To the song "'Give Isaac the nymph," there were at first two more verses, which, merely to show how judicious was the omission of them, I shall here transcribe. Next to the advantage of knowing what to put into our writings, is that of knowing what to leave out:—
"To one thus accomplished I durst speak my mind,
And flattery doubtless would soon make her kind;
For the man that should praise her she needs must adore,
Who ne'er in her life receiv'd praises before.
"But the frowns of a beauty in hopes to remove,
Should I prate of her charms, and tell of my love;
No thanks wait the praise which she knows to be true,
Nor smiles for the homage she takes as her due."
Among literary piracies or impostures, there are few more audacious than the Dublin edition of the Duenna,—in which, though the songs are given accurately, an entirely new dialogue is substituted for that of Sheridan, and his gold, as in the barter of Glaucus, exchanged for such copper as the following:—
"Duen. Well, Sir, I don't want to stay in your house; but I must go and lock up my wardrobe."
"Isaac. Your wardrobe! when you came into my house you could carry your wardrobe in your comb-case, you could, you old dragon."
Another specimen:—
"Isaac. Her voice, too, you told me, was like a Virginia Nightingale; why, it is like a cracked warming-pan:—and as for dimples!—to be sure, she has the devil's own dimples.—Yes! and you told me she had a lovely down upon her chin, like the down of a peach; but, damn me if ever I saw such down upon any creature in my life, except once upon an old goat."
These jokes, I need not add, are all the gratuitous contributions of the editor.
Towards the close of the year 1775, it was understood that Garrick meant to part with his moiety of the patent of Drury Lane Theatre, and retire from the stage. He was then in the sixtieth year of his age, and might possibly have been influenced by the natural feeling, so beautifully expressed for a great actor of our own time, by our greatest living writer: