, alas, is worse,
'Tis death, damnation, to my craving purse;
Capacious purse! by Plutus form'd to hold,
(The God of Wealth) the devil and all of gold.
Insatiate purse, that never yet ran o'er,
But swallows all, and gapes, like Hell, for more.
And yet, alas! how much the world will lye!
They call me miser; but no miser I;
He, brooding o'er his bags, delighted sits,
And laughs to scorn the jests of envious wits;
If fast his doors, he sets his heart at rest,
And dotes with rapture on his iron chest;
No galling paper-squibs his spirits teize,
But ev'n the boys may hoot him if they please.
He scorns the whistling of an empty name,
While I am torn 'twixt avarice and fame;

IMITATIONS.

Sordidus ac dives, populi contemnere voces
Si solitus: populus me sibilat: at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arcâ.

While I, so tremblingly alive all o'er,
Still bleed and agonize at every pore;
At ev'ry hiss am harrow'd up with fear,
And burst with choler at a critic's sneer.
Rack'd by the gout and stone, and struck with age,
Prudence and Ease advise to quit the stage;
But Fame still prompts, and Pride can feel no pain;
And Avarice bids me sell my soul for gain.
Bring Nyky back, O Muse! by verse divine,
The Trojan-Greeks were once transformed to swine.
By verse divine B——tti 'scap'd the rope:
Now love is known, what may not lovers hope!
Ev'n as with Griffins33 stallions late have join'd
With blood-hounds goats may litter, as in kind;

IMITATIONS.

Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina ducite Daphnim:
Carminibus Circe socios mutavit Ulyssei:
Carmina vel cœlo possunt deducere lunam.
Nunc scio quid sit amor——
—— —— quid non speremus amantes?
Jungentur jam Gryphes equis, ævoque sequenti
Cum canibus timidi venient ad pocula damæ.
Torva leæna lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam,
Te Corydon, O Alexis: trahit sua quemque voluptas.

NOTES.

33 Unnatural monsters, familiar only with the poets.

Nay wanton kids devouring wolves may greet,
And wolves with loving lyonesses meet.
By different means is different love made known.
And each fond lover will prefer his own.
Strange lot of love! two friends, my soul's delight,
Men call that M——r, this a Catamite!
Yet bring him back; for who chaste roundelay
Shall sing, now B—st—ff is driv'n away?
Who now correct, for modest Drury-lane,
Loose Wycherly's or Congreve's looser vein?
With nice decorum shunning naughty jokes,
Exhibit none but decent, dainty folks?34
Ah me! how wanton wit will shame the stage,
And shock this delicate, this virtuous age!

NOTES.

34 Nyky was employed by Roscius to correct the Plain-dealer of Wycherly; which he accordingly attempted, and inscribed the attempt to his patron, "as a tribute of affection and esteem for his many shining and amiable qualities." "The licentiousness of Wycherly's muse," says this modern corrector, "rendered her shocking to us, with all her charms: or, in other words, we could allow no charms in a tainted beauty, who brought contagion along with her." Of the play of the Plain-dealer, in particular, he intimates that it had been long excluded the theatre; because, to the honour of the present age, it was immoral and indecent: that on a close examination, he found in it excessive obscenity; that the character of Manly was rough even to outrageous brutality; and that he thought it necessary to work the whole materials up again, with a mixture of alloy agreeable to the rules of modern refinement! See Preface to B—— ff's Plain-dealer. What a champion for decency and delicacy, morality and humanity! What improvement may not sterling wit receive from the mixture of such alloy! What an idea may we not hence acquire of modern refinement!

How will Plain-dealers35 triumph, to my sorrow!
And Paphos rise o'er Sodom and Gomorrah!

NOTES.

35 A character thus admirably depicted by Wycherly, in the scene between Manly and Plausible.

Manly. I have more of the mastiff than the spaniel in me, I own it: I cannot fawn, and fetch and carry; neither will I ever practise that servile complaisance, which some people pique themselves on being masters of.—— I will not whisper my contempt or hatred; call a man fool or knave by signs and mouths, over his shoulder; while I have him in my arms: I will not, as you do——

Plausible. As I do! Heaven defend me! upon my honour! I never attempted to abuse or lessen any one in my life.

Manly. What! you were afraid?

Plausible. No: but seriously I hate to do a rude thing. No, faith, I speak well of all mankind.

Manly. I thought so: but know that this is the worst sort of detraction, for it takes away the reputation of the few good men in the world by making all alike! Now I speak ill of many men, because they deserve it.

APPENDIX.

Certain circumstances, to which the author of the foregoing piece was an utter stranger, having happened about the time of its publication, and given rise to rumours equally false and foreign to the party; it appears that Roscius, or some of his friends, was pleased to insert the following queries in the Morning Chronicle of July 2d.

"Candour presents her compliments to Mr.——, she begs his pardon,—— to Dr.—— Kenrick, and desires to ask him a few simple questions; to which, if he be the Plain-dealer he pretends, he will give a plain and direct answer.

Query I. Whether you are not the author of the eclogue, entitled, Love in the Suds, as well as of the letter prefixed to it?

II. Whether you did not mean, though you have artfully evaded the law, by affecting the translation of a classical cento, to throw out the most scandalous insinuations against the character of Roscius?

III. Whether you were not likewise the author of an infamous, anonymous paragraph in a public paper; for which that paper is under a just prosecution?

IV. Whether you have not openly acknowledged notwithstanding, that you really entertained a very different opinion of Roscius?

V. Whether any cause of dispute, that might subsist between you and Roscius, can authorize so cruel, so unmanly an attack?

VI. Whether the brother of Roscius did not personally wait on you to require, in his name, the satisfaction of a gentleman, which you refused him?

CANDOUR." 27

To these queries, the author judged it expedient to make the following reply in the same paper of July 4th.

To CANDOUR.

Madam,

"Though I think your signature a misnomer, to shew that I a no stranger to the name and quality you assume, I shall not stand on the punctilio of your being an anonymous querist; but answer your several questions explicitly.

I. I am the author of the eclogue you mention.

II. I did not mean to throw out the most scandalous insinuations on the character of Roscius, nor any insinuation more scandalous than his conduct. How far that has been so, he knows best, and is left to make the application.

III. An infamous paragraph I cannot write; and an anonymous one I will not write, to prejudice my greatest enemy. As to that in question, I have not, to this hour, even seen it. Calumny I detest; but I think vice should be exposed to infamy, nor have I so much false delicacy as to conceive, it should be treated with tenderness in proportion as it is abominable.

IV. I have not acknowledged that I entertain a very different opinion of Roscius; on the contrary, I declare, that I entertain a very indifferent opinion of him.

V. As to the cause of our dispute, I should be very ready to submit it to the publick, were I egotist enough to think it deserved their attention.

VI. The brother of Roscius did personally wait on me, to desire I would meet "him, the said Roscius, who would bring a friend with him; I being at liberty to do the same;" but as nothing of time, place, or weapon was mentioned, I did not look on this message as a challenge; nor well could I, as I never heard of requiring gentleman's satisfaction by letter of attorney, and the professed end of our meeting 28 turned merely on a matter of business.—It is possible, indeed, the messenger, otherwise instructed, might imagine it such, especially as, it seems, his head has teemed with nothing but challenges and duels, since his magnanimous monomachy with one of his brother Roscius's candle-snuffers.—That Roscius himself, however, did not mean to send me a challenge, is plain, from his solliciting afterwards by letter, a conference in the presence only of a common friend to both: a request that would have been complied with, had not he thought proper, in a most ungentleman-like manner, to make a confidant, in the meantime, of a booby of a bookseller, who had the folly and impudence to declare that he would, on his [Roscius's] account, take an opportunity to do me some desperate mischief.—Lest I should be yet supposed, from the purport of this last query, to have any fear of a personal encounter with the doughty Roscius, I require only that it may be on an equal footing. I am neither so extravagantly fond of life, nor think myself so consequential in it, as to fear the end of it from such an antagonist; nor, to say the truth, should I have any qualms of conscience, if nothing less will satisfy him, about putting an end to so insignificant a being as his: but, as "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," it is but right to provide against a mishap. Roscius has a large fortune, and little or no family to leave it to: I have a large family, and little or no fortune to leave it. Let Roscius but previously settle only half his estate on my heirs, on condition that he deprives them of a protector, and I will meet him to-morrow, and engage at his own weapons, not only him, but his brother George into the bargain.36

And now, Madam Candour, give me leave to ask you a question or two, in my turn. 29

Qu. I. Whether, from many gross instances of misbehaviour, Roscius hath not long had sufficient reason to suspect the detestable character of Nyky?

II. Whether, therefore, granting Roscius to be himself immaculate, he is excusable for his notorious partialities to such a character?

III. Whether he has any right to complain of unjust severity, in being ludicrously reproached with such partialities, by a writer, whom he hath treated, even in favour of that very wretch, with disrespect, with insolence, with injustice.

W. KENRICK."

36 The above pleasantry being misconstrued by some of Roscius's friends to the disadvantage of the author, the latter thought himself under the necessity of seriously acquainting the former, of his being ready, as he is, at any time, to give him such satisfaction as a gentleman, who supposes himself injured, has a right to require.

Instead of candidly replying, however, to the above three queries, a very difficult task, indeed, to Roscius, he caused the Court of King's Bench to be moved for a rule to shew cause, why leave should not be given him to file an information against the author for a libel: which being granted of course, the same was exultingly announced in the following paragraphs inserted in all the news-papers:

"Yesterday morning Mr. Dunning made a motion in the Court of King's Bench, for a rule to shew cause why an information should not be laid against the author of Love in the Suds. When the court was pleased to grant a rule for the first day of next term. The poem was read in court by the Clerk of the Crown, and afforded no small diversion when it came to that part which reflects upon a certain Chief Justice, who was present all the time.

"Besides Mr. Wallace and Mr. Dunning, who are employed by great actor, in his prosecution of some detestable charges which have been lately urged with as much folly as wickedness against his character, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Mansfield are also engaged, and the cause now becomes a matter of much expectation with the publick."

To these paragraphs the author judged it necessary to make the following reply, in the above-mentioned Morning Chronicle; almost all the rest of the news-papers, by the indefatigable industry 30 and powerful influence of Roscius, a proprietor in most of them, being shut against him.

The Author of Love in the Suds to the Printer of the Morning Chronicle.

SIR,

"In reprehending others you should ever be cautious of falling into the error you condemn. In yesterday's paper you indirectly charge me, among others, with having "urged a detestable charge with as much folly as wickedness against a certain great actor."—What other people have done I know not, nor does it concern me; but I may safely defy all the Lawyers in Westminster-Hall fairly to deduce such a charge as you hint at from the eclogue in question. In this respect it is certainly as innocent as the great actor's Jubilee Ode! But granting it otherwise with any one else, how can you take upon you to say that such a charge is urged foolishly and wickedly? Can you know it to be false or groundless? And if not, on what grounds do you charge the accusers with folly and wickedness? Why does not the Candour of the great actor, reply to the Queries put to him in your paper of Saturday last? But no; unable to justify himself at the bar of the publick, he flies for refuge to the quirks and quibbles of Westminster-Hall; and even this at the latter end of a term, in order to deceive the town into a notion that the court will countenance his prosecution. Why was not his motion made sooner, that cause might have been shewn in time, and the futility of it made immediately evident? Believe me, Sir, before an end is put to this business, the publick will be better enabled to judge on which side the folly and wickedness lies, than you appear to do at present.

I am,
yours, &c.
W. K.

FINIS.

Shortly will be published,

LETTER

DAVID GARRICK, Esq.

OCCASIONED

By his moving the Court of King's Bench, for Leave to file an Information against the Author of Love in the Suds, or the Lamentation of Roscius for the Loss of his Nyky.—— In which the real Purport of that Performance, with the Motives for its publication will be explained and justified.

BY THE AUTHOR.

——mitto maledicta omnia:
Rem ipsam putemus.Adelphi.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40188 ***