The wits who drink water, and suck sugar-candy,
Impute the strong spirit of Kenrick to brandy.
They are not so much out: the matter in short is
He sips aqua-vitæ and spits aqua-fortis.Public Adv.

[30] This multifarious genius pretends to have discovered the Perpetual motion, but it must be a mere pretence; as he is weak enough to think the public ought to reward him for his discovery, and offers to disclose it on the simple terms of no purchase no pay.

That upward roll'd with anxious toil and pain,
The summit almost gain'd, rolls back again.
Ne'er shall his Falstaff[31] come again to life;
Ne'er shall be play'd again his Widow'd Wife;[32]
Ne'er will I court again his stubborn Muse,
But for a pageant would his play refuse.
While puff and pantomime will gull the town,
'Tis good to keep o'erweening merit down;
With Bickerstaff and Cumberland go shares,
And grind the poets as I grind the players.
IMITATIONS.
Aut petes aut urges ruiturum, Sysiphe, saxum.
NOTES.

[31] Falstaff's Wedding, a play written in imitation of Shakespeare; at first rejected, as unfit for the theatre, on account of having so many of Shakespeare's known characters in it; tho' the manager himself afterwards brought on a pageant, in which were almost all Shakespeare's known characters; when finding it difficult to make any of them speak with propriety, he contented himself with instructing them to bite their thumbs, screw up their mouths, and make faces at each other, to the great edification of the audience.—This play indeed was afterwards performed, and tho' received with the most confirmed and general applause, has however never since been acted, either for the author's emolument or the entertainment of the publick.

[32] Another comedy, nearly under the same predicament with respect to the town: having been performed but once since its first run, tho' received with similar approbation; the manager in the mean while having brought on, and repeatedly acted, the performances of his favourite play-wrights, to almost empty houses: and yet Roscius hath all the while pretended to have the highest opinion of the talents, and the greatest regard for the interest of the writer.—— The manager claims a legal right, indeed, as patentee, to perform what plays he pleases; but tho' the play-house and patent be his property, he has no liberal right to make, at pleasure, a property of the players, the poets and the publick!

Curse on that Kenrick, foul of spleen and whim!
What are my puffs, and what my gains to him?
If poor and proud, can he of right complain
That wealthier men and wittier are as vain?
Why must he hint that I am past my prime,
To blast my fading laurels ere their time?
Death to my fame, and what, alas, is worse,
'Tis death, damnation, to my craving purse;
Capacious purse! by Plutus form'd to hold,
(The God of Wealth) the devil and all of gold.
Insatiate purse, that never yet ran o'er,
But swallows all, and gapes, like Hell, for more.
And yet, alas! how much the world will lye!
They call me miser; but no miser I;
He, brooding o'er his bags, delighted sits,
And laughs to scorn the jests of envious wits;
If fast his doors, he sets his heart at rest,
And dotes with rapture on his iron chest;
No galling paper-squibs his spirits teize,
But ev'n the boys may hoot him if they please.
He scorns the whistling of an empty name,
While I am torn 'twixt avarice and fame;
IMITATIONS.
Sordidus ac dives, populi contemnere voces
Si solitus: populus me sibilat: at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arcâ.