University of Virginia Library

If such heroes and nymphs are scarce worth critic powder,
In the Drama's vast regiment no bipeds are louder;
And tho' all may be class'd as the Scions of Nature,
There's none deserve rank in my proud nomenclature;
See! they look dim and sculking, like Ivy-lane bards,
Or club's dingy knave on an old pack of cards;
Or Falstaff's recruits, or a limb of the law,
When Loughborough chills the black caitiff with awe;
But these children of Nothingness feed the depravity,
By viewing their size in the mirror's concavity:
A great part were engender'd, when Nature was tir'd
With chisseling beings the world have admir'd;
As Augustus turns buttons, and Louis seize dances,
When matters of moment have moider'd their fancies:
So Wedgwood, when all the fine clay is destroy'd,
Which in elegant forms he so ably employ'd;
To fulfil and amuse his industrious wishes,
Manufactures and kneads hideous pipkins and dishes.
But the Stage, like a huge caravan, takes in all,
The erect, the infirm, lofty, worthless, and small;
Like Debret's Foundling Hospital, issued each season,
Where dolts rank as wits, who have scarce human reason.—
Yet among them some few have deserv'd Merit's wreath,
As health-giving herbs deck the russet-clad heath;
And Fame says no object more strongly can please her,
Than when men in the ranks own the soul of a Cæsar.
Like Stevens and Rock, who both honor probation,
And in humble attempts seize the Town's estimation;
A few grains of true worth in their characters settle,
As chalybeate waters are freighted with metal;
Which receiv'd in small draughts do the animal good,
But if ta'en in large goblets would sicken the blood.—
Stern Cubit's low life is an excellent test,
For his Gibbet was ne'er better play'd or exprest;
And Gardener's broad firm manly figure contributes
To keep scenic Lords from Derision's high gibbets.—
Poor Thompson the modest, first stole on the scene,
Incrusted with baseness, repulsive and mean;
So the bodies of mummies are hid with asphalthum,
For thus Zeal deck'd the breathless, when Zeal would exalt 'em;
But the labours of Habit have made him a new-man,
As she lick'd off his filth, till the oaf appear'd human.
As for Blurton, and Bonville, and Painter, and Helme,
Who're created each muse to oppress and o'erwhelm;
Fame throws them in heaps with contemptuous quickness,
As Turks use the dead in a national sickness.—
Mark the old tabby Davenet, Tweedale, and Brangin,
Who are ever on tags of false rhetoric hanging;
'Tis strange, but these grubs view a town-favour'd sister,
With a scowl that speaks plainly they wish to resist her;
And greedily look with an eye as voracious
As intent, as all-grasping, as fierce and rapacious,
As the nurse views our cash on a baptismal night,
Or a miser the means of terrestial delight;
Or an Africain chieftain his enemy slain,
Or a kite who's long flitted o'er Sarum's wide plain;
Or a virgin who's hopes are decay'd she once built on,
Or the liveried sharks of great Pembroke at Wilton!—
Tho' each minx knows I'm right, yet like villains in grain,
There's not one will confess that there's fact in my strain;
And if forc'd to speak truth, they as tremblingly tell it,
As the hand which bestows the first-fruits of a prelate;
Or Melpomene's arm over Gower-street dishes,
When she carves fatless joints—for the slaves of her wishes;
Who sit in pale congress, encircling that place,
Where she measures banyan—for her circumscrib'd race.

As the theme is exhausted that first fed its fire,
I'll resign to Repose, both myself and my lyre;
Now Satire is dumb, let the miscreant rejoice
That Indolence fetters the springs of his voice:
Farewel to the buskin, the sock, and the truncheon,
Now Folly may riot, and Vice chew her luncheon;
Gaunt Falsehood and Fraud will mislead Britain's youth,
As the diurnal puff shall eclipse antient Truth:
Be pert, ye base sinners, for who can ye dread,
Now Equity's silenc'd, and Chastisement dead?
Now the mean and malicious may crawl from their dens,
And kick the deserving, and brandish their pens;
Dame Linley may cripple Old Drury at pleasure,
And Sheridan seize—the superfluous treasure!!!
While Kemble, who Joy's roseate family slashes,
Shall dress all the Muses—in sackloth and ashes.

E'en that august Bard must my senses resign,
Imperial Shakespeare, supreme and divine.
As the clay of his frame lay benumb'd in a dream,
On the violet-clad bank of smooth Avon's clear stream,
The Genius of Albion defended his slumbers,
Lest Guilt should obtrude, and disjoint his sweet numbers:
The Muses, tho' coy to the rest of mankind,
Ran jocund to light the vast caves of his mind;
Bore his harp to Minerva, who marshall'd its sound,
And hung Fancy's elegant symbols around;
As the sacred minstrel imbib'd in his thought,
All that Destiny will'd, or that Heaven had wrought;
With his keen mental eye Nature's source to discern,
Pass'd o'er the dread fence of Mortality's bourn;
Presum'd thro' the mists of Tartarean gloom,
And hail'd the lean Fates at their ominous loom;
Dash'd the horrors he saw with his spell working pen,
Then awoke with the scroll to raise wonder mid men.—
But should I lament in prophetic despair,
Should my song be replete with the axioms of care;
When a Star in the East, all resplendently rises,
Which Phœbus illumines, and Excellence prizes?
Its appearance proclaims that Offence is suppress'd,
That Candour shall govern, and Talents be bless'd:
So in Bethlem the light 'midst the peasantry shone,
And gave to Hope's bosom sweet transports unknown;
Its radiant beam waken'd Raptures within,
And promis'd Redemption from Sadness and Sin.—
—May no mean narrow maxims oppose its progression,
May no sinister tyrants enchain the profession;
May its influence be broad as the realms of the day,
Where Wit, without insult, may offer his lay;
May its members be brilliant in wish and in action,
May theit deeds give the lie to the page of detraction;
May the lovely Pierides temper their fire,
And point out those chords on the Orphean lyre,
By which the young Thracian subdu'd the wild throng,
And forc'd savage Nature to melt at his song.
May its base by the wealthy and wise be supported,
May its firmest adherents be cherish'd and courted;
May the smiles of Morality shield its good name,
And the pen of bright Genius consign it to Fame!