Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow,
Wave the white arm and point the pliant toe;
Collini trill her love-inspiring song,
Strain her fair neck and charm the listening throng!
A London critic adds the following pertinent observations: “Thus far our author concerning the stage, to which we add an observation or two of our own. We certainly think the barrel a curious asylum for a distressed prince; but when we reflect on what kind of princes and heroes the modern stage and modern authors exhibit, (the seige of St. Quintin for instance, by the same author, Mr. Hook) we cannot help exclaiming (no plagiarism, we hope)
We with the sentence are indeed content,
To see such princes in such barrels pent.
And as a barrel is described by our best lexicographers to be “any thing hollow,” what vehicle more appropriate could be found? The ingenious author, was surely a favourite of the barrel, and well acquainted with the virtues of a cask; although according to sir Walter Raleigh, “some are so ill-seasoned and conditioned that a great part of the contents is ever lost and cast away.”
Respecting Mr. Reynolds’s indulgence of himself, in perpetual repetition of his vocables,[18] we should be glad to have it in our power to affirm that the beef and mutton[19] author was the only one who disgraced himself by such contemptible degradation; but, alas! the pages of our work have too often exhibited similar complaints against the majority of our great playwrights—many of these gentlemen being reduced to silence, without their auxiliary dammes!
We differ widely from our author respecting Mr. T. Sheridan’s stripping of Bonduca—for we really think it worthy the son of that poet, who, neglecting his own genius and the duties of a regular practitioner, condescends to turn quack, and bedizen that high German doctor Pizarro, in an English dress!!