Love In The Suds: A Town Eclogue Part 4

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 d.a.m.n'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, Ba.s.s-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 fortis[29] bites.

Stand his perpetual-motion[30] 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-vitae _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 FALSTAFF[31] 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 c.u.mBERLAND 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!