"The play was opened by this character with a song, which answered the double purpose of a play-bill and a a prologue, for his ditty gave the audience a foretaste of the rueful incidents they were about to behold; and it called out the actors, one by one, to make the spectators acquainted with their names and characters, walking round and round till the whole Dramatis Personæ made one great circle on the stage. The audience being thus become acquainted with the actors, the play opened with _Paris_ running away with _Helen_, and _Menelaus_ scampering after them; then followed the death of _Patroclus_, the rage of _Achilles_, the persuasions of _Ulysses_,&c. &c. and the whole interlarded with apt songs, both serious and comic, all the production of _Ald Hogart_. The bard, however, at this time had been dead some years, and I believe this Fete was a Jubilee to his memory; but let it not detract from the invention of Mr. _Garrick_, to say that his at _Stratford_ was but a copy of one forty years ago on the banks of _Windermere_. Was it any improvement, think you, to introduce several _bulls_ into the procession instead of one? But I love not comparisons, and so conclude. Yours, &c. ADAM WALKER." However _Ald Hogart_ might have succeeded in the dramatic line, and before a rustic audience, his poems of a different form are every way contemptible. Want of grammar, metre, sense, and decency, are their invariable characteristics. This opinion is founded on a thorough examination of a whole bundle of them, transmitted by a friend since the first publication of this work. [3] Vir Clarissime, Excusso _Malpighio_ intra sex vel plurimum septem septimanas te tamen per totum inconsulto, culpa est in Bibliopolam conferenda, qui adeo festinanter urgebat opus ut moras nectere nequivimus. Utut sit, tamen mihimet adulor me satis recte authoris & verba & mentem cepisse (diligenter enim noctes atque dies opere incubui ne tibi vel ulli regiorum tuorum sodalium molestus forem). Rudiora tamen quorum specimen infra exhibere placuit, & _Italico-Latina_, juxta præceptum tuum, _similia feci_ aliter si fecissem, totus fere liber mutationem sul iisset. Authorem tam pueriliter & barbare loquentem nunquam antehac evolvi quod meminerim; faciat ergo lector, ut solent nautæ, qui dum fœtet aqua, nares pilissando comprimunt, spretis enim verbis sensum, si quis est, attendat. Multa (infinita pœnè dixerim) authoris errata emendavi, quædam tamen non animadversa vereor; _Augeæ_ enim stabulum non nisi _Hercules_ repurgavit. Partem _Italico_ sermone conscriptam præetermitto, istam enim provinciam adornare suscepit Doctor _Pragestee Italus_; quam bene rem gessit, ipse viderit. Menda Typographica, spero, aut nulla, aut levia apparebunt. Tuam tamen & Regiæ Societatis censuram exoptat facilem, Tibi omni studio addictissimus, "RICHARDUS HOGARTH, ...Preli Curator."