With rhymers our Theatre’s always surrounded,

Whose Bellman taught lays set the house in a roar:

Common sense stands aghast, thunder-struck and confounded,

While Dullness brays out from its Gall’ry, Encore!

Then, big with applause,

Crack’s Scotch ell of jaws[14]

Sets forth a hoarse bawling, so purely divine,

That hydras or bears

Might prick up their ears,

And howl out in concert with Bards of the Tyne.