Love In The Suds: A Town Eclogue Part 1

Love in the Suds: a Town Eclogue.

by William Kenrick.

To DAVID GARRICK, Esq.

SIR,

The author of the following Eclogue, having requested my a.s.sistance 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 ent.i.tled 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 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 acc.u.mulated 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.

LOVE in the SUDS; A TOWN ECLOGUE.

BEING THE LAMENTATION of ROSCIUS FOR THE LOSS of his NYKY.

_Dixin' ego vobis, in hoc esse Atticam elegantiam?_ TER.

_O me inselicem!---- ----quae laudaram quantum luctus habuerint!_

PHaeD.

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.

LOVE in the SUDS;

A

TOWN ECLOGUE.

Whither away, now, GEORGE[1], 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.

Boeotian Nymphs, my favorite verse inspire; As erst ye NYKY taught to strike the lyre.

For he like PHOEBUS' 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, Moeri, pedes; an qu via ducit in urbem?

Nymphae, noster amor, Libethrides, nunc mihi carmen, Quale meo Codro, concedite; proxima Phoebi 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 PEGGY[2] 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; Boeotian 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.

---- ---- Saepe ego longos Cantando puerum memini me condere soles Nunc oblita mihi tot carmina: vox quoque Moerim Jam fugit ipsa---- Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque.

---- Musae paul majora canamus.

---- Hylan nautae quo fonte relictum Clama.s.sent; 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 sh.e.l.l, To hills and dales my pa.s.sion 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, b.u.t.ting in play, as brother might with brother.

Unhappy NYKY, whither dost thou stray, Lost to thy friends, o'er hills and far away?

IMITATIONS.