[326] 2 Kings, chap. iv.
[327] 1 Samuel, chap. iv. v. 10.
[328] Exodus, chap. xvii. v. 8.
[329] Aristides. See his Life in Plutarch.
[330] Our author's several modes of coaxing or bullying the audience in the prologues, are ridiculed in the "Rehearsal;" where Bayes says, "You must know there is in nature but two ways of making very good prologues;—the one is, by civility, by insinuation, good language, and all that to —— a —— in a manner steal your plaudit from the courtesy of the auditors: the other, by making use of some certain personal things, which may keep a hank upon such censuring persons as cannot otherwise, egad, in nature, be hindered from being too free with their tongues."
[331] The following is the statement of the accusation in Tom's peculiar style, being a sort of cant jargon, not void of low humour:
"Bayes. Now, there being but three remarkable places in the whole island; that is, the two universities, and the great metropolitan city; I shall, consequently, confine my discourse only to them: But, first of all, I must tell you, that I am altogether of my Lord Plausible's opinion in the "Plain Dealer;" if I chance to commend any place, or order of men, out of pure friendship, I choose to do it before their faces; and if I have occasion to speak ill of any person or place, out of a principle of respect and good manners, I do it behind their backs. You cannot imagine, Mr Crites, when I visit either of the two universities, in my own person, or by my commissioners of the playhouse, how much I am taken with a college life: Oh, there's nothing like a cheese cut out into farthings! and my Lord Mayor, amidst all his brutal city luxury, does not dine half so well as a student upon a single chop of rotten roasted mutton; nay, I can scarce prevail with myself, for a month or two after, to eat my meat on a plate, so great a respect have I for a university trencher; and then their conversation is so learned, and withal so innocent, that I could sit a whole day together at a coffee-house to hear them dispute about actus perspicui, and forma misti. From this beginning I naturally fall a railing at London, with as much zeal as a Buckingham-shire grazier, who had his pocket picked at a Smithfield entertainment; or a country lady, whose obsequious knight has spent his estate among misses, vintners, and linen-drapers; and then I tell my audience, that a man may walk farther in the city to meet a true judge of poetry, than ride his horse on Salisbury Plain to find a house.
London likes grossly, but this nicer pit
Examines, fathoms, all the depths of wit.
You see here, Mr Crites, that scholars won't take Alderman Duncomb's leaden halfpence for Irish half crowns, while dull Londoner swallows every thing; and takes it with as little consideration, as a true Romanist takes a spiritual dose of relicts, that are sealed up with the council of Trent's coat-of-arms.