Accordingly, prince Volscius yields to the influence of a fair demoiselle, who bears the classical name of Parthenope, and after various exhibitions of hesitation, he does not leave town. Another scene or two, with little meaning, but full of clever parodies on the plays of Dryden, the Howards, and their contemporaries. The first scene of the fourth act opens with a funeral, a parody upon colonel Henry Howard’s play of the “United Kingdoms.” Pallas interferes, brings the lady who is to be buried to life, gets up a dance, and furnishes a very extempore feast. The princes Prettyman and Volscius dispute about their sweethearts. At the commencement of the fifth act the two usurping kings appear in state, attended by four cardinals, the two princes, all the lady-loves, heralds, and sergeants-at-arms, &c In the middle of all this state, “the two right kings of Brentford descend in the clouds, singing, in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before them in green.” “Now,” says Bayes to his friends, “because the two right kings descend from above, I make ’em sing to the tune and style of our modern spirits.” And accordingly they proceeded in a continuous parody:—
1st King.— Haste, brother king, we are sent from above.
2nd King.—Let us move, let us move;
Move, to remove the fate
Of Brentford’s long united state.
1st King.— Tara, tan, tara!—full east and by south.
2nd King.—We sail with thunder in our mouth.
In scorching noon-day, whilst the traveller stays,
Busy, busy, busy, busy, we bustle along,
Mounted upon warm Phœbus’s rays,