THEATRALIA.
Tom Durfey
Once got fifty guineas (according to tradition) for singing a single song to queen Anne in ridicule of “the princess Sophia, electress and duchess dowager of Hanover,” (as she is called in the oath of allegiance,) naturally no great favourite with the then reigning monarch. The only lines of this satirical production that have come down to us are the following; and, until now, only the two first of the stanza have been preserved by Durfey’s biographers:—
“The crown’s far too weighty
For shoulders of eighty;
She could not sustain such a trophy;
Her hand, too, already
Has grown so unsteady
She can’t hold a sceptre;
So Providence kept her
Away.—Poor old Dowager Sophy.”
“Merry Tom” had sung before the king in the former reign, and Charles II., as is well known, was very fond of his company.
Liston’s Marriage.
The following got into circulation just after Mr. Liston was united to Miss Tyrer but never was published:—
Liston has married Fanny Tyrer:
He must, like all the town, admire her,
A pretty actress, charming voice!
But some, astonish’d at his choice
Of one, compar’d with him, so small
She scarcely seem’d a wife at all,
Express’d their wonder: his reply
Show’d that he had “good reason why.”—
“We needs must when the devil drives;
And since all married men say, wives
Are of created things the worst,
I was resolv’d I would be curst
With one as small as I could get her.
The smaller, as I thought, the better.
I need not fear to lay my fist on,
Whene’er ’tis needed, Mrs. Liston:
And since, ’like heathen Jew or Carib,
I like a rib, but not a spare-rib,
I got one broad as she is long—
Go and do better, if I’m wrong.”
Charles Jennens, Esq.
One of the most singular characters of his day was Charles Jennens, Esq., a sort of literary Bubb Doddington. Being born to a good estate, from his boyhood he was ridiculously fond of show and pomp, and his style of writing was of a piece with his style of living. It has been said, that he put together the words of Handel’s “Messiah:” that he had something to do with them is true; but he had a secretary of the name of Pooley, a poor clergyman, who executed the principal part of the work, and, till now, has obtained no part of the credit. Charles Jennens, Esq. took it into his head, (perhaps the most rational notion he had ever indulged,) that the majority of Shakspeare’s commentators were mere twaddling antiquaries, without taste or talent; but he adopted an unfortunate way of proving it: he himself published an edition of Hamlet, Lear, Othello, and one or two more tragedies. He was of course laughed at for his attempt, and George Steevens tried to show a little of the wit, for which his friends gave him credit, and of the ill-nature for which he deserved it. Jennens published a pamphlet in reply, the greater part his own writing, which for years was his delight and solace: his poor secretary used to have the task of reading it from beginning to end, whenever his patron called for it, on giving an entertainment to his friends. Jennens commented, explained, and enforced, as he proceeded. In some of the biographical accounts of this personage it is asserted gravely, that for some time after the appearance of this tract he carefully looked over the newspapers every day, to learn if the success and severity of his attack had not compelled Dr. Johnson, Malone, Steevens, or Warburton, to hang themselves. This depends upon the following epigram, written at the time, and now only existing in MS., but which obtained a wide circulation, and is attributed, perhaps correctly, to Steevens. The only objection to this supposition is, that if it had been Steevens’s it is strange how his vanity could keep it out of the public prints, though after all it possesses but little merit:—
“After Mister Charles Jennens produc’d his Defence,
He saw all the papers at Martyr’s,
To learn if the critics had had the good sense
To hang themselves in their own garters.
He thought they could never out-live it. The sot
Is ready to hang himself, ’cause they have not.”
When we called Jennens a literary Bubb Doddington, we ought to have remembered that Doddington had talents, but Jennens had none.
Elliston’s Epigram.
The following has been handed about as from the pen of Mr. Elliston, now of the Surrey theatre. It may be his or it may not, but whichever way the fact be, it can do him no harm to publish it. The point is in the Greek Anthology, though we do not suppose that Mr. E. went there for it.
The best Wine.
“What wine do you esteem the first,
And like above the rest?”
Ask’d Tom—said Dick—“My own is worst,
My friend’s is always best.”
Sir John Hill
Was a Polish knight and an English physician, more celebrated by Garrick’s epigrams than by his own dramatic compositions, consisting of two farces, The Maiden’s Whim and The Rout. He wrote books enough on all subjects “to build his own papyral monument,” if the grocers and trunk-makers had not committed such havoc among them, even before his death. That event was produced by taking his own remedy for the gout, and it is thus commemorated.
On the Death of Doctor Hill.
“Poor Doctor Hill is dead!”—“Good lack!
Of what disorder?”—“An attack
Of gout.”—“Indeed! I thought that he
Had found a wondrous remedy.”—
“Why so he had, and when he tried
He found it true—the Doctor died!”