little known letter, he wrote to a friend, "I feel myself in the situation of a man that has carried a d-d heavy load for a long time, and then sets it down. So much for my wife and gown.' In this temper he was not likely to deal gently with anything he set himself to criticise. In March, '61, just before the theatre closed, the satire appeared. The players writhed under it. Their profession was described for them, in terms more degrading than Vagrant Act ever used. They were formed contemptuously into a procession, in which their theatrical accessories were only made to add to their degradation: "Then came drum, trumpet, hautboy, fiddle, flute, One with full purse, t'other without a sous."+ They were to choose a judge; but how were the arts of ordinary election to be carried out in so beggarly a field? "What can an actor give? in every age, Cash hath been rudely banished from the stage. criticises them with de- There was Then as the actors go by, he lightful, and most easy touch. Havard," whose obscurity might whose have saved him, yet "Easy, vacant face proclaimed a heart Which could not feel emotions, nor impart" -with Davies, the actor-bookseller. Never was there * This extraordinary letter is given in Peake's Colman, vol. i. p. 129. + From this singular rhyme we can see he was not very skilled in French. such contemptuous praise-nor such a criticism, com-. pressed into four lines: "With him came mighty Davies-on my life, That Davies hath a very pretty wife! He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.”* Holland was a mere imitation-"I hate e'en Garrick thus at second hand:" and King was a shameless exhibition that "shines in Brass." could be dismissed very briefly : "Lo, Yates! without the least finesse of art, He gets applause. I wish he'd get his part. How vilely Hark'e,' 'Hark'e,' grates the ear."+ Woodward was put very low indeed, a mere "Squeaking harlequin, made up of whim, He twists, he twines, he tortures every limb." A humbler Jackson was happily ridiculed— "One leg, as if suspicious of his brother, Desirous seems to run away from t'other." Yates And Ackman and Packer, obscure nobodies, were ironically complimented as unrivalled in "humour" and แ 'sprightly ease." Sparks was to be found at a glass 'elaborately dividing frown from smile;" while "Smith, the genteel, the airy, and the smart, Ross, a handsome man, of good breeding, would grow Mr. Isaac Taylor saw Davies play, long after "The Rosciad "had appeared, and noticed the "hollow rumbling" of his voice. He had also seen the very pretty wife sitting in the shop, neat, modest, and with an air of meek dejection, and a look as of better days. Friends, this gentleman heard, had to pay the expense of Davies's interment, and the "pretty wife" died in a workhouse. + Yates's memory improved in afterlife; but he was in the habit of repeating sentences several times, like this, "Harkee, Polly Honeycomb," to give himself time to think. He was very indignant at his wife being dragged into "The Rosciad," and summoned Churchill to meet him at a tavern. George Garrick hurried after them, and succeeded in reconciling satirist and actor over a bottle of wine. indifferent and languid as he acted. He was roused with a couplet: "Ross (a misfortune which we often meet) Was fast asleep at his Statira's feet.”* Moody, and Moody's country, received a fine compliment; and the vulgar stage Irishman, who has had not a little to do in forming the English judgment of that country, was thus branded :— "Long from a nation, ever hardly used, At random censured, wantonly abused, Have Britons drawn their sport with partial view, Which, from their country banish'd, seek our own. Mirth from their foibles-from their virtues praise." Austin glistened in French silks. Foote was not spared. He was dismissed as a mere mimic, and not even a good one :— "His strokes of humour and his bursts of sport Macklin was coldly, but not cruelly, disapproved of; but the whole venom of the satire may be said to be concentrated in the portrait of Murphy. Colman and Lloyd, Churchill's friends and companions, had written down the luckless Murphy, and now Churchill came to niche him into his "Rosciad." This dreadful carving, and the portrait of Fitzpatrick added later, are certainly the finest bits in the whole. Murphy came : "What though the sons of nonsense hail him SIRE, To make his triumphs perfect dub him PLAYER." * He was asked who the Statira was, and said it was Miss Bellamy. Taylor recollects his being also quickened by an angry audience. He will admit he had a good figure "When motionless he stands we all approve, Why did he not take to city pursuits and trade? He might have done well. Perhaps, "PRUDENT DULNESS marked him for a MAYOR." Better than all was the hint at the beginning of the satire. When there was a debate about choosing a judge: "For Murphy some few pilfering wits declar'd, While Folly clapp'd her hands and Wisdom star'd. Could it be worth thy wond'rous waste of pains In those days, when every gentleman carried a sword, *The only notice he took was a poor retort, called "The Fleet Ditch," which, as compared to Churchill's poem, was as that dull and stagnant nuisance itself, to a fine and flowing river. In it he talks of the "foul-mouth'd" Rosciad, and of Churchill bowing his "brutal form." Colman, with equally refined satire, he called "the low-born Colman." The portraits of Mossop and Barry are too well known to be quoted. These were more elaborate than the rest, and more amusing. Mossop, was so "attached to military plan," and kept his eyes fixed on his right-hand man. Barry was unfairly dismissed with the fine climax, "conned his passions, as he conned his part." The veteran Quin found his traditional reputation rudely questioned and examined, and was thrust back with the following congé :— "Parrots themselves speak properly by rote, And in six months my dog shall howl by note." So with Sheridan's "stages" and methodised tactics: "Why must impatience fall three paces back? Unless in motion semicircular? Why must the hero with the nailor vie, And hurl the close-clench'd fist at nose or eye. In royal John, with Philip angry grown, I thought he would have knock'd poor Davies down. To fright a king so harmless and so tame ?" To Barry he was cruel, and it is surprising that a man with Churchill's nature could have been so unjust. His choosing the "well-applauded tenderness in "Lear," and praising a character in which the actor was inferior, was an artful shape of depreciation. He affected to see in him nothing but artifice, or art; and yet it was notorious, that there was no such passionate "lover" on the stage. With the women he was more lenient and gentle. Cibber and Pritchard received high and elegant praise. So did Clive and Pope. In Yates a certain tameness and sameness, with a want of nature, were discovered; but on a more obscure Miss Bride, he lavished far warmer praise. It is indeed so charming, and at |