LONDON WATCHMEN.
Had a council of thieves been consulted, the regulations of the Watch could not have been better contrived for their accommodation. The coats of the Watchmen are made as large and of as white cloth as possible, to enable the thieves to discern their approach at the greatest distance; and that there may be no mistake, the lantern is added. They are fixed at stations, that thieves, by knowing where they are, may infer where they are not, and do their best; the intervals of half an hour in going the rounds are just such as to give expert thieves a fair opportunity of getting a moderate booty from a house. That they may not be taken by surprise, they have the same accommodation in the cry of the time that was prayed for by the rats, when they asked that bells might be hung about the necks of the cats; and lastly, that the burglars may have all possible chance, even, if surprised, the watchmen mostly chosen are old, infirm, and impotent.[402]
[402] The Times, October, 1827.
Garrick Plays.
No. XXXVIII.
[From the “Fawn,” a Comedy, by John Marston, 1606.]
In the Preface to this Play, the Poet glances at some of the Play-wrights of his time; with a handsome acknowledgment, notwithstanding, of their excellencies.
“for my own interest let this once be printed, that, of men of my own addition, I love most, pity some, hate none: for let me truly say it, I once only loved myself for loving them; and surely I shall ever rest so constant to my first affection, that, let their ungentle combinings, discurteous whisperings, never so treacherously labour to undermine my unfenced reputation, I shall (as long as I have being) love the least of their graces, and only pity the greatest of their vices.
Ipse semi-paganus
Ad sacra vatûm carmen affero nostrum.”
[Commendatory Verses before three Plays of Sir William Killigrew, by T. L.]
1.
That thy wise and modest Muse
Flies the Stage’s looser use;
Not bawdry Wit does falsely name,
And to move laughter puts off shame:
2.
That thy theatre’s loud noise
May be virgin’s chaste applause;
And the stoled matron, grave divine,
Their lectures done, may tend to thine:
3.
That no actor’s made profane,
To debase Gods, to raise thy strain;
And people forced, that hear thy Play,
Their money and their souls to pay:
4.
That thou leav’st affected phrase
To the shops to use and praise;
And breath’st a noble Courtly vein,—
Such as may Cæsar entertain,
5.
When he wearied would lay down
The burdens that attend a crown;
Disband his soul’s severer powers;
In mirth and ease dissolve two hours:
6.
These are thy inferior arts,
These I call thy second parts.
But when thou earnest on the plot,
And all are lost in th’ subtle knot;
7.
When the scene sticks to every thought,
And can to no event be brought;
When (thus of old the scene betraid)
Poets call’d Gods unto their aid,
8.
Who by power might do the thing,
Art could to no issue bring;
As the Pellean prince, that broke
With a rude and down-right stroke
9.
The perplext and fatal noose,
Which his skill could not unloose:—
Thou dost a nobler art profess;
And the coyl’d serpent can’st no less
10.
Stretch out from every twisted fold,
In which he lay inwove and roll’d,
Induce a night, and then a day,
Wrap all in clouds, and then display.
11.
Th’ easy and the even design:
A plot, without a God, divine!—
Let others’ bold pretending pens
Write acts of Gods, that know not men’s;
In this to thee all must resign:
Th’ Surprise of th’ Scene is wholly thine.
[Commendatory Verses before the “Faithful Shepherd” of Fletcher.]
There are no sureties, good friend, will be taken
For works that vulgar good-name hath forsaken.
A Poem and a Play too! Why, ’tis like
A Scholar that’s a Poet; their names strike,
And kill out-right: one cannot both fates bear.—
But as a Poet, that’s no Scholar, makes
Vulgarity his whiffler, and so takes
Passage with ease and state thro’ both sides ’press
Of pageant-seers: or, as Scholars please,
That are no Poets, more than Poets learn’d,
Since their art solely is by souls discern’d,
(The others’ falls within the common sense,
And sheds, like common light, her influence):
So, were your Play no Poem, but a thing
That every cobbler to his patch might sing;
A rout of nifles, like the multitude,
With no one limb of any art endued,
Like would to like, and praise you: but because
Your poem only hath by us applause;
Renews the Golden Age, and holds through all
The holy laws of homely Pastoral,
Where flowers, and founts, and nymphs, and semi-gods,
And all the Graces, find their old abodes;
Where poets flourish but in endless verse,
And meadows nothing-fit for purchasers:
This Iron Age, that eats itself, will never
Bite at your Golden World, that others ever
Loved as itself. Then, like your Book, do you
Live in old peace: and that far praise allow.
G. Chapman.
[Commendatory Verses before the “Rebellion,” a Tragedy, by T. Rawlins, 1640.]
To see a Springot of thy tender age
With such a lofty strain to word a Stage;
To see a Tragedy from thee in print,
With such a world of fine meanders in’t;
Puzzles my wond’ring soul: for there appears
Such disproportion ’twixt thy lines and years,
That, when I read thy lines, methinks I see
The sweet-tongued Ovid fall upon his knee
With “Parce Precor.” Every line and word
Runs in sweet numbers of its own accord.
But I am thunderstruck, that all this while
Thy unfeather’d quill should write a tragic style.
This, above all, my admiration draws,
That one so young should know dramatic laws:
Tis rare, and therefore is not for the span
Or greasy thumbs of every common man.
The damask rose that sprouts before the Spring,
Is fit for none to smell at but a king.
Go on, sweet friend: I hope in time to see
Thy temples rounded with the Daphnean tree;
And if men ask “Who nursed thee?” I’ll say thus,
“It was the Ambrosian Spring of Pegasus.”
Robert Chamberlain.
C. L.