Regain'd the felt, and felt what he regain'd,
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat
Made a low bow, and touch'd the ransom'd hat.
To the Managing Committee of the New Drury Lane Theatre.
Gentlemen,
Happening to be wool-gathering at the foot of Mount Parnassus, I was suddenly seized with a violent travestie in the head. The first symptoms I felt were several triple rhymes floating about my brain, accompanied by a singing in my throat, which quickly communicated itself to the ears of everybody about me, and made me a burthen to my friends, and a torment to Doctor Apollo, three of whose favourite servants, that is to say, Macbeth, his butcher, Mrs. Haller, his cook, and George Barnwell, his book-keeper, I waylaid in one of my fits of insanity, and mauled after a very frightful fashion. In this woeful crisis I accidentally heard of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, which cures every disorder incident to Grub Street. I send you enclosed a more detailed specimen of my case; if you could mould it into the shape of an Address to be said or sung on the first night of your performance, I have no doubt that I should feel the immediate effects of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, of which they tell me one hiss is a dose.
I am, &c.
Momus Medlar.