_Dame Nature against G---- now by me Her action brings, and thus she grounds her plea. "I never made a man but still You acted like that man at will; Yet ever must I hope in vain To make a man like you again." Hence ruin'd totally by you, She brings her suit, &c. &c._ B. Solicitor for the Plaintiff. In reply to this notice, it is said, the _defendant's plea_ would have appeared in the same paper; but the cause was obliged to be removed by _certiorari_ to another court; when it appeared thus: Nature } against } Defendant's Plea. G---- } _For G---- I without a fee 'Gainst Nature thus put in his plea. "To make a man, like me, of art, Is not, 'tis true, dame Nature's part; I own that Scrub, fool, knave I've play'd With more success than all my trade; But prove it, plaintiff, if you can, That e'er I acted like a man." Of this we boldly make denial.---- Join issue, and proceed to trial._ A. Attorney for the Defendant. Tho' shambling BECKET,[23] proud to soothe my pride, Keeps ever shuflling on my right-hand side; What tho' with well-tim'd flatt'ry, loud he cries, At each theatric stare, "See, see his eyes!" What tho' he'll fetch and carry at command, And kiss, true spaniel-like, his master's hand; With admiration NYK ne'er heard me speak, But press'd the kiss of love upon my cheek;[24] Incessant clapp'd at th'end of every speech; And, had I bidd'n him, would have kiss'd my b----! Let me no longer, then, my loss deplore, But to his ROSCIUS, Muse, my NYK restore. But hah! what discord strikes my listening ear? Is NYKY dead, or is some critic near? Curse on that Ledger and that damn'd Whitehall,[25] How players and managers they daily maul! IMITATIONS. Ducite ab urbe domum mea carmina ducite Daphnim. NOTES. [23] The famous THOMAS A BECKET, feigned by the poets to have been drown'd, when, being half-seas over, in claret, he endeavoured to return to land: on which occasion a wicked wit of the town made the following epitaph for his tomb. _Here lies That shuffling, shambling, shrugging, shrinking shrimp, Tom Becket, Mammon's most industrious imp!_ [24] A customary method it seems, of NYKY's expressing his admiration of the acting of the immortal ROSCIUS. [25] News-papers so called, in which ROSCIUS is not a sharer, and hath not yet come up to the price of their silence.