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Our author does not here allude to the names quoted, so much as to the many peers not less distinguished by their merit than their rank, to whom Dryden, Pope, and Young addressed most of their works. But our present peers are of a very different cast. What, for instance, are we to think of the Duke of Dorset, when we are told that two clergymen being candidates for a living in his Grace's presentation, he bestowed it on the best batsman!

The book of books, according to Sir William Pulteney, is his banker's book, with which he constantly follows the advice of Horace.

The richness of Sir W's purse is only equalled by the poverty of his spirit. One day he sent in great haste for Mr. S***, M. P. his brewer; who being ushered into the Baronet's presence, was informed, very seriously, that two barrels of the beer he had sent in-six months before, had suffered a little by a thunder storm, and wished to know what he could afford to give for it. “Give? Nothing,” replied George, “if it is sour.” The Baronet, extremely shagreened, said, “Come, come, you must offer me something. You know you can always throw it among your other beer, and the sourness will not be perceived.” S. after much entreaty, agreed to give about four shillings and sixpence for the two barrels, which the Baronet accepted, and they were accordingly conveyed to the brew-house. This bargain struck, Sir W. proposed to sell him, very cheap, some cyder of his own making, “which,” said he, “you'll send to your public houses, and they'll soon put it off amongst their customers, I warrant you.” Here George declared that he had taken the sour beer to oblige Sir W. but he'd be d---d if he'd have any thing to do with his sour cyder. Hic finis fandi: and they parted in a humour not much sweeter than the subjects that had occasioned their meeting.

Εκηβολος Απολλων. A title given to Apollo, by Homer, on account of his darting his rays to every quarter of the globe.

Chryses, Homer tells us, was the priest of Apollo.

Ambrosia signifies any thing immortal; and, from its having the power of bestowing immortality, was said to be eaten or drunk by the gods. See note to v. 71. Ecl. 5. in Delph. Ed. Virg.

Æn. VI. v. 258.

We have often dined with Lord Eardley, and observed that the first thing he does is to cast his eye over the several dishes on the table, and if there chance to be pork, in any shape, either leg, spare-rib, griskin, bacon, ham, or even a sausage, he instantly dispatches his plate for a part of it, to avoid being taken for a Jew. However, we can assure his Lordship that a man is not the less a Jew for eating pork, than the Duke of York is a husband because he happens to love his wife.

The Jews, says Juvenal, took pity on their pigs, and let them live to a good old age.

Happy the pig that liv'd in ancient days!!

The esteem in which the works of the multitudinous commentators on Shakspeare are held will appear obvious from the great price given for the old editions of our bard, which we cannot attribute to any thing more than to their being free from the gloomy elucidations of such glossographers as Mr. Malone, and we are of opinion that a Shakspeare, escaped from all his commentators, must be considered as one amongst the innumerable desiderata in English literature.

The reason why Mr. Malone did not go to see Ireland's Irish Shakspeare was not, as it was industriously reported, because he was sure the papers were illegitimate, but because he was conscious that he was no judge, if he saw them, whether they were so or not, and therefore thought it better to leave it to the public to decide for him. Nor did a bulky volume he wrote, replete with commonplace arguments and misrepresentations, to prove that they were spurious, appear until the fallacy of them was unequivocally established.

We do not wish, however, to discourage Mr. Malone, as a commentator, by any means, but we wish him to learn the weight his shoulders can bear, before he takes up the load in earnest. Doctor Johnson declared that he thought Mr. Steevens very able to write a commentary on Tom Thumb:—what if Mr. M. was to try his genius on Jack Hickathrift, or Jack the Giant-killer?

Soph. Œdip. Tyr. v. 161.

Αργυροτοξος. An appellation for Apollo, so well known among the ancients that it was unnecessary to add a proper name to it.

Homer's Ευκνημιδες ακαιοι seems to have hinted this epithet to the poet.

The Duke of Marlborough's mother fell in love with the tutor to the Duke's sons, who, on condition that he relinquished all thoughts of the old girl, was preferred in the church, by his Grace's intercession, until he at length became Archbishop of Canterbury. Lately, another of the clergy, Mr. Nares, an ir-reverend dog, very likely in consequence of the prelate's success, has run away with one of his daughters. The Duke, however, need not much lament the match, as an alliance with the Church does not promise to lower the pride of the family, which is what he seems most to value in this world.

Holcroft is one of those Plebeii Philosophi, the bottom of whose tub, like that of Diogenes, will not bear too close an examination. As the pride of the philosopher was said to be seen through his rags, so may we see the most evident aristocratical disposition in Mr. H's most democratical actions.

We hear that Mr. H. is exceedingly fond and careful of the Rosinante he rides in the park, to enjoy in idea the digito monstrari, et dicier: Hic est, for the benefit of his health: seeing him well fed, rubbed down, and kept in the best condition. If this be true, we, knowing his conduct towards his children, can only observe, with a trifling alteration, what Ælian reports the cynic philosopher of Sinope to have said of the Megarians. Εβουλετο Μεγαρεως ανδρος κριος ειναι μαλλον η υιος. We would rather be his horse than his son.

Georg. I. v. 512. We are aware that Servius does not admit these lines to be intended by Virgil as a simile; however, as such they answered our author's purpose, and he has availed himself of a very good translation.

When these two Gentlemen are loud in their clamour for reform, and condemn with virulence the conduct of ministers, this is the reply which should be invariably made to them: “Whatever you find amiss in us, mend in yourselves.” At present, as Plutarch observes, they are physicians to others at the time they are themselves completely covered with ulcers. Αλλων ιατρος, αυτος ελκεσι βρυων

Mr. Fox's late behaviour has, however, exculpated him from the odium of deceit; for he proved, in the highest degree, the sincerity of his wishes for a reform, when he declared, in his speech on Mr. Grey's motion, that “he should certainly think himself justified in giving more of his time to his own private concerns than he had hitherto done, and less of it to fruitless (a many meaning word) exertions in that house.” This is the act of Wisdom! And we cannot help saying to the remainder of Opposition, “Go thou and do like-wise.”

We confess that we have often been struck with the resemblance that exists between certain opposition members and a mountebank assisted by two Merry Andrews. Fox, like the mountebank, speaks to his auditors as seriously as he is able— then either Sheridan or Courtenay, his two Merry Andrews, comes forward, and endeavours by his whimsicality to aid the manœuvres of his master. But is this what we expect from men elected to meet and deliberate for the welfare of a kingdom? Surely not! and we lament to see Sheridan, who is capable of better things, make himself

We all, in every station, oppose the thing that militates against our pleasure. The gentlemen who review in the British Critic, clearly evince, by their observations on Mr. Adam Clarke's dissertation on the use and abuse of tobacco, how much they feel themselves affected by his expositions of its baneful effects. Added to what Mr. C. says against it, J. Helvigius asserts that two Dutchmen died apoplectic immediately after smoaking, and the head of one being opened, they found his brain entirely wasted; notwithstanding which, these critical gentlemen, through fear, or hope, or love of the vice, oppose the opinion strenuously, and are bold enough to declare that “they know no instance of men whose brains have been obliterated or tarnished by smoaking.” This is affirming much, and we fear for the sake of opposition rather than from self-experience.

When the friends of the youngest Thellusson proposed making him a member of parliament, he said, “he did not understand exactly what it was to be in parliament, or what they meant by constituents in the country; but if there was any necessity to go backwards and forwards for their orders, he'd be d---d if he could not trot down as fast as any member of parliament in the kingdom.

The City Light Horse, a corps of which Master Charles is a redoubted member, being tam coquo quam marte, instituted, at the commencement of their peaceable campaign, a mess three times a week at the British Coffee-house, and three times at the London Tavern. It soon dwindled, however, for private reasons, to once a week at each, and at present the gallant corps, wishing, without doubt, to avoid shedding blood, dine but once a month at the British.

A further anecdote of this hopeful family.—The other member-brother, about two months after he had bought his seat, coming into Drury-Lane theatre when the house had broke up, began talking vehemently of something very strange which had happened that night in the course of the debate. “A thing, Sir,” said he, to an old gentleman, “that never happened before.”—“In your remembrance, I presume you mean,” replied the other.

For all the new-fangled doctrine and insane philosophy with which Messrs. Godwin and Holcroft have filled their volumes, they are indebted to an ingenious but hair-brained unprofitable Frenchman, whose way of thinking and mode of reasoning so much delighted them, that they kept him for a considerable time at their mutual expence; and after pleasing themselves for many months with chasing the gaudy butterflies the Frenchman let loose to divert them, they at length presented the public with a great deal of pomp and circumstance, the subjects of their entertainment. We may say of the works of these gentlemen what Johnson said of Priestley's Theology, “they tend to unsettle every thing, and yet settle nothing.”

It must be a matter of special ridicule to see a man, like Godwin, undertake, as he does in his Essays, to point out the inelegancies, &c. in the language of the first writers of the two last centuries, while he is continually betraying an unpardonable ignorance of the commonest rules of grammar. Witness his XIV. Essay, page 120. “He grows hourly more estranged to (from) the liberal sentiments of equality.” Sic passim.

Hom.

De Lolme, who wrote on the constitution a most valuable and admired work, is suffered to feel the pangs of want, and the inflictions of disease, unpitied and unrelieved. Some trifle has been sent him by the Literary Fund, to which he was necessitated to apply; but we have heard of no other succour he has received. That such a man should need wherewith to buy him bread is a disgrace to any civilized country in which he may live, and we sincerely hope it will be soon removed from our own. Juvenal, thy words have been realized:

How, Fortune, art thou hateful, for passing over such a being, to pour thy favours into the lap of Folly or of Vice.

There are many in this kingdom who vainly expect to eternize their memory by building monuments of various descriptions, while they permit men to die in want, the opitulation of whom, would have raised a pile, in the eyes of humanity that ages yet to come would hail with blessings.

But, stranger yet than all, it is, that there lives a man, who by lofty structures would perpetuate a name, the remembrance of which can never exist unaccompanied by disgrace; and thus fixes he an eternal blush on the cheek of his whole posterity. If such men are not willing to gain a renown for good deeds, they had better seek oblivion than fame—

Sir James Marriot, judge of the High Court of Admiralty, is one also who imagines that adorning the place where his remains are to be deposited will form a brighter trait in his memory than would the record of his having expended the same sum in relieving the distresses of the living. Sir James, (unlike Mausolus, who left it to his wife) has himself erected a Mausoleum at his country seat, for this purpose, and exhibits it to his visitors with remarks replete with all the whim, wit, and humor, that distinguish those of the Cicerone of Westminster Abbey. He has also written his epitaph, which is equally remarkable for its extreme modesty as for the wonderful truths it contains.

Hom.

That is, we suppose, the one for making out checks, and the other for writing policies—Mr. Boaden having been a banker's clerk, and Mr. Andrews, M. P. being an underwriter.

We are not certain whether the lady Mr. Andrews keeps is here alluded to, but we should think she is, as we do not know any other muse he has who ever does him that favour.

We refer the reader to Mr. Andrews's epilogues for the true bathos of wit, and the pure “lapidary style” of poetry. His epilogue to Reynolds's comedy, called Fortune's Fool, would disgrace the lamplighter's address to their worthy masters and mistresses at Christmas. And, from such a specimen, we doubt whether they would accept him for their laureat. However, we have heard it said that it is not wholly the production of the great legislator, playwright, gunpowder merchant, epilogue-maker, and underwriter, but composed at a tavern by subscription,— Morton, Pasquin, Andrews, Mundin, Boaden, and several others being present. And hence we learn, before this mighty epilogue

Juv. VI. v. 129.

Our author here imitates the great Homer, and not unhappily.

Il. I. v. 403.

Mr. Boaden was christened or named (for whether he be Jew or Christian we know not) James, but he is better known, among the players, and his friends by the name of Billy, which name he acquired through his excessive vanity, avowing himself equal to Shakspeare, and that he soon expected to give “Billy the go bye.”

Mr. Boaden assures every body that he has a niche appointed for him in the Abbey whenever he dies. But we presume, if we may be allowed a pun, that he only has an itch to have one, without seriously intending to carry his intolerable vanity so far as the grave.

We are told that Mr. Boaden absolutely offered to turn a comedy, refused by Mr. Harris, which he sent to Drury-Lane, into a tragedy, on Mr. Wroughton assuring him that it was much too dull for comedy.

When Lord Cawdor came from Wales to give an account of his having secured the French invaders, he was so determined to impress the Duke of York with an opinion of his bravery and warlike disposition, that he never had his cloaths brushed or his boots cleaned while he was in town, but continually went to the Duke's levee, with a long rusty sword by his side, and accoutred in the Belligerent-like condition we have just described. On which the Duke of York one day pleasantly observed, that “he imagined Lord Cawdor intended to preserve his sword, boots, and gauntlets, as they were, in the archives of his house, to commemorate the service he had seen and rendered his country.” It would, however, be better, perhaps, if his Lordship should devote them to his tutelar saint, Saint David, in imitation of the ancients, who, whenever they escaped any imminent danger, (like the present for instance) constantly consecrated some memorial of it in the temples of their Gods.

Mr. Harris is to authors and players,

If a player, in a provincial company, makes any stand, he or she is instantly decoyed to London, to alarm the other actors, who would otherwise be often demanding an increase of salary. Their novelty attracts for some time, but, when that terminates, they are left out of every play, or put in characters of the least importance, till at length, tired of waiting, and wishing rather to play for nothing than not play at all, they agree to relinquish their engagement, to which the manager, having accomplished his object, very readily consents. They then go into the country, and find that, where they were before esteemed, they are now slighted and despised. And this they totally owe to falling into the hands of such a manager as Harris, who, by repressing their abilities, made them miserable in town, and utterly ruined them in the country.

Such is the character of this man, that his most favourite actor or author speaks of him with the greatest contempt. His conduct with respect to the latter is not a little ludicrous. Nothing is to appear on his boards unaltered by himself. But how does he alter? In an Irish way, to be sure, for he knows no more of the laws of letters than a Bog Trotter. He erases carefully what the author has written, and writes the very same words on the blank side of the paper, at which the dramatist is obliged to smile in silence, and gratify the manager's ardent wish to have it known to the copyist, and the whole theatre, that he has altered the piece, and given it the finishing touches.

This worthy and ingenious gentleman has very nearly verified the reason that was given for his enlarging his theatre, namely, that he foresaw, on account of the nature of his amusements, a necessity there would be, ere long, for the greater part of his audiences to be attended by their nurses.

Mr. Malton is of that numerous body of artists who possess most of their genius by proxy. Of that description was Mr. Bifield's. Mr. M. who is now professedly drawing and engraving views round London, and writing the account of them, would have enjoyed the credit of having executed them in a very superior style, but for the death of a second person. At the commencement of his undertaking, he had a little hunch-back'd man, an apprentice, exceedingly ingenious in aqua tinta engraving, who, after he had furnished several of the first numbers, died, and with him expired the spirit of the engravings; but had he survived the publication of the views, we should have seen no alteration in Mr. M's title page—It would still have appeared like the advertisements of a fellow labourer, “The whole is written and composed, and will be spoken, sung, and accompanied by “Mr. Dibdin.”

The Earl of Macartney's embassy to China furnishes us with another instance of the labours of Genius forming a wreath to deck the temples of Ignorance. There were, on this occasion, engaged, a painter at two hundred pounds per ann. a student in the royal academy at fifty pounds per ann. and an assistant, who were to take draughts of every place deemed worthy of observation, and necessary for elucidating Sir G. Staunton's account of the embassy. On their arrival, it was intended that they should pursue a different course through the country, which would be the means of rendering their acquisitions more various and valuable. The painter however finding, or rather knowing, his inability, and desiring to preserve the character he had assumed, never quitted our student during their stay: and for this, added to his situation, he now, without having made one of the designs, enjoys the honour of having executed the whole. And, if any future reward should be bestowed, he will receive it, while the real artist must content himself with

Can we talk of painting or painters and by any possible means introduce the name of Mr. Charles? Can we treat of impudent effrontery, and consummate ignorance, and not pay homage to the great academean? Mr. C. conceiving that his fortune would be instantly made, could he once exhibit a picture in the Royal Academy, purchased, from Mr. Arnold, a whole-length miniature of (we believe) Dido, Queen of Carthage, (which now graces the centre of his window in the Strand) for twenty guineas, and sent it to the Exhibition, as the effort of his own pencil. The hangers, however, discovered the deception, and inserted the name of the “true man” in their catalogue. Mr. C. on the Exhibition opening, presented himself at the door as an exhibitor, and was refused admission. A shilling procured it him, as well as every explanation he wanted. Not long

but soon presented himself before Mr. A. and insisted on having his money returned which was also refused, and—we shall say no more about him.

Mr. West, our great historiographer, had some time since recommended to his patronage the son of a Mr. More, his wine-merchant. Mr. W. perceiving that the lad had some idea of architecture, procured him admission as a student in the academy. Here he made considerable progress in the mechanical part; such as taking the elevation of churches, &c. Though he had never produced any original designs, his drawings of various edifices were so correct, that he had often experienced the honour of having his productions accepted. The President, seeing his success, noticed him in the most friendly manner. An inadvertent act of his, however, gave suddenly great offence to his patron. Mr. W. on hearing that he had undertaken a drawing of the inside of St. Stephen's church, Warlbrook, was highly delighted, expecting to see his altar-piece there brought into prominent view; but, unluckily for poor More, being unable to draw figures, he applied to Mr. Newton, of the old society, who bears an eternal hatred to the Royal Academy, to execute it for him. Mr. N. rejoicing in the opportunity that offered itself of indulging his pique against the President, advised More by all means to leave it out, and to substitute in its stead a large red curtain, “which,” said he, “will have a wonderful fine effect as it is seen between the columns.” Mr. M. unconscious of offending, approved of the advice, and quickly daubed in a large red curtain.— When the picture was to be presented to the Committee, Mr. West made a point of being present to give it his approbation; but on seeing the red curtain blazing through the columns, instead of his altar-piece, the enraged President could scarcely contain himself: he asserted that the work was out of all drawing, and absolutely kicked the picture with his foot. Mr. M. was greatly surprised at finding his picture returned, but the cause being intimated to him, he immediately got a friend to remove the curtain, and give the altar-piece to the eyes of its enamoured master. The succeeding year St. Stephen's Church was again sent to the Committee: Mr. W. then altered his tone, and that which was before vile in the extreme, now appeared to be “all that painting can express.” In short, the President was pleased— he smiled—and the picture was hung in the best light.

H. J. Pye translated six of Pindar's odes, unfortunately neglected by West. The verses in the ninth Olympic beginning, Αινει δε παλαιον μεν οινον, Mr. P. turns thus:

Adding this note: “Perhaps the poet here means to hint to his patron the advantage he has in having an ode purposely composed for him, instead of having only the old one, common to all the Olympic conquerors.” Does not this, from “the idle poet of a king,” smell a little of the shop? Does it not sound like a petition to his majesty for an augmentation of salary, on account of his composing an ode purposely for him?

The alderman passes for a wit amidst his city friends, and, as we would wish him to preserve that character, we advise him not to let his barber make too free with him, recollecting, or now knowing for the first time, that Midas's barber was the first who discovered the secret of his master having ass's ears. Ille qui dem celat, &c. Ovid Fab. 5, lib. 1.

The Cake-shop, and Pill-box, are nick-names given, the first by Colonel Hanger, and the latter, on hearing the former, by Sir Charles Bunbury, to two carriages that parade daily in Bond-Street. The Cake-shop is a gay family coach belonging to ------, in which are exhibited some very decent girls, with an intention to procure them husbands. The Colonel either meant, by bestowing this title on the coach, to insinuate that the girls were delicious cakes, and calculated to attract the infants of fashion, or that, by engaging the attention of the young men, by means of their equipage, they might at length make cakes of them. Sir Charles's bye-name of the Pill-box, conferred on the other carriage, will need no explanation, when we say that it belongs to Mrs. Johnson, and is filled with her nymphs.

Nicol, or Old Nick, as he is called, the King's bookseller, complains loudly that too many honours are thrust upon him. The manner in which he pours forth his lamentations may give some idea of his character.

“If the King will have me,” says he, “what can I do? I'm not a better bookseller than another—I have had a classical education, to be sure; but, Lord, it is too much trouble for me, at my time of life, to run about to sales to buy scarce books and old halfpenny ballads. God knows, I want to live at my ease. But The king says, ‘Nick, Nick, Old Nicol must go.’ Nobody'll do but Nicol, and what's to be said.”

Some time since Dodsley the bookseller died, making Nicol his executor, an appointment the latter had been very assiduous to obtain, inviting Dodsley, who was an old dotard, to his house, and feasting and cajoling him to his purpose.

Periplect. in Mill. Glor.

But after his death, all you could hear from Nicol was, ‘Ah poor Dodsley; Alas, poor fellow, he's gone! Sure the good creature owed me a grudge, or he would never have made me his executor. But so it is; if there is any trouble in any family, it is sure to fall on Nicol's shoulders. Lord help the man, to make me his executor of all men living! I, who, he knew, hated trouble and meddling with other people's affairs. Well, friends do take strange liberties with one another, that's certain.”

Soon after Nicol had married Alderman Boydell's daughter, he made her a present of a fine gaudy dress, to be worn at the Mansion House on its gala days. About the same time the Alderman published a print of the Death of General Wolf, of which Nicol desired to have a proof impression, which he was refused. A fête was just then going to take place at the Mansion House, when old Nick locked up his wife's rich suit, and sent her to her father's to inform him of it, and to whisper in his ear the price of redemption, which his wife, after some time, returned with, in the shape of a proof of General Wolf. We shall now quit Nicol, and conclude with an anecdote of his Master.

His Majesty's attempt to visit the Nore was the occasion of two circumstances that deserve to be recorded, and here shall they have a place, which will give them a better presumption of immortality than the graver on sheets of brass or Arundelian marbles. The first was a very handsome compliment paid by the King to Admiral Duncan, on the latter's appearing at a levee, soon after George the Third, like Canute the Great, had proved to his courtiers that he had no power over the “roaring sea,” and could not “rule the waves.”—“I am sorry,” said his Majesty, “that I was unable to pay you my respects at the Nore.”—“I thank your Majesty,” replied the Admiral, “for the courageous and persevering attempt you were so good as to make.” The King then added, “I have learned courage and perseverance from Admiral Duncan.” The other is, (believe it posterity!) that Lord Spenser, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was sea sick, weathering Lime-house-Reach!

In consequence of the extraordinary run and attraction of Blue Beard, Mr. Harris has engaged Mr. Morton to make a pantomime for him, to run against the bearded champion. This might be considered as an indirect hint to the author, that he would prefer his abilities as a carpenter, to his efforts as a dramatic artist. Mr. M. has submitted; and Mr. Cross, whose genius has been transplanted from the Circus to Covent Garden Theatre, will be placed on the shelf, to view, in silent dudgeon, the sublime efforts of Messrs. Morton, Farley, Creswell, and Reeve. In case these wooden exhibitions should succeed, the manager will have great advantage in removing his live lumber, to make way for the moving puppets of the Circus and Mr. Astley's Amphitheatre of Arts and Sciences.

The late Storace,

when composing the music of an opera, used to range for hours in the fields near Mother Red Cap's: Mr. Shields does the same: and Mr. Kelly, fancying, in the simplicity of his head and heart, that these fields have the power of inspiring the imagination with new bars of sweetly-sounding harmony, made them the place of his daily resort while composing his wonderful music to that wonderful production called the Friend in Need. Nature here, as in Mr. Porter's Chimney Corner, seemed to have formed the composer for the author. Such combinations of dullness and insipidity have not been produced since Dudley's muse was delivered of a dramatic sooterkin.

Our female performers assuming the male habit, and vice versâ, are not perhaps aware of the sin they commit. This is not a place to quote the words of scripture, we therefore refer them to the 22d chap. ver. 5. of Deuteronomy. Rollin also, in his devoirs des Regens, notices this custom on the stage as an abuse, “defendu expressément par la loi de Dieu.”

Lord Derby may imagine that he married Miss Farren all for love, but in this we differ; his love could never have lasted fourteen years:—he was bewitched! We have no doubt but that Miss Farren did no more nor less than bewitch his Lordship, oculorum intuitu. The second chapter of the seventh book of Pliny furnishes abundant instances of the mischief effected by the eye. But the present Earl of Derby is not the first of the family who has suffered by witchcraft, as may be seen in the third volume of Lodge's Illustrations of British History, &c. page 48, wherein is a paper entitled, “A Breefe of suche reasons and conjectures which caused many to suppose his honour the Earl of Derby to bee bewytched.” Such is the fact, and we leave his Lordship to chaunt at his leisure this little madrigal of Guarini's.

At Claros in Ionia was a fountain consecrated to Apollo, the water of which Anacreon calls Λαλον, as those who drank of it were constantly seized with prophetic ravings, and uttered oracles. Addison.

Mr. Taylor is said to possess so little honour as to have exposed the private correspondence between him and Mr. Wickstead, after he had quarreled with that very worthy man and ingenious satyrist.

A very short time after the appearance of Mrs. Inchbald's excellent and sterling comedy called “Wives as they were and Maids as they are,” to which Mr. T. had written about a dozen lines of “prose run mad,” for an epilogue, we were favoured with the subsequent information in the True Briton, from the modest pen of Mr. T. the oculist himself. “The applause which was bestowed on Mr. Taylor's epilogue to Mrs. Inchbald's comedy has not been confined to England. We find it mentioned in the Frankfort Journal of the 22d, with a prose translation.” Mercy on us! Mercy on us!

Mr. Taylor is not inaptly denominated a trencher critic, by artists, poets, and performers; as he judges of them according to the excellence and number of the dinners to which they invite him.

There are many other gentlemen of the pen who follow this liberal calling.

The Gods, in Homer's time, were great spungers. They went, he says, to dine with the blameless Æthiopians, μετ' αμυμονας Αιθιοπηας, and stayed there (perhaps at table) twelve days. This is, to be sure, a heavenly precedent; but they were not so bad as David Williams, Captain Morris, Anthony Pasquin, and the rest of those omnivorous gentry, who daily wait at Ridgway's, anxiously expecting the approach of Master Swainson, the blameless Æthiopian, that they may go home with him and eat up all the profits of Velno's Vegetable Syrup.

Of this gentleman, the proprietor of the True Briton and Sun, a Mr. Hewerdine mentions a circumstance, highly to the credit of Scottish industry. “He travelled,” says he, “from Edinburgh to London sans shoes and without stockings, where he for some time wrote puns and paragraphs for Mr. John Bell, and was afterwards employed by Messrs. Swan and Perry, at one guinea and a half per week. But itching to become a great man, he stuck himself to the skirts of Messrs. George Rose, Charles Long, and Sir J. Bland Burgess, by whom he was raised to his present situation.

Of the merits of a newspaper writer we shall say nothing: let the Doctor speak for himself. “To these compositions is required neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor sprightliness, but contempt of shame, and indifference to truth, are absolutely necessary.” He then talks of their increase in the time of war, and concludes by affirming that “a peace will equally leave the warrior and the newspaper-writer destitute of employment; and I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie.”

When Mr. Boaden wrote, or, call it what you please, for the Oracle, he had a pen which he called Bother'em; in imitation of the fanciful custom of ancient heroes, who gave names to the weapons with which they tormented mankind. Thus Ariosto.

but Messrs. Boaden and Taylor amply prove the fallaciousness and absurdity of this notion.

Mr. Watson, the manager of the Cheltenham theatre, was originally a Methodist, and a partner of John Kemble's, who, with him, preached in many parts of the kingdom. These pious men, fortunately for them, having pocketed more turnip tops than pence, during their devout itinerancy, betook themselves to the stage, and have since acquired fortunes. Mr. Kemble, having no children, has now adopted the offspring of ancient authors; in other words, is become a miserable tinker of old plays. His fondness for obsolete books has obtained him, among the book-auction cognoscenti, the name of Black-letter Jack. In pursuit of his propensity, this “parrot of the poet's thought,” this “tearer of passions,” will out-bid “titled heads,” and even Nicol himself.

N. B. “Tearer of passions,” though often justly applied to Mr. K. is not always so! for we have seen him repeatedly enact a part as if he wished to give us some idea of the manner in which the Stadtholder would play it.

His family is, however, parsimonius to a degree, which truth the following anecdote will serve to illustrate. During the pregnancy of Mrs. S. she having occasion to go to a certain oil shop in the Strand to buy some little articles for her domestic establishment, took particular notice of a fine ham, and lamented that its size made it inconvenient for her to become a purchaser, adding that she must content herself with making a mark upon it, to satisfy her longing. A gentleman, who was in the shop, and had not escaped Mrs. S's observation, seeing her situation, after her departure, bought the ham, and ordered it to be sent to her house. The next day the same gentleman calling at the shop, perceived, to his great surprise, the very identical marked ham, which Mr. ******* reluctantly confessed that Mrs. S. had re-sold.

This famous cave was in Bœotia. Whoever entered it returned so dull and dispirited, that it was common to say of a melancholy man, that he had been in the cave of Trophonius.

The Bishop of ********* has been married twice. Thus, even in matrimony, the Italian proverb is true. Preti e Polli non si veggon mai satolli. His present, like his past flame, was his cook. When the church weds with the kitchen, there's no doubt but it will thrive. Especially as the Rochester, of infamous memory, was not more inclined than the present Bishop is to eat and drink to-day, as if he should surely die to-morrow.

Pride, taciturnity, and gravity, are the characteristics of Doctor Parr.

Of this number we may rank this Rev. Gentleman. He is also another Anaxagoras, who, as Ælian says, ποτ' ου γελα, never laughed.

Barry, the painter, amongst his other singularities, lives on roasted apples and water. Although he can paint portraits, yet he has a great antipathy to the employment. The Duke of Norfolk going to his house (in a dirty alley somewhere in the West) with a desire of engaging him to paint his portrait, met a man coming down the stairs with two pails of white-wash. The Duke, taking him for a bricklayer's labourer, asked him if Mr. Barry was within? “I'm Mr. Barry,” replied the other, bluntly. His Grace, recovering from his surprise, explained the object of his visit. “Not I,” said the artist: “go to that fellow in Cavendish Square, (meaning Romney) he'll paint your face for you.” And here the conversation terminated.

Rembrandt was as choice in his studies as Mr. Barry. He would laugh at those artists who studied the antique, and taking his friends into a room full of grid-irons, sauce-pans, houshold stuff, and instruments of all kinds, he would say, “These are my antiques!” Alas! few of our modern artists have, or deserve to have, any of these articles to study.

Mr. M****, page to the Prince of Wales. His original profession was to adorn, externally, the heads of others, in attending to which, he neglected to furnish, internally, the one belonging to himself. Briefly, in the course of his education, those vulgar attainments, reading and writing, were omitted.

When Lord Jersey's pamphlet was first published, Mrs. M. read it to her husband, who committed the contents to memory, and was in the habit of descanting on its merits in all companies, producing, at the same time, the book, and pointing to one particular passage, which his wife told him perfectly exculpated the Countess and the Prince. This being perceived by an acquaintance at the One-Tun in St. James's Market, he stole the pamphlet, and placed in lieu of it another entitled “Strictures on the Conduct of Sam Chifney, at Newmarket, by Sir Charles Bunbury.” The consequence was, poor M. displayed, unwittingly, the latter, until he received a check from his Royal Master, who assured him that, if he did not learn to read and write, he should certainly lose his situation.

A man, calling himself John Williams, and who affects also to support Lady Jersey and the Prince, has written the most flagrant libel imaginable on his Royal Highness. Complaining of the laziness of the Royal Artists, in not bringing their annual obligations to the academy, he says, “These egregious sons of the pallet deal with their honours as some ungracious varlets do with their wives: they solicit them for months to grant the possession of their charms, and when that is acquired, publicly neglect them.” Fie on such supporters!

Before this Anthony Pasquin's, alias John Williams's trial came on in the court of King's Bench, it was very properly observed, “that it would be necessary he should go into court (as the law terms it) with clean hands; which (it was further said) he could not do in any sense of the words, either figuratively or literally; not figuratively, because he was a libeller himself; and, doubtless, not literally, because he never washed his hands.” The latter assertion, however, was somewhat too daring, since we are told that he actually underwent the operation of washing both his hands and his face twice while waiting the commencement of his action, and of which he had cause to repent; for, by removing from his face the stucco, which had long protected it against the ill effects of the weather, he caught such a violent cold and hoarseness, as obliged him to keep his room on the day the trial so justly terminated in his disgrace. We are informed that the said Anthony in concert with his friend Charles Phillips, presented a written copy of a very common book to the Marquis of Lansdowne, as an original manuscript, and obtained from that discerning nobleman ten guineas for the inestimable treasure.

This little man has had the vanity to have his picture engraved, to perpetuate, it would seem, the likeness of a face almost a libel on Dame Nature:— 'tis, however, a good prologue to an Ignoramus. Mr. D. has been so improvident as to relinquish some expectations at Cambridge, to commence author in the metropolis, at a time when his miscreant muse cannot bear him beyond an insipid sonnet, or a pointless satire. Such, alas! is the poet's fate!

The author of a tedious history of France, in three quarto volumes, and of long-winded answers to Lord Lauderdale and Mr. Erskine, wishes to be mistaken for Mr. G. the author of the Mæviad and Baviad. On Burke's death, Mr. G. informed his pot companions, that he should not have it in his power to meet them as usual, since all his time would be employed in finishing whatever the great Edmund had left imperfect for the support of Government.

Juvenal says, of his ladies, that they would rather be contented with one eye than one husband. This seems to be the case with the Signora.

See Midsummer's Night's Dream, Act III. Scene 2. beginning, “We, Hermia, &c.” for a knowledge of the character of Mrs. A. and Mad. Faniani.

Vide Virgil's description of Fame, Æn. IV. v. 173.

Mrs. Robinson has the preposterous vanity to imagine that there is some resemblance between her and the Grecian Poet. In her writings there is surely none; and, in any thing else, we think no woman out of Bedlam would not sooner seek a likeness in the Magdalen than in the poetess of Lesbos. Though we might look for it in the latter, we suppose she finds it in the former, as she has recently published sonnets under the title of Sappho and Phaon, which she terms legitimate, meaning to insinuate, perhaps, that they are written in the genuine spirit of Sappho: or, it may be that she imitates the sonetto invented by Petrarch:—but Heaven knows what she means, and none will ever discover it by reading the work.

We could not help smiling, on taking up one of Mrs. R's favourite papers, at the time of the publication, and reading an advertisement, standing thus: “This Day is published, Hot-pressed, and embellished with a fine Head, By Bovi, SAPPHO AND PHAON, In a Series of Legitimate Sonnets; With Thoughts on Poetical Subject, and Anecdotes of the Grecian (Grecian mind) Sappho. N. B. Where may be had, the second Edition of Angelina.”

Which was immediately followed by— “Neglect is attended with Danger. A Golden Head over the Door. DOCTOR HARVEY'S ANTI-VENEREAL PILLS, AND PILLS TO CURE MELANCHOLY, At his House, No. 53. Shoe-Lane. N. B. Where may be had a Volume abounding in Anecdotes of wonderful Cures of the above cruel Disorder.

Plutarch compares her to Cacus, the son of Vulcan, who breathed out nothing but flame.

Mr. D'Israeli's first publications were collections of anecdotes culled from encyclopædia's and dictionaries, magazines and abridgments.

Mr. D'Israeli soon discovered the folly of trusting to his own powers to accomplish even his vaut-rein. And we find him constantly recurring to the assistance of his old friends, Messrs. Encyclopædia, Dictionary, and Co. The followlowing is the mode by which all Mr. D'I's originality and depth may be detected.

Vaut-rien, page 273, Vol. II. “A stone's a body, an animal a body, man is an animal; ergo, man is a stone:” and vice versa. For which see Syllogysm, in Encyclopædia

Page 229, Vol. II. “Earl Richard purchased of his brother, Henry III. his Jews, for a lease, that (to employ the forcible expression of Prynne) those whom the king had excoriated, he might eviscerate.” See this in Chambers's Dictionary, and in several others, under Judaism. It should be remarked, however, en passant, that this forcible expression of Prynne in English, (so knowingly quoted by Mr. D'I.) was made by Mat. Paris, full two centuries before, in Latin. “Quos Rex excoriaverat, comes evisceraret.”

A summary way this of acquiring information, it is true, but very liable, from common editions, or worthless abridgments, to expose a man to ridicule and disgrace. Turn, gentle reader, to the title of any sect, if you find Mr. D'I. treating of religion, or the principles of ancient philosophers, and you'll quickly perceive with what facility he found means to make up his chapters. Of his knowledge of the dead languages, we have ample satisfaction in an attempt he once made to translate a sentence from Velleius Paterculus. A boy in the first class, at Winchester, would have taught him how to have construed it better.

Vaut-rien was sent into the world an orphan: but soon, as Smollet says,

And Mr. D'I. more from parental affection, than wisdom, acknowledged himself to be the author.

In this work we meet with the most impotent attempts at wit. The play, for instance, on Huntington, a methodist preacher's name. What stuff, from a man who wears such a face as Mr. D'I.!

We should be as little surprised to see a lady buying razors, or our hair-dresser in a full suit of mourning, as we were to find Mr. D'I. vindicating the Jews against the opinion of their foulness. “It was long supposed,” says he, “and I am told is yet, (one would think Mr. D'I. might have nasal proof every hour) that the Jew is distinguished by a peculiar and offensive smell. To stink like a Jew, is an adage which Furetiere has preserved in his dictionary (always at dictionaries!); but this smell, it seems, disappeared when a Jew was converted to Christianity.”

A smell disappear!! Well, we'll seek, if not a more lively, at least a sweeter subject.

Mr. Pratt, author of the Gleanings, &c. His name was originally Courtney Melmoth. He lived many years with Mrs. Melmoth, whose talents as an actress were of such respectability as to procure a comfortable subsistence for herself and friend. But their extravagance rendered it necessary for the lady to quit a regular company, and they travelled together in various characters through England and Wales. Sometimes she told fortunes, and Melmoth took the money; at others they had public lectures; and at Swanzea they performed a tragedy, and actually got twenty pounds, without any other actor, stage-sweeper, scene-shifter, or candle-snuffer but themselves; Pratt being at all of these, except the first, an amazing adept.

The lines, written by Mr. P. for Garrick's monument, as indifferent in design as execution, should not have appeared on the stone. Many copies of verses were thrown into Spenser's grave, when he was buried, and surely the present was fit for nothing else. They almost disgrace the monument.

From the ungetthroughableness of these volumes, there is little doubt but that they will still remain profound secrets to all the world.

Two female authors (prolific souls!) have lately published novels in seven and nine volumes. Of the seven, by Mrs. Bennett, the moral mother of Mrs. Esten, advertised at one pound eleven shillings and sixpence! we are told the following anecdote. A French emigrant, seeing the advertisement, mistook the price for a premium offered by the author to any one who would undertake to read her work through; and, after forming his resolution, he actually went to the publisher and proposed to undertake the job.

Mrs. Radcliff has been very much injured by Mr. Boaden, who, by dramatizing her novels, brought her into great disgrace with her relations:—for, being methodists, they were grievously enraged to find she had written any thing that could possibly be turned to the devil's purpose. Mr. Harris (Mrs. R. says) has often applied to her to write for the stage; and she has as often refused. The fear of being forgotten by her friends, when they are making their wills, is not very far from the cause.

We suppose our author here alludes to the Secret Tribunal, by Mr. B. which might be said to be damned the first night, as it was only borne two or three times afterwards, by an empty house. Mr. B. has since produced, what he calls his, but what is, in reality, Mrs. R's, Italian Monk; a light, airy, mirth-inspiring, summer drama, taken, word for word, and scene for scene, from Mrs. R's Italian, a novel of much fancy, and absurdity. This play he presented to Mr. Colman, who, though Mr. B. had, for several years, vomited the most gross and foul abuse against him, accepted it, with a magnanimity worthy of a man of genius; for he knew, at the moment, that his asperser had no longer the command of that print from which he formerly winged his pointless shafts.

Mr. B. overcome by this generous treatment, has changed his tone, and we did hope to have seen the same in the friends of this gentleman, and that the undistinguishing scurrility in the Monthly Mirror, on Mr. Colman and his writings, would have been supplanted by a style of criticism, if not judicious, at least gentlemanly and moderate. But our hope was fruitless, and we must content ourselves with the firm conviction that, though the world is credulous, it will not believe the madman who shall tell them it is dark when the sun shines in its meridian splendour; and that, from repeated specimens of such criticism, they must have been taught to conclude with Johnson, that any one “whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic: a character which needs neither the power of invention, nor the labour of learning, to maintain.”

At the representation of this piece, a friend informed us that the Monk was meant, according to the novel, to be the most serious character in the play; and, that Paulo, which we thought the most serious, was intended to excite laughter. But we could not allow this, for, to use an old joke, Paulo is a character by no means to be laughed at.

If the curtain drops on a play the first night with applause, the author is almost sure of his three nights. And this is easily effected by those conversant in theatrical imposition. Mr. B. has practised it with success. It is to send a number of people into the pit and galleries, who are to applaud with rapture, but not till they receive the signal from a certain quarter, wherein is posted “the angel of salvation,” who gives them the cue.

This being accomplished, his friends, the newspaper men, join in the deceit, announce the play as well received, and before the whole town are undeceived, the author has touched his three nights.

Mr. Rose, one of the Under Masters of Merchant Taylors, would have succeeded the late Mr. Bishop, Head Master of that school, but from a total ignorance of Hebrew, and a very superficial knowledge of Latin and Greek.

When we call the attention of the reader to the Fairy Festival, written by Mr. Rose, and believed, by him and his wife, to be a chef d'œuvre, we imagine we need not adduce any further evidence to prove that this “master of scholars,” more than any of his pupils, deserves the wholesome discipline of the birch.

No man, it is said, writes more, for the benefit of the Pastry Cook, than Deputy Birch, but, leaving out the double entendre, Mr. R. is as great a benefactor.

Her ladyship, last season, sent Harris, for one of his darling pantomimes, a loyal song, which he appointed to be sung by Bowden, Haymes, and Townsend; but it was so infamously bad, that, rather than expose themselves before the public, they refused to sing it; for which Harris, without a blush, fined each of them five pounds.

This liberty with Mr. Jerningham's name has been taken, it appears to us, in imitation of a whim of Dr. Johnson's, which was to abbreviate the names of all his friends; or perhaps the verse was nominis asperilate deterritus.

When our author treats Mr. J. with contempt, it can only be as a writer, and not as a man, for we believe him to be a very honest, inoffensive creature. Mais quad on parle d' œuvrages d'esprit, il ne s' agit point d'honnêtes gens, mais de gens de bon sens.

Our birds of song, are of late distinguished in their title pages, like jailbirds in an indictment, alias, alias. Pindar, Βοιωτιαν υν, the Theban pig, with his own hand, gibbets himself by an alias John Walcott to his works.

The stall before Burlington House abounds in this man's productions at sixpence a piece. It is grievous to relate, but at this place, also, all the most valuable books in the late Right Hon. Wm. Ger. Hamilton's library, embezzled by one of his men servants, were sold for almost nothing. The fellow has since, to avoid giving trouble, transported himself to America.

That Peter lacks ideas may be seen by his transferring into his Jeremi-ad, a thought from the preface to his satire, published some years ago, called the Cap.

The Jeremi-ad.

The remainder is in the same strain.

The Cap. “Peter, therefore, who hath made mighty powers tremble, now (talking of play-writers, &c.) descendeth to correct this lowly hord.” And before, in the same,

The Doctor may however deny the fact, and escape, like Mr. Gifford, who will perhaps say that he borrowed of Persius's Cornutus, and not of Pope's Jervas.

The poet is ironical. And to have recourse to a humourous distinction, if the aigle du bareau, as Mad. Hilligsberg called Mr. Erskine, in a certain affair, has convinced us in his pamphlet that he cannot write English, Mr. Rose has often given us occasion to see that he cannot write at all. Had any one but Mr. E. composed a work, like his maiden pamphlet, instead of its running through sixteen editions, or even new title pages, he would have lost twenty pounds by the sale.

We shall conclude this note with an excellent pun of the great pleader's. Lord Kenyon said one day to him in court, when his Welch blood had been inflamed rather more than usual, by the latter gentleman, “I'll commit you, Mr Erskine. If you persist, I will commit you.”—“You may, my Lord, if you please,” replied Mr. E. “but while I remain here you shall not commit yourself, if I can prevent it.”

Mr. Rose exercised his masterly hand in the Times, as an extraordinary writer. Mrs. Robinson, who is the prime puffster of the town, was alarmed lest she should suffer an eclipse, seeing that he puffed his own pieces with as little decency and respect for the public as herself.

The following anecdote of the puffing Sappho should not be suppressed. It is a custom with Mrs. R. whenever she prints, to send a copy or two of her work to most of the newspapers, by which means she hopes to avoid their ridicule, and indeed to puff and be puffed as much as she pleases. Shortly after the appearance of her last production, she addressed a few lines to Mr. Boaden, which ran thus: “Mrs. Robinson would thank her friend Boaden for some dozen puffs for Sappho and Phaon.”

St. James's Place. This note being sent by the penny-post, was, by mistake, delivered at Mr. Bowden's, the pastry-cook, in the Strand, instead of the Oracle office. To which Mrs. R. received the subsequent reply. “Mr. Bowden's respectful compliments to Mrs. Robinson, shall be very happy to serve her, but as Mrs. R. is not a constant customer, he cannot send her young folks the puffs without first receiving the money.”

Recently Mr. S. gave a dinner, at the Piazza Coffee-house, and, on leaving the room, desired that the bill might be sent to him next morning, which injuction was punctually obeyed, by one of the waiters, who, after remaining some time below, was ordered to walk up. Mr. S. then asked him if he was fond of the play, and if he had not a friend or two he should like to take with him?— The fellow answering in the affirmative, with many obsequious bows, Mr. S. instantly presented him with half a dozen orders for Drury Lane, assuring him, at the same time, that he had no money just then, and begged he would look in some other day; which request the waiter, in gratitude, was unable to refuse: he quitted the house, and Richard was himself again!

Apropos of dinners. Mr. S. being at one time unable to send his son, who was at Trinity College, Cambridge, any money, the boy, a chip of the old block, wanting to give a dinner, sold his books for the purpose, and writing afterwards, to his father, in reply to that letter which brought him the above sad intelligence, made this quotation from the Facetiæ of Hierocles. Συγχαιρε νμιν, Πατερ: ηδη γαρ ημας τα βιβλια τρεφει. Rejoice with me, father, for books are now my nourishment.

The following anecdote we take from a book which once belonged to Mr. Herbert Croft. It stood thus, in his own hand writing, prefixed to Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets, sold for Mr. C. at Mr. King's Auction Rooms, where we transcribed it: “Just before the appearance of the latter half of the Lives, a gentleman said to him, ‘So, Doctor, a young man at the Bar writes Young's life for you, I find.’—‘Yes, Sir,’ said Johnson, ‘yes, Sir, 'tis true; and I thought he would have done it very well; but the rogue has deceived me sadly, Sir: he did it a deal better than I thought he was capable of doing it.’ Fame may be able to relate sayings of other great men, which contain more wit, or more malice; but but where shall we find one which contains more good nature.”

What, now, will the reader say, when we inform him, that this young man at the Bar was no other than Mr. Herbert Croft? Why, he will surely say that Mr. C. could not have found a saying to relate which contains more impertinent vanity.

Δυσζηλοι γαρ τ'ειμεν επι χθονι φυλ'ανθρωπων, says Homer, in Od. But let us hope that we are not all so bad as George Stephens, the commentator, who, when envious of either friend or foe, and the Spiritus Zelotypiæ rages, composes an eulogium on them in an evening paper, one day, expressly for the purpose of attacking it the next.

Mr. Bannister, jun. conscious that he possesses very little sterling merit, is jealous of any rising talent, which might occasion the public to draw a comparison. To be subject to much envy increases the bile, (but whether hepatic or cystic we cannot say) and a suffusion of the bile produces the jaundice. Mr. Bannister continually appears, from his countenance, to be on the eve of an attack; and Mr. Munden, a season or two ago, was actually afflicted with the jaundice for a considerable time, occasioned by the success of a popular comedian at the Covent Garden theatre.

Mr. B. perhaps, envious of the success of his fellow labourers, when a student in the Royal Academy, used to recount such indecent stories to the man who stood in puris naturalibus, for their advantage, that the poor fellow was constantly obliged to come from the pedestal, and Mr. B. was, in the end, prohibited studying there for his pains.

As we are now talking of players, we cannot do better than relate a neat equivocation of a comedian, between whose histrionic merit, and that of the one just noticed, there is the same difference as between pure gold, and the dross it despumates.

A gentleman calling on Mr. King, when he was confined with a violent fit of the rheumatism, asked him, among other things, if he could oblige him with a bone for the theatre. Mr. K. not being able, or not wishing to accommodate him, replied, “My dear friend, I would with pleasure, and should be happy to accompany you, but really my bones won't go.

Mr. Colman, in one of his tales, has very pointedly, and evidently, drawn the character of this gentleman.

The treatment Mr. Reynolds has received from Mr. Morton bears some resemblance to that received by Homer, from Thestorides. The latter of these lived, for some time, on the most friendly terms. We then learn, from a life of Homer, said, but without grounds, to be written by Herodotus.—Επει δε την τε Φωκαιδα και τ'αλλα παντα παρα του Ομηρου ο Θεστοριδης εγραψατο, διενοηθη εχ της Φωκαιης απαλλασσεσθαι, την ποιησιν θελων του Ομηρου εξιδιωσασθαι.—that after he had copied many of Homer's works, (which he had obtained by living with him) he determined to quit Phocæa, wishing to pass them off for his own. Ο μεν δη Θεστοριδης εκ της Φωκαιης απηλλαγη ες την Χιον, και την διδασκαλιην κατεσκευασατο: και τα επεα επιδεικνυμενος ως εωυτου εοντα, επαινον τε πολλον ειχε και ωφειλετο. And going to Chios, he promulgated them as his own, and acquired much praise and some profit. Such is nearly the history of these two gentlemen. They were in the habits of the greatest intimacy, when Mr. M. learned of Mr. R. how he managed to construct his plays, and what books he read to assist him: after which he stole all his characters, and sold them for his own.

As Mr. Knight is Mr. Lewis's mimic, so is Mr. Morton the mimic of Mr. Reynolds. Mr. R. is now dead to Covent Garden, but his shade (not spirit) still lingers there in Mr. Morton. So will it soon be with the former.

The friends of Mr. M. have been lavish in their praise of the purse scene in the Cure for the Heart Ache. It is, however, protracted till it becomes highly absurd; and that it possesses novelty we most confidently deny. We have many instances of similar feelings displayed on the stage, in a like circumstance, unattended by the ridiculous mode in which Mr. M's is brought about. The trick of discovering a hole, and attempting to mend it, which is seen in the same piece, we find in the Author's Triumph, or the Manager Manag'd, a farce, printed by J. Clarke, 14th April 1737, and acted at the theatre-royal, Lincoln's Inn Fields. We merely transcribe a speech.

(Peeping about) Ha! a hole? Ay, faith! there is a little one.

When the two tailors, father and son, are standing together, the old man asks the waiter if there are any tailors in the place, and receives for answer, “there are two just by, which makes them look significantly at each other. What is this but our old friend Joe's two tailors, who, without understanding French, took a trip to Calais, where, one asking for something, the waiter replied, tout á l'heure, which they instantly mistook for the French pronunciation of two tailors, and looked at each other most likely as just described, since one exclaimed, “dam'me Jack but he knows us?” Had we leisure, many things of this kind, as well as whimsical phrases, taken from several authors; such as Frank O's “courage working into his knuckles,” for which see Colman's Mountaineers, might be adduced, to prove Mr. M's barrenness; so that he may safely say of an audience—

The insignificance of the Children in the Wood, a farce, which has nothing but the pantomimic merit of the performers to recommend it, has perhaps precluded criticism, and left its author in the quiet possession of an opinion that the applause bestowed on the actors was a tribute justly paid to himself. The ballad, it is generally known, was taken from a piece, called Twoe lamentable Tragedies in one, by R. Yarrington, quarto, 1601. Of which we have no doubt that Mr. Morton has a very excellent copy. The language of it is extremely obsolete, but that could prove no impediment to Mr. M. who reads, we understand, any of our old authors without a glossary. This circumstance we consider as something not very much in favour of Mr. M. Next, the absurd manner in which the action is conducted, and the weakness of the innovations made in the story; as, for instance, the unaccountable meeting of Lord Alford and Lady Helen, with the children sleeping in the wood; then the fine pathetic scene, which terminates by Dignum's lugging away one babe in his arms, and Mrs. Powell the other; incidents which produce effects unequalled, it must be confessed, in any attempt at the ridiculous. And, lastly, the bare-faced imitation of a scene in Hoare's No Song no Supper. Storace, in the latter, sings of lamb, and it appears; of a cake, and it appears. In the former, Mrs. Bland sings of a noise at the window, and 'tis heard; of the door being broke open, and it is broke open. This is gross.

It has been observed by some of that numerous body of soi-disant critics and remarkers, whom Dr. Johnson distinguishes as “the disturbers of human quiet,” that Mr. Colman, in the Heir at Law, has stooped to borrow from—Guess!— from Mr. Morton!! This accusation we firmly contradict, as false and groundless. And on the fact we are about to state, though not received from Mr. C. himself, yet from one in whom, having the most implicit faith, we wish to rest all our claims to truth. It is, that Mr. C. had conceived his characters, and written his plot, as well as a considerable part of the Heir at Law, long before Mr. M's Cure for the Heart Ache became public. This declaration being made, thus solemnly, we thereon establish Mr. C's inculpability. But it is now fair to imagine that Mr. M. had obtained some slight intelligence of Mr. C's characters of Cicely and Ezekiel, and seized on them for the Cure for the Heart Ache. This is the more probable, as the similarity is merely general, and not so palpable as Mr. M's taylor and son to Reynold's Gingham and his father, where the only difference is that in the one the old man can't sink the tradesman, and in the other the young one.

Mr. Holman, disliking to be only “a poor player, who struts his hour, &c.” produced, it is said, an opera, called Abroad and at Home, thinking thereby to perpetuate his memory beyond the hour. Its vulgarity, however, induces us to think it is either not his production, or that he is not the same man abroad and at home.

But, Supposing Mr. H. to be the author of this opera, we then look to Mr. Reynolds, to whom he certainly owes, not only the idea of attempting a dramatic piece, but also the knowledge he has of such compositions. And though he has not been so great a depredator as Mr. M. yet has he not been idle in “the pilfering way.” He, in Abroad and at Home, as well as Mr. M. in the Way to get Married, has not neglected to copy boldly Mr. R's prison scene in Speculation. In a word, when we look on Messrs. Holman and Morton as play-writers, we consider them as the graceless offspring of Mr. R. who, as it is said of the young of a certain bird, prey on that which brought them first to light.

Mr. H. who merely travelled, once in his life, to Oxford, entered himself of Merton's College, kept half a term, spent a few guineas, and returned “to smell the lamp,” was, by the assiduous whispering of his friends, reputed to have been educated at the University of Oxford. We see a consequence. Mr. M. convinced that he, though entered of the Temple, to avoid being included in Charta XXII. Henry VI. had no right to style himself Esquire, first published by simple Thomas Morton, and has only lately repented of his wisdom. Mr. H. now, to his opera, calls himself plain George Holman, but he will hereafter, we have no doubt, in imitation of his friend, the squire, blaze forth on his title page, George Holman, of Merton College, Oxford.

Doubting not but that Mr. H's delectable friends, Messrs. Boaden, alias Squire Check and Squire Morton, would also wish to be known as belonging to some college, we shall propose a mode by which they may bring it about. In the canon law, it is said, three persons make a college, tres collegium faciunt. Thus, therefore, may they form a college, and if they can persuade Harris to lend them the money, may erect one, which they may call after some one of those in the Roman Empire, as collegium fabrorum tignariorum, the college of carpenters, &c. wherein each might be a professor, in his own way. Mr. M. a Professor of plagiarism; Mr. H. a Professor of affectation and conceit; and Mr. B. a Professor of vanity and insignificance. Nor do we see any obstacle that can impede their success, unless Jack Taylor, M. P. Andrews, and Captain Topham, should take it into their heads to oppose them.

Milton.

Enough has been already said of Mr. Reynolds's distinguished and original merit as a writer: of his character as a man, in society, all who know him will bear ample testimony of its affability, frankness, and honesty; and nothing remains with us to state but the base and ungrateful usage Mr. R. has received from Mr. Harris, of Covent Garden. In this, however, he is not singular. Previous to the time Mr. R's first comedy appeared at that house, it was thinly attended beyond comparison. The town was soon attracted by Mr. R's ingenious efforts, the finances of the treasury considerably enriched, and Mr. R. a Magnus Apollo, was the object of the manager's adoration. He continued to give them his pieces: the consequence of which was, that Mr. H. rose to a degree of affluence, equal to his former want. But where is this man's gratitude to one who rendered him such essential services? It is only to be found in the shape of neglect and ill-treatment! He last year brought out Mr. R's comedy called Fortune's Fool, at a season in which few people visit the theatres; and when the town became more thronged, his play was, we believe designedly, injured; first by being seldom played, without any apparent reason for its suppression; and, next, by the appearance of Mr. Morton's—injured by the latter, because the people will always go, in preference, to see the last new piece. Mr. R. naturally disgusted at Mr. Harris's giving to a play (copied in general from his own) the advantage of the season, and the assistance a manager is capable of affording; added to very uncivil personal behaviour, with just indignation and resentment, left that theatre for Drury-Lane, where he was received with open arms, and has experienced, instead of the most low and disgusting, the most gentlemanly and inviting treatment.

Mr. Harris's character is well delineated in the Author's Triumph, where a distressed author, presenting him with a play, he exclaims,

—“A play! Damme! I wou'dn't give a farthing for the best play in England. Here, Sir, here.

If you could bark, friend, or dance the ladder-dance, I might talk with you.”

The author, receiving this reply, has recourse to Mecænas, who, approving of his piece, summons the manager and players to appear before him. Here the manager says, “My Lord, authors are a pack of scoundrels.” Upon which Mecænas makes the following remarks, which we would recommend Mr. H. to commit to memory.

—“How now, impertinent! Learn decency, do; and know that now you are before your betters. The insolence which you little chiefs contract, by commanding an army of renegades, makes you forget yourselves, and treat gentlemen as if they were players. But, let me tell you, you are not upon the par with an author. He is properly your master; furnishes you with tools, and sets you to work. What is a player, pray, without his task? you're but the factors of the poet's wit: 'Tis he, ye ingrates, gets you fame and finery, and makes a prince of a poor pimping pedlar! Isn't it so? Ha?

—“Indeed, my Lord, there's a great deal of truth in't.

Ος θεσπιωδει τριποδος εκ χρυσηλατου. Carion in Plut. Aristoph. Act I. Sc. 1.

A writer of Lord Chesterfield's life, concludes with saying, “These were his excellencies—let those who surpass him speak of his defects.” Which passage, with a slight alteration, shall terminate our animadversions on the votaries of vanity. Peace be with them! These were their follies—let those who surpass them speak of their wisdom.

Apollo, the Sun, Phoebus, and Hyperion, were certainly distinct characters, and our author, for confounding them occasionally, has no other excuse but that he has followed the practice of other great poets.