DEDICATION TO THE KING.
That was on the first night. The ‘irrepressible acclamations’ of the packed audience were still living in their echoes when the curtain rose for the Prologue. The king smiled when the house laughed aloud at the threat it contained that the play would treat the Jacobites roughly.
Good breeding ne’er commands us to be civil
To those who wish our Nation at the devil!
The Whig faction thoroughly enjoyed the allusions to the Nonjuring parson, who rallied his flock in close back-rooms, reigned the patriarch of blind lanes and alleys, and who fulminated excommunications from London garrets. When the play began, Mrs. Oldfield and Booth, by their exquisite acting, almost made both factions overlook the political allusions.
SIGNIFICANT PASSAGES.
The passages which excited the greatest enthusiasm included the following: Colonel Woodville’s allusion to the Nonjuring pamphlet, ‘The Case of Schism,’ and his comment, ‘I have seen enough of that in The Daily Courant, to be sorry it is in any hands but those of the common Hangman.’ Next, Maria’s remark to her brother: ‘Why, you look as if the Minority had been likely to have carried a Question.’ When the Colonel notices to Wolf that, in prayer, the latter (a Nonjuring clergyman, nearly a Romanist) never names the Royal family, the answer stirred much laughter: ‘That’s only to shorten the service, lest, in so large a family some few, vain, idle souls might think it tedious; and we ought, as it were, to allure them to what’s good, by the gentlest, easiest manner we can.’ The laughter was louder still in the subsequent words, ‘But, why, Sir, is naming them so absolutely necessary, when Heaven, without it, knows the true intention of our hearts?’—And the Jacobites themselves may have ventured on murmuring approbation at Wolf’s words, ‘Power, perhaps, may change its hands, and you, ere long, as little dare to speak your mind as I do!’ But the Whigs had their turn when the Colonel exclaimed, ‘Traitor! but that our Laws have chains and gibbets for such villains, I’d this moment crackle all thy bones to splinters.’ No doubt the laughter was at its loudest when the Colonel read the list of Dr. Wolf’s expenses, on behalf of the Jacobite interest, which list had fallen from the Nonjuror’s pocket. It ran to this effect:—
JACOBITE OUTLAY.
| Laid-out at several times for the secret service of His M.… | ||||
| May 28. | For six baskets of Rue and Thyme | 0 | 18 | 0 |
| “ 29. | Ditto. Two cart-loads | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| June 10. | For two bushels of white roses | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| “ | Ditto. Given to the bell-ringers of several parishes | 10 | 15 | 0 |
| “ | To Simon Chaunter, Parish Clerk, for his selecting proper staves adapted to the day | 5 | 7 | 6 |
| “ | For lemons and arrack sent into Newgate | 9 | 5 | 0 |
| (At the last item the Colonel observes: ‘Well, whilethey drink it in Newgate, much good may it do them!’) | ||||
| June 10. | Paid to Henry Conscience, Juryman, for his extraordinary trouble in acquitting Sir Preston Rebel of his indictment | 53 | 15 | 0 |
| “ | Allow’d to Patrick Mac Rogue, for prevailing with his comrade to desert | 4 | 6 | 6 |
| “ | Given as Smart Money to Humfrey Staunch, cobler, lately whipt for speaking his mind of the government | 3 | 4 | 6 |
| June 10. | Paid to Abel Perkin, newswriter, for several seasonable paragraphs | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug. 1. | Paid to John Shoplift and Thomas Highway for endeavouring to put out the enemy’s bonfire | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Aug. 2. | Paid the Surgeon for sear cloth for their bruises | 1 | 1 | 6 |
ADVANTAGES OF CLAMOUR.