A Briton blunt, bred to plain mathematics, Who hates French b--gres, and Italian pathics. [29] The plaintive ROSCIUS seems here to have an eye to the following lines: _The wits who drink water, and suck sugar-candy, Impute the strong spirit of_ Kenrick _to brandy. They are not so much out: the matter in short is He sips_ aqua-vitæ _and spits_ aqua-fortis. PUBLIC ADV. [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. That upward roll'd with anxious toil and pain, The summit almost gain'd, rolls back again. Ne'er shall his FALSTAFF[31] come again to life; Ne'er shall be play'd again his WIDOW'D WIFE;[32] Ne'er will I court again his stubborn Muse, But for a pageant would his play refuse. While puff and pantomime will gull the town, 'Tis good to keep o'erweening merit down; With BICKERSTAFF and CUMBERLAND go shares, And grind the poets as I grind the players. IMITATIONS. Aut petes aut urges ruiturum, Sysiphe, saxum. NOTES. [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; tho' the manager himself afterwards brought on a pageant, in which were almost all Shakespeare's known characters; when finding it difficult to make any of them speak with propriety, he contented himself with instructing them to bite their thumbs, screw up their mouths, and make faces at each other, to the great edification of the audience.--This play indeed was afterwards performed, and tho' received with the most confirmed and general applause, has however never since been acted, either for the author's emolument or the entertainment of the publick. [32] Another comedy, nearly under the same predicament with respect to the town: having been performed but once since its first run, tho' received with similar approbation; the manager in the mean while having brought on, and repeatedly acted, the performances of his favourite play-wrights, to almost empty houses: and yet ROSCIUS hath all the while pretended to have the highest opinion of the talents, and the greatest regard for the interest of the writer.---- The manager claims a legal right, indeed, as patentee, to perform what plays he pleases; but tho' the play-house and patent be his property, he has no liberal right to make, at pleasure, a property of the players, the poets and the publick!