Considering how often you have jested in the grave to please _Betterton_ prince of _Denmark_, I wonder the grave by this day has not been in earnest with you, that in process of time, when the churchyard vermin have feasted themselves upon your cadaver, your own scull may become a jest to some other grave-digger. I must confess when I left you, you were a sociable sort of a drunkard, and pretty little peddling sort of a whoremaster, but I hear since, you have droop’d within a few years into such a dispirited condition, that ’tis as much as a plentiful dose of the best canary can do to remove the hyppocon for a few minutes, that you may entertain your friends with a little of your comick humour, grac’d with that agreeable smile that has always rendered what you say delightful, and that it is not in the subtile power of intoxicating _Nantz_ to add new life to that decay’d member, which has in a manner taken leave of this world before the rest of your body; you have so often been used to a grave in your life-time, that I think you never wanted a _memento mori_ to put you in mind of mortality: death sure can be no surprize to a merry mortal, who has so often jested with him upon the stage, and and I long to hear when the grinning skeleton shall shake you by the hand, and say, _Come, old duke_ Trinculo, _thy last sands are running, thy ultimate moment is at hand, and the worms are gaping for thee_. What a jocular answer you will make to the thin-jaw’d executioner, for every comedian ought to die with a jest in his mouth to preserve his memory, for if he makes not the audience laugh as he goes off the stage, he forfeits his character, and his fame dies with his body; therefore I would advise you to set your wits on work to prepare yourself, that as you have always liv’d by repeating other peoples wit, you may not make your exit like a fool, but show you have some remains of your own juvenile sparklings to oblige the world with at your last minute.