“Well, then, why do you all three prefer Douglas? And you, boys, who are such Tories, will you go see a play which is wrote by a Whig Scotchman, who was actually made prisoner at Falkirk?”
“Relicta non bene parmula,” says Mr. Jack the scholar.
“Nay; it was relicta bene parmula,” cried the General. “It was the Highlanders who flung their targes down, and made fierce work among us redcoats. If they had fought all their fields as well as that, and young Perkin had not turned back from Derby——”
“I know which side would be rebels, and who would be called the Young Pretender,” interposed George.
“Hush! you must please to remember my cloth, Mr. Warrington,” said the General, with some gravity; “and that the cockade I wear is a black, not a white one! Well, if you will not love Mr. Home for his politics, there is, I think, another reason, George, why you should like him.”
“I may have Tory fancies, Mr. Lambert, but I think I know how to love and honour a good Whig,” said George, with a bow to the General: “but why should I like this Mr. Home, sir?”
“Because, being a Presbyterian clergyman, he has committed the heinous crime of writing a play, and his brother-parsons have barked out an excommunication at him. They took the poor fellow's means of livelihood away from him for his performance; and he would have starved, but that the young Pretender on our side of the water has given him a pension.”
“If he has been persecuted by the parsons, there is hope for him,” said George, smiling. “And henceforth I declare myself ready to hear his sermons.”
“Mrs. Woffington is divine in it, though not generally famous in tragedy. Barry is drawing tears from all eyes; and Garrick is wild at having refused the piece. Girls, you must bring each half a dozen handkerchiefs! As for mamma, I cannot trust her; and she positively must be left at home.”
But mamma persisted she would go; and, if need were to weep, she would sit and cry her eyes out in a corner. They all went to Covent Garden, then; the most of the party duly prepared to see one of the masterpieces of the age and drama. Could they not all speak long pages of Congreve; had they not wept and kindled over Otway and Rowe? O ye past literary glories, that were to be eternal, how long have you been dead? Who knows much more now than where your graves are? Poor, neglected Muse of the bygone theatre! She pipes for us, and we will not dance; she tears her hair, and we will not weep. And the Immortals of our time, how soon shall they be dead and buried, think you? How many will survive? How long shall it be ere Nox et Domus Plutonia shall overtake them?