W. Kenrick

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I cannot fawn, and fetch and carry; neither will I ever practise that servile complaisance, which some people pique themselves on being masters of.—— I will not whisper my contempt or hatred; call a man fool or knave by signs and mouths, over his shoulder ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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! ”

“ IV. Whether you have not openly acknowledged notwithstanding, that you really entertained a very different opinion of Roscius?
V. Whether any cause of dispute, that might subsist between you and Roscius, can authorize so cruel, so unmanly an attack?
VI. Whether the brother of Roscius did not personally wait on you to require, in his name, the satisfaction of a gentleman, which you refused him?
CANDOUR." 27
To these queries, the author judged it expedient to make the following reply in the same paper of July 4th. ”

“ Manly. I thought so: but know that this is the worst sort of detraction, for it takes away the reputation of the few good men in the world by making all alike! Now I speak ill of many men, because they deserve it.
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APPENDIX.
Certain circumstances, to which the author of the foregoing piece was an utter stranger, having happened about the time of its publication, and given rise to rumours equally false and foreign to the party; it appears that Roscius, or some of his friends, was pleased to insert the following queries in the Morning Chronicle of July 2d. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The latter seems to be compared by the poet to a land-tortoise buried in the earth, on account of the slowness of its motion and the clouds of dust and dullness with which it is surrounded: the former hath been long known by the above appellation from the following humorous description. ”

“ Who hates French b—gres, and Italian pathics.
29 The plaintive Roscius seems here to have an eye to the following lines:
30 This multifarious genius pretends to have discovered the Perpetual motion, but it must be a mere pretence; as he is weak enough to think the public ought to reward him for his discovery, and offers to disclose it on the simple terms of no purchase no pay.
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31 Falstaff's Wedding, a play written in imitation of Shakespeare; at first rejected, as unfit for the theatre, on account of having so many of Shakespeare's known characters in it ”

“ 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.
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10 Not the Judge of that name ”