"When I was a chicken I went to school, My master would call me an obstinate fool, For I ruled the roast, and I roasted all rule, And he wondered however he bore me; I fired his wig, and I laughed at the smoke, And always replied, if he rowed at the joke, Why--my father did so before me! I met a young girl, and I prayed to the miss, I fell on my knee, and I asked for a kiss, She twice said no, but she once said yes, And in marriage declared she'd restore me. We loved and we quarrell'd, like April our strife, I guzzled my stoup, and I buried my wife, But the thing that consoled me at this time of life Was--my father did so before me! Then, now I'm resolved all sorrows to blink, Since winkin's the tippy, I'll tip them the wink, I'll never get drunk when I cannot get drink, Nor ever let misery bore me. I sneer at the Fates, and I laugh at their spite, I sit down contented to sit up all night, And when the time comes, from the world take my flight, For--my father did so before me!" "Tekeli, or the Siege of Mongratz," produced about the same time, is now chiefly remembered as having occasioned some caustic lines in the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers:"-- "Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head Where Garrick trod, and Kemble lives to tread? On those shall Farce display Buffoonery's mask, And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask?" "The Siege of St. Quentin," a drama of a similar description, quickly followed. The plot was founded on the famous battle of that name fought in 1557, when the French, endeavouring to raise the siege, were signally defeated. The object of the piece, which was to excite enthusiasm in favour of the Spanish nation, together with the magnificence of the _mise en scène_, won for it considerable success. It sleeps now with sundry others, such as "The Trial by Jury" (1811), "Darkness Visible" (1811), "Safe and Sound" (1809), "Music Mad" (1808). They all ran their course, and have perished-- "Unwept, unhonour'd, and unknown." The last-named, however ("Music Mad"), perhaps deserves a word of notice, if only on account of its transcendent absurdity. The principal character, stolen bodily from _Il Fanatico per la Musica_ (which had been considered the masterpiece of the celebrated Naldi), and rendered infinitely more ridiculous by being metamorphosed into a native of our most unmusical isle, is, as the title indicates, an amateur, and so passionately devoted to his favourite science as to insist upon his servant's wearing a waistcoat scored all over with crotchets and semiquavers.