_Clink._ Were the play mine, you should gash my flesh, mangle my face, any thing sooner than scratch my play. _Plot._ Blot and insert wherever you please----I submit myself to your judgment. _Plotwell rises and discourses apart with Townley._ Sir _Trem._ Madam, nonsense and I have been at variance from my cradle, it sets my understanding on edge. 2d _Play._ Indeed, madam, with submission, and I think I have some experience of the stage, this play will hardly take. _Clink._ The worst lines of it would be sufficiently clapt, if it had been writ by a known author, or recommended by one. Sir _Trem._ Between you and I, madam, who understand better things, this gentleman knows nothing of poetry. 1st _Play._ The gentleman may be an honest man, but he is a damn'd writer, and it neither can take, nor ought to take. Sir _Trem._ If you are the gentleman's friend, and value his reputation, advise him to burn it. _Clink._ What struggles has an unknown author to vanquish prejudice! Suppose this play acts but six nights, his next may play twenty. Encourage a young author, I know it will be your interest. 2d _Play._ I would sooner give five hundred pounds than bring some plays on the stage; an audience little considers whether 'tis the author or the actor that is hiss'd, our character suffers. 1st _Play._ Damn our character--We shall lose money by it. _Clink._ I'll deposit a sum myself upon the success of it. Well, since it is to be play'd--I will prevail upon him to strike out some few things.--Take the play, Sir Tremendous. _Sir Tremendous reads in a muttering tone._ Sir _Trem._ Absurd to the last degree [_strikes out._] palpable nonsense! [_strikes out._] _Clink._ What all those lines! spare those for a lady's sake, for those indeed, I gave him. Sir _Trem._ Such stuff! [_strikes out._] abominable! [_strikes out._] most execrable! 1st _Play._ This thought must out. 2d _Play._ Madam, with submission, this metaphor. 1st _Play._ This whole speech. Sir _Trem._ The Fable! _Clink._ To you I answer,-- 1st _Play._ The characters! _Clink._ To you I answer-- Sir _Trem._ The diction! _Clink._ And to you--Ah, hold, hold,--I'm butcher'd, I'm massacred. For mercy's sake! murder, murder! ah! [_faints._ _Enter Fossile peeping at the door._ _Foss._ My house turn'd to a stage! and my bride playing her part too! What will become of me? but I'll know the bottom of all this, [_aside._] I am surprized to see so many patients here so early. What is your distemper, Sir? 1st _Play._ The cholic, Sir, by a surfeit of green tea and damn'd verses.