As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure; Thus on the stage, our play-wrights still depend For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend,...
Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit, So trembles a young Poet at a full pit. Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear, And wonders how the devil he durst come there;...
To all and singular in this full meeting, Ladies and gallants, Phoebus sends ye greeting. To all his sons, by whate'er title known, Whether of court, or coffee-house, or town;...
You see what shifts we are enforced to try, To help out wit with some variety; Shows may be found that never yet were seen, 'Tis hard to find such wit as ne'er has been:...
Most modern wits such monstrous fools have shown, They seem not of Heaven's making, but their own. Those nauseous harlequins in farce may pass; But there goes more to a substantial ass:...
Perhaps the parson[1] stretch'd a point too far, When with our Theatres he waged a war. He tells you, that this very moral age Received the first infection from the stage....
They who have best succeeded on the stage, Have still conform'd their genius to their age. Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show, When men were dull, and conversation low....
What! five long acts and all to make us wiser! Our authoress sure has wanted an adviser. Had she consulted 'me', she should have made Her moral play a speaking masquerade;...
Of all dramatic writing, comic wit, As 'tis the best, so 'tis most hard to hit, For it lies all in level to the eye, Where all may judge, and each defect may spy. Humour is that which every day we meet,...
Though I have found you like a snow-drop pale, On sunny days have found you weak and still, Though I have often held your girlish head Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill: - ...
Last night, as lonely o'er my fire I sat, Thinking of cues, starts, exits, and--all that, And wondering much what little knavish sprite Had put it first in women's heads to write:--...
The three holy kings with their star's bright ray, They eat and they drink, but had rather not pay; They like to eat and drink away, They eat and drink, but had rather not pay. ...
There is nothing that eases my heart so much As the wind that blows from the purple hills; 'Tis a hand of balsam whose healing touch Unburdens my bosom of ills. ...
Sweet Spirit! Sister of that orphan one, Whose empire is the name thou weepest on, In my heart's temple I suspend to thee These votive wreaths of withered memory. ...
Dear Lyndhurst,--you'll pardon my making thus free,-- But form is all fudge 'twixt such "comrogues" as we, Who, whate'er the smooth views we, in public, may drive at,...
As 'tis now, my dear Tully, some weeks since I started By railroad for earth, having vowed ere we parted To drop you a line by the Dead-Letter post,...