Part 1

Produced by Chris Curnow, Katie Hernandez, Joseph Cooper and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

A LETTER TO DAVID GARRICK, Esq. FROM WILLIAM KENRICK, LL.D.

_Meo deo irato._ TER. PHOR.

THE THIRD EDITION.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. WHEBLE, PATER-NOSTER-ROW. MDCCLXXII.

To DAVID GARRICK, Esq.

SIR,

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

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

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

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

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

LOVE in the SUDS; A TOWN ECLOGUE. BEING THE LAMENTATION of ROSCIUS FOR THE LOSS of his NYKY.

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

_O me inselicem!---- ----quæ laudâram quantum luctus habuerint!_

PHÆD.

With ANNOTATIONS by the EDITOR;

AND AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING QUERIES AND ANSWERS

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

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 quò via ducit in urbem? Nymphæ, 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.

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

NOTES.

[2] PEGGY WOFFINGTON, on whom our ROSCIUS, then her inamorato, made a famous song, beginning with the following stanza:

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

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

IMITATIONS.

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

NOTES.

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

[3] NYKY is a half-pay officer of marines. A horse-marine is a kind of _meretricious_ HOBBY-HORSE, _modò vir modò fæmina_.

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

IMITATIONS.

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

NOTES.

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

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

IMITATIONS.

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

NOTES.

[5] The celebrated villa of ROSCIUS.

On Hebrus' banks so tuneful Orpheus died; His limbs the fields receiv'd, his head the tide. Nor more its stream renown'd than Thames in fame[6]: Here Catherine Hayes serv'd Goodman Hayes the same. Here on this spot, where now th' Adelphi stands, Was thrown her husband's noddle from her hands; His scatter'd limbs left quiv'ring on the shore; As Thracian wives had play'd their part before. Oh, horrour, horrour! NYKY back return; Nor more for grenadiers imprudent burn.

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

IMITATIONS.

Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori.

NOTES.

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

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

NOTES.

[7] NYKY is near sighted.

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

NOTES.

[8]

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

Prologue to the FASHIONABLE LOVER.

It is indeed now plain enough that ROSCIUS has given great encouragement to _secret sinners_; but I would advise none of our poets to lie in again in private; but to remember the fate of a late tragedy and farce. Poor _Clementina_, and the lady _An hour before marriage_, both privately lay-in and miscarried.

[9] The Jesuit Ruæus begins the argument of Virgil's second Eclogue with the following explicit declaration, _Amabat Virgilius puerum_.

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

IMITATIONS.

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

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

NOTES.

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

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

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

IMITATIONS.

Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis.

NOTES.

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

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

Sing then, O Muse, a more pathetic strain, To lure my gentle NYKY back again. For, sure as Thames resembles Tyber's tide, Shall Macaronis soon possess Cheapside; As petty-jury-men in judgment sit, And ev'ry Corydon, with NYK, acquit. Yes by this knife, this useful[14] knife, I swear, Which for my lov'd B----TTI's sake I wear; This knife, whose haft, at Stratford Jubilee, For ever left its parent mulberry tree; For thence it grew, tho', tipt with steel so fine, It now will serve to stab with, or to dine; That tree, which late on Avon's border grew; By Shakespeare planted; Warwick lads say true;

IMITATIONS.

Ducite ab urbe domum mea carmina ducite Daphnim.

All' ek toi ereô, kai epi megan horkon omoumai, Nai ma tode skêptron, to men oupote phylla kai ozous Physei, epeidê prôta tomên en oressi leloipen, Oud' anathêlêsei.

HOM.

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

VIRG.

NOTES.

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

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

IMITATIONS.

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

VAL. FLAC.

NOTES.

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

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

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

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

And that the part our gentle NYKY play'd Was but philosophy in masquerade.[18] Let me no longer, then, my loss deplore, But to his ROSCIUS, Muse, my NYK restore.

IMITATIONS.

Ducite ab urbe domum mea carmina ducite Daphnim.

NOTES.

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

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

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

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

GOLDSMITH.