He is too grave a poet for me; and, I think, among the mediocrists in prose as well as in verse." Pope sanctioned the judgment; adding, that what Hughes wanted in genius, he made up as an honest man. Hitherto, the great tragedy of this century was "Cato." At Lincoln's Inn, Quin played the King to Ryan's Hamlet, and created Henri Quatre in young Beckingham's second, last, and unsuccessful essay, "Henry IV. of France." What was the course of the Merchant Tailors' pupil, and son of the Fleet Street linen-draper, after this, I am unable to say, further than that he died in obscurity some ten years later. A comedy, by "Handsome Leigh," a moderately fair actor, called "Kensington Gardens, or the Pretenders," showed some power of drawing character, especially an effeminate footman, Bardach, played by Bullock, but it did nothing for a theatre which was now partly relying on subscriptions in aid. At the head of the subscribers was the last Baron Brooke, whose more famous son, the first Earl of Warwick, of the Fulke Greville line, used to subscribe his political vote so singularly--first for ministers, then for the opposition, and thirdly, not at all, in undeviating regularity. This piece failing, came Theobald's adaptation of Shakspeare's "Richard II.," very much for the worse, but so far to the profit of the adapter that the Earl of Orrery conferred on him an unusually liberal gift for the dedication, namely, a hundred pound note, enclosed in a box of Egyptian pebble, which was worth a score of pounds more. The original author was less munificently remunerated, except in abiding glory. Another attempt served the house as poorly namely, the re-appearance of a Mrs. Vandervelt, not because she was a clever, but that she was a very aged actress, eighty-five years old, who had not played since King Charles's time, but who had spirits enough to act the Widow Rich, in the "Half-pay Officers," a vamped-up farce, by Molloy, the political writer, and strength enough to dance a sprightly jig after it. As the hostess of a tavern in Tottenham Court Road, Peg Fryer, as the old dame was called off the stage, kept a merry and prosperous house. Another adaptation was Griffin's comedy, "Whig and Tory," which had nothing political in it but the name; and by which that excellent low comedian, who ought to have been in the Church, and who would not be a glazier, did not add to his fame.