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 every body 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 bookkeeper—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 inclosed 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 affects of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, of which they tell me one hiss is a dose.
I am, &c.,
Momus Medlar.
[Enter Macbeth in a red nightcap. Page following with a torch.]
Go, boy, and thy good mistress tell
(She knows that my purpose is cruel),
I’d thank her to tingle her bell
As soon as she’s heated my gruel.