Rejected Addresses; Or, The New Theatrum PoetarumSmith, James
General
Rejected Addresses; Or, The New Theatrum Poetarum
Smith, James
Parodies
John Richard William Alexander Dwyer
Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire;
But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues,
Emanuel Jennings polish’d Stubbs’s shoes.
Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy
Up as a corn-cutter—a safe employ;
In Holywell Street, St. Pancras, he was bred
(At number twenty-seven, it is said),
Facing the pump, and near the Granby’s Head:
He would have bound him to some shop in town,
But with a premium he could not come down.
Pat was the urchin’s name—a red-hair’d youth,
Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth.
Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe,
The Muse shall tell an accident she saw.
Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat,
But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat
Down from the gallery the beaver flew,
And spurn’d the one to settle in the two.
How shall he act? Pay at the gallery-door
Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four?
Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait,
And gain his hat again at half-past eight?
Now, while his fears anticipate a thief,
John Mullens whispers, “ Take my handkerchief.”
“Thank you,” cries Pat; “but one won’t make a line.”
“Take mine,” cried Wilson; and cried Stokes, “Take mine.”
A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,
Where Spitalfields with real India vies.
Like Iris’ bow down darts the painted clue,
Starr’d, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue,
Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.
George Green below, with palpitating hand,
Loops the last ’kerchief to the beaver’s band—
Uproars the prize! The youth, with joy unfeign’d,
Regain’d the felt, and felt what he regain’d;
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat
Made a low bow, and touch’d the ransom’d hat.
XVIII. XIX. XX.
TO THE MANAGING COMMITTEE OF THE NEW DRURY LANE THEATRE. {93}
GENTLEMEN,
Happening to be wool-gathering at the foot of Mount Parnassus, I was
suddenly seized with a violent travestie in the head. The first symptoms
I felt were several triple rhymes floating about my brain, accompanied by
a singing in my throat, which quickly communicated itself to the ears of
everybody about me, and made me a burthen to my friends and a torment to
Doctor Apollo; three of whose favourite servants—that is to say, Macbeth,
his butcher; Mrs. Haller, his cook; and George Barnwell, his
book-keeper—I waylaid in one of my fits of insanity, and mauled after a
very frightful fashion. In this woeful crisis, I accidentally heard of
your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, which cures every disorder
incident to Grub Street. I send you inclosed a more detailed specimen of
my case: if you could mould it into the shape of an address, to be said
or sung on the first night of your performance, I have no doubt that I
should feel the immediate effects of your invaluable New Patent Hissing
Pit, of which they tell me one hiss is a dose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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