Candour and Modesty.
Henry Metayer, author of a tragedy called the Perfidious Brother, committed it to Theobald, of Dunciad memory, for examination and correction. The latter had the monstrous effrontery, after having made a few verbal alterations in it, to have it acted and printed as his own.[N] Metayer, incensed at this piratical proceeding, appealed to the public, and had his own work printed. The literary thief excited the contempt and detestation such a base procedure merited.
Charles Macklin.
This actor has the credit of having checked a nefarious practice, which has prevailed to a certain degree in almost every theatre, and of which Philadelphia and New-York have exhibited some striking instances. I mean the practice of certain meanspirited wretches, who bear malice towards particular performers, and make parties to hiss them off the stage. It is not easy to conceive of a greater degree of baseness, turpitude, and cowardice, than is manifested by this conduct. The object of their malice is unable to defend himself from their attacks. This, to a generous mind, would be an ægis, and protect the person who could make such a plea, as completely as her sex protects a woman. But with the persons here contemplated, the impunity they expect is the very incitement to their inglorious warfare.
Some of these ruffians having in this mode assailed Macklin, he singled out as many of them as he could identify by the deposition of competent witnesses. Against these offenders he commenced a prosecution[O] in which they were found guilty, and exemplarily punished. The salutary effects of this spirited procedure, I am informed, are still perceptible in the London theatres.
Richard Fullerton.
While I am writing on this topic, I may be allowed to drop a tear to the memory of this unfortunate victim to the brutal system I have referred to in the preceding paragraphs. That he was hunted to suicide, I could, if necessary, establish by indisputable testimony. A very worthy man, of the most strict veracity, now residing in Baltimore, informed me that he was in a corner of the green-room, in the theatre of this city one night when Fullerton was actually hissed off the stage. When the poor persecuted actor came into the green-room, he did not perceive the gentleman, and clenching his fists, struck his forehead, and swore with a most desperate oath, that the ruffians would be the death of him. His sensibility to outrage and insult overpowered and unmanned him. A few days afterwards he consigned himself to the waves of the Delaware, to escape from the fury of his remorseless persecutors.