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UNIVER

C

THE

LIFE OF DAVID GARRICK.

BOOK THE FOURTH-(Continued).

THE MANAGER.

CHAPTER VII.

THE "ROSCIAD"-DR. BOWER.

1761-1762.

A GREAT critic-one whose strokes were those of an exquisitely trained boxer, as compared with the feeble buffeting of women and children-was now to step out of the crowd, and command the attention of the whole ring. Beside this masterly effort, the flutter of weak pamphlets and impotent libels, came down like a cloud of feathers. Here were real swinging knocks, planted with marvellous scientific skill, aimed at the sorest and tenderest places, making every one reel and stagger; and the satire, the splendid rhyme, the fine close English, "the wit, the strong and easy verse, the grasp of character, and the rude free daring of the Rosciad," were now to burst upon the town, and teach mere scribblers with what deadly point and personality true genius can strike and kill.

In this wonderful onslaught was found room and

VOL. II.

B

time for all. Nervous and impetuous as was its swing, it could be leisurely and measured in its stroke. No one was too high, nor no one too low: though each was dealt with according to his degree, and those whom he disdained to level with a blow of his muscular arm, he could degrade with a passing and contemptuous kick. The whole world of stage players was aghast. They ran about like a flock of frightened sheep. "The Rosciad" had fallen on the playhouses like a shell; and the crowd of pasteboard kings and queens, the heroes and heroines, and the comic men and women, who had loftily given the town laws, were now coolly and deliberately sat in judgment upon, and dissected with the finest and most pitiless strokes. They little dreamed, that, for the past two months, a careful and laborious observer had been coming to the theatre, almost regularly every night. Perhaps the moneytakers, or officials, may have noticed a burly figure always finding its way to one special placethe front row of the pit, nearest to the orchestra spikes." But they could not have dreamed what a deadly missive was being manufactured all that time. This steady tenant of the front row was the Rev. Charles Churchill, taking careful notes of every actor, from Garrick down to Packer.

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The author of this wonderful piece-a big burly man-in "a black coat and a black scratch wig," had been seen about town; and only a few weeks before, had got rid of both his causes of complaint"the wife he was tired of, and the gown he was displeased with;" and as he said in the strange, and

* O'Keefe. Taylor saw him at Vauxhall in a blue coat, edged with gold lace, black silk small clothes, and white stockings.

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