ACT I.

SCENE 1.-MR. and MRS. DANGLE at breakfast, and reading newspapers.-Dangle reading. BRUTUS to Lord North.'- Letter the Second on the State of the Army.'-Psha! To the 'first L dash D of the A dash Y.-Genuine 'Extract of a Letter from St. Kitt's.'- Coxheath 'intelligence.' It is now confidently asserted that Sir Charles Hardy'-Psha!-Nothing but about the fleet and the nation!-and I hate all politics but theatrical politics.-Where's the Morning Chronicle?

Mrs. D. Yes, that's your Gazette.

Dan. So, here we have it. Theatrical intelligence extraordinary.-We hear there is a new 'tragedy in rehearsal at Drury-lane theatre, called the Spanish Armada, said to be written by Mr. Puff, a gentleman well known in the theatrical world. If we may allow ourselves to give credit to the report of the performers, who, truth to say, are in general but indifferent judges, this piece abounds with the most striking and re'ceived beauties of modern composition.-So, I am very glad my friend Puff's tragedy is in such forwardness. Mrs. Dangle, my dear, you will be very glad to hear that Puff's tragedy

Mrs. D. Lord! Mr. Dangle, why will you plague me about such nonsense? Now the plays are begun, I shall have no peace. Isn't it sufficient to make yourself ridiculous by your passion for the theatre, without continually teasing me to join you? Why can't you ride your hobby-horse, without desiring to place me on a pillion behind you, Mr. Dangle?

Dan. Nay, my dear; I was only going to readMrs. D. No, no; you will never read any thing that's worth listening to: you hate to hear about your country; there are letters every day with Roman signatures, demonstrating the certainty of an invasion, and proving that the nation is utterly undone. But you never will read any thing to entertain one.

Dan. What has a woman to do with politics, Mrs. Dangle?

Mrs. D. And what have you to do with the theatre, Mr. Dangle? Why should you affect the character of a critic? I have no patience with you! Haven't you made yourself the jest of all your acquaintance by your interference in matters where you have no business? Are not you called a theatrical quidnunc, and a mock Mecenas to secondhand authors?

Dan. True; my power with the managers is

pretty notorious; but is it no credit to have applications from all quarters for my interest? From lords to recommend fiddlers, from ladies to get boxes, from authors to get answers, and from actors to get engagements?

Mrs. D. Yes, truly; you have contrived to get a share in all the plague and trouble of theatrical property, without the profit, or even the credit of the abuse that attends it.

Dan. I am sure, Mrs. Dangle, you are no loser by it, however; you have all the advantages of it: mightn't you, last winter, have had the reading of the new pantomime a fortnight previous to its performance? And doesn't Mr. Spring let you take places for a play before it is advertised, and set you down for a box for every new piece through the season? And didn't my friend, Mr. Smatter, dedicate his last farce to you at my particular request, Mrs. Dangle?

Mrs. D. Yes; but wasn't the farce damn'd, Mr. Dangle? And to be sure, it is extremely pleasant to have one's house made the motley rendezvous of all the lacqueys of literature: the very high 'change of trading authors and jobbing critics! Yes, my drawing room is an absolute register-office for candidate actors, and poets without character. Then to be continually alarmed with misses and ma'ams piping hysteric changes on Juliets and Dorindas, Pollys and Ophelias; and the very furniture trembling at the probationary starts and unprovoked rants of would-be Richards and Hamlets? And what is worse than all, now that the manager has monopoliz'd the opera-house, haven't we the Signors and Signoras calling here, sliding their smooth semibreves, and gargling glib divisions in their outlandish throats;-with foreign emissaries and French spies, for aught I know, disguised like fiddlers and figure dancers!

Dan. Mercy! Mrs. Dangle!

Mrs. D. And to employ yourself so idly at such an alarming crisis as this too, when, if you had the least spirit, you would have been at the head of one of the Westminster associations; or trailing a volunteer pike in the Artillery Ground. But youo'my conscience, I believe if the French were landed to-morrow, your first enquiry would be, whether they had brought a theatrical troop with them.

Dan. Mrs. Dangle, it does not signify. I say the stage is the mirror of nature,' and the actors are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time;' -and pray what can a man of sense study better? Besides, you will not easily persuade me that there is no credit or importance in being at the head of a band of critics, who take upon them to decide for the whole town, whose opinion and patronage all writers solicit, and whose recommendation no manager dares refuse!

Mrs. D. Ridiculous! Both managers and authors of the least merit laugh at your pretensions. The public is their critic, without whose fair approbation they know no play can rest on the stage, and with whose applause they welcome such attacks as your's, and laugh at the malice of them, where they can't at the wit.

Dan. Very well, madam; very well.
Enter Servant.

Serv. Mr. Sneer, sir, to wait on you.
Dan. O shew Mr. Sneer up. [Exit Servant.]
Plagne on't, now we must appear loving and affec-
tionate, or Sneer will hitch us into a story.

Mrs. D. With all my heart; you can't be more ridiculous than you are.

Dan. You are enough to provoke

Enter SNEER.

Mrs. D. Good morning to you, sir. Dan. Mrs. Dangle and I have been diverting ourselves with the papers. Pray, Sneer, won't you go to Drury-lane theatre the first night of Puff's tragedy?

Sneer. Yes; but I suppose one shan't be able to get in; for on the first night of a new piece they always fill the house with orders to support it, But here, Dangle, I have brought you two pieces, one of which you must exert yourself to make the managers accept; I can tell you that; for 'tis written by a person of consequence.

Dan. So now my plagues are beginning. Sneer. Ay! I am glad of it, for now you'll happy. Why, my dear Dangle, it is a pleasure to see how you enjoy your volunteer fatigue, and your solicited solicitations.

Dan. It's a great trouble;-yet, egad! it's pleasant too. Why, sometimes of a morning, I have a dozen people call on me at breakfast time, whose faces I never saw before, nor ever desire to see again.

Sneer. That must be very pleasant indeed! Dan. And not a week but I receive fifty letters, and not a line in them about any business of my

own.

Sneer. An amusing correspondence! Dan. (Reading.) Bursts into tears, and exit,' What is this? a tragedy?

Sneer. No, that's a genteel comedy; not a translation, only taken from the French; it is written in a style which they have lately tried to run down; the true sentimental, and nothing ridiculous in it from the beginning to the end.

Mrs. D. Well, if they had kept to that, I should not have been such an enemy to the stage; there was some edification to be got from those pieces, Mr. Sueer.

Sneer. I am quite of your opinion, Mrs. Dangle; the theatre, in proper hands, might certainly be made the school of morality; but now, I am sorry to say it, people seem to go there principally for their entertainment.

Mrs. D. It would have been more to the credit of the managers to have kept it in the other line. Sneer. Undoubtedly, madam; and hereafter, perhaps, to have it recorded, that in the midst of a luxurious and dissipated age, they preserved two houses in the capital, where the conversation was always moral, at least, if not entertaining!

Dan. Now, egad! I think the worst alteration is in the nicety of the audience. No double etendre, no smart inuendo, admitted; even Vanbrugh and Congreve obliged to undergo a bungling refor mation!

Sneer. Yes; and our prudery in this respect is just on a par with the artificial bashfulness of courtesan, who increases the blush upon her cheek in an exact proportion to the diminution of her modesty.

Dan. Sneer can't even give the public a good word! But what have we here? This seems a very odd

Sneer. O! that's a comedy, on a very new plan; replete with wit and mirth, yet of a most serious moral! You see it is called the Reformed Housebreaker;" where, by the mere force humour, housebreaking is put into so ridiculous a light, that if the piece has its proper run, I have no doubt but that bolts and bars will be entirely useless by the end of the season.

Dan. Egad! this is new, indeed!

Sneer. Yes; it is written by a particular friend of mine, who has discovered that the follies and foibles of society are subjects unworthy the notice of the comic muse, who should be taught to stoop only at the greater vices and blacker crimes of humanity;

ing petty larcenies in two. In short, his idea is

Serv. Sir Fretful Plagiary, sir.

Dan. Beg him to walk up. [Exit Servant.] Now, Mrs. Dangle, Sir Fretful Plagiary is an author to your own taste.

Mrs. D. I confess he is a favourite of mine, because every body else abuses him.

Sneer. Very much to the credit of your charity, madam, if not of your judgment.

Dan. But egad! he allows no merit to any author but himself; that's the truth on't;-though he's my friend.

Sneer. Never. He is as envious as an old maid verging on the desperation of six-and-thirty: and then the insidious humility, with which he seduces you to give a free opinion on any of his works, can be exceeded only by the petulant arrogance with which he is sure to reject your observations.

Dan. Very true, egad!-though he's my friend. Sneer. Then his affected contempt of all newspaper strictures; though, at the same time, he is the sorest man alive, and shrinks like scorched parchment from the fiery ordeal of true criticism: yet is he so covetous of popularity, that he had rather be abused than not mentioned at all.

Dan. There's no denying it;-though he is my friend.

Sneer. You have read the tragedy he has just finished, haven't you?

Dan. O yes! He sent it to me yesterday. Sneer. Well, and you think it execrable, don't you?

Dan. Why, between ourselves, egad! I must own,-though he's my friend,-that it is one of the most-He's here!(A side.)-finished and most admirable perform

Sir F. (Without) Mr. Sneer with him, did you say? Enter SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Dan. Ah, my dear friend!-Egad! we were just speaking of your tragedy. Admirable, Sir Fretful, admirable!

Sneer. You never did any thing beyond it, Sir Fretful,-never in your life.

Sir F. You make me extremely happy; for, without a compliment, my dear Sneer, there is'nt a man in the world whose judgment I value as I do your's; and Mr. Dangle's.

Mrs. D. They are only laughing at you, Sir Fretful; for it was but just now that

Dan. Mrs. Dangle! Ah! Sir Fretful, you know Mrs. Dangle. My friend Sneer was rallying just now. He knows how she admires you,

Sir F. O! I know.

Dan. He has a ready turn for ridicule, his wit costs him nothing.

Sir F. No, egad! or I should wonder how he came by it. (Aside.)

Mrs. D. Because his jest is always at the expense of his friend.

Dan. But, Sir Fretful, have you sent your play to the managers yet? or can I be of any service to you?

Sir F. No, no, I thank you; I believe the piece had sufficient recommendation with it. I thank you though-I sent it to the manager of Covent Garden theatre this morning.

Sneer. I should have thought now, that it

might have been cast (as the, actors call it) better at Drury Lane.

Sir F. O lud! no-never send a play there while I live. Hark ye! (Whispers Sneer.)

Sneer. Writes himself!-I know he does

Sir F. I say nothing-I take away from no man's merit-am hurt at no man's good fortune. I say nothing-but this I will say-through all my knowledge of life, I have observed that there is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy!

Sneer. I believe you have reason for what you say, indeed.

Sir F. Besides, I can tell you it is not always so safe to leave a play in the hands of those who write themselves.

Sneer. What! they may steal from them, eh? my dear Plagiary?

Sir F. Steal-to be sure they may; and egad! serve your best thoughts as gipsies do stolen children, disfigure them to make 'em pass for their

own.

Sneer. But your present work is a sacrifice to Melpomene; and he, you know, never

Sir F. That's no security. A dext'rous plagiarist may do anything. Why, sir, for aught I know, he might take out some of the best things in my tragedy, and put them into his own comedy. Sneer. That might be done, I dare be sworn. Sir F. And then, if such a person gives you the least hint or assistance, he is devilish apt to take the merit of the whole.

Dan. If it succeeds.

Sir F. Ay!-but with regard to this piece, I think I can hit that gentleman, for I can safely swear he never read it.

Sneer. I'll tell you how you may hurt him more. Sir F. How?

Sneer. Swear he wrote it.

Sir F. Plague on't now, Sneer; I shall take it ill. I believe you want to take away my character

as an author!

Sneer. Then I am sure you ought to be very much obliged to me.

Sir F. Eh!-sir!

Dan. O! you know, he never means what he

says.

Sir F.
Sneer.
Sir F.

Sincerely then, you do like the piece?
Wonderfully!

But come now, there must be something that you think might be mended, eh? Mr. Dangle, has nothing struck you?

Dan. Why faith, it is but an ungracious thing for the most part to

Sir F. With most authors it is just so indeed; they are in general strangely tenacious; but, for my part, I am never so well pleased as when a judicious critic points out any defect to me; for what is the purpose of showing a work to a friend, if you don't mean to profit by his opinion?

Sneer. Very true. Why then, though I seriously admire the piece upon the whole, yet there is one small objection, which, if you'll give me leave, I'll mention.

Sir F. Sir, you can't oblige me more.
Sneer. I think it wants incident.

Sir F. Good God!-you surprise me!-wants incident!

Sneer. Yes; I own I think the incidents are too few.

Sir F. Good God! Believe me, Mr. Sneer, there is no person for whose judgment I have a more implicit deference, but I protest to you, Mr. Sneer, I am only apprehensive that the incidents are too crowded. My dear Dangle, how does it strike you?

Dan. Really, I can't agree with my frien Sneer. I think the plot quite sufficient; and the

four first acts by many degrees the best I ever read or saw in my life. If I might venture to suggest anything, it is that the interest rather falls off in the fifth.

Sir F. Rises, I believe you mean, sir.
Dan. No; I don't upon my word.

Sir F. Yes, yes, you do upon my soul;-it certainly don't fall off, I assure you; no, no, it don't fall off.

Dan. Now, Mrs. Dangle, did'nt you say it struck you in the same light?

Mrs. D. No, indeed, I did not :-I did not see a fault in any part of the play, from the beginning to the end.

Sir F. Upon my soul, the women are the best judges after all!

Mrs. D. Or if I made any objection, I am sure it was to nothing in the piece; but that I was afraid it was, on the whole, a little too long.

Sir F. Pray, madam, do you speak as to duration of time; or do you mean that the story is tediously spun out?

Mrs. D. O lud! no. I speak only with reference to the usual length of acting plays.

Sir F. Then I am very happy, very happy indeed, because the play is a short play, a remarkably short play :-I should not venture to differ with a lady on a point of taste; but, on these occasions, the watch, you know, is the critic.

Mrs. D. Then, I suppose, it must have been Mr. Dangle's drawling manner of reading it to me. Sir F. O! if Mr. Dangle read it! that's quite another affair;-but I assure you, Mrs. Dangle, the first evening you can spare me three hours and a half, I'll undertake to read you the whole from beginning to end, with the prologue and epilogue, and allow time for the music between the acts. Mrs. D. I hope to see it on the stage next. [Exit. Dan. Well, Sir Fretful, I wish you may be able to get rid as easily of the newspaper criticisms as you do of our's.

Sir F. The newspapers!-sir, they are the most villanous-licentious-abominable-infernal -not that I ever read them-no-I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.

Dan. You are quite right; for it certainly must hurt an author of delicate feelings to see the liberties they take.

Sir F. No; quite the contrary: their abuse is, in fact, the best panegyric; I like it of all things. -An author's reputation is only in danger from their support.

Sneer. Why, that's true; and that attack now on you the other day

Šir F. What? where?

Dan. Ay! you mean in a paper of Thursday; it was completely ill-natured, to be sure.

Sir F. O! so much the better; ha! ha! ha!— I wou'dn't have it otherwise.

Dan. Certainly it is only to be laughed at; for Sir F. You don't happen to recollect what the fellow said, do you?

Sneer. Pray, Dangle;-Sir Fretful seems a little anxious

Sir F. O lud, no!-anxious,-not I,-not the least.-I-but one may as well hear, you know. Dan. Sneer, do you recollect?-Make out something. (Aside.)

Sneer. I will. (To Dangle.) Yes, yes, I remember perfectly.

Sir F. Well, and pray now ;-not that it signifies ;-what might the gentleman say?

Sneer. Why, he roundly asserts that you have not the slightest invention, or original genius whatever; though you are the greatest traducer of all other authors living.

Sir F. Ha, ha, ha! very good!

Sneer. That as to comedy, you have not one idea of your own, he believes, even in your commonplace book, where stray jokes and pilfered witticisms are kept with as much method as the ledger of the lost and stolen office.

Sir F. Ha, ha, ha! very pleasant!

Sneer. Nay, that you are so unlucky as not to have the skill even to steal with taste:-but that you glean from the refuse of obscure volumes, where more judicious plagiarists have been before you; so that the body of your work is a composition of dregs and sediments, like a bad tavern's worst wine.

Sir F. Ha, ha!

Sneer. In your more serious efforts, he says, your bombast would be less intolerable, if the thoughts were ever suited to the expression; but the homeliness of the sentiment stares through the fantastic incumbrance of its fine language, like a clown in one of the new uniforms.

Sir F. Ha, ha!

Sneer. That your occasional tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey-woolsey; while your imitations of Shakspeare resemble the mimicry of Falstaff's page, and are about as near the standard of the original.

Sir F. Ha!—

Sneer. In short, that even the finest passages you steal are of no service to you; for the poverty of your own language prevents their assimilating; so that they lie on the surface like lumps of marl on a barren moor, encumbering what it is not in their power to fertilize.

Sir F. (After great agitation.) Now, another person would be vex'd at this.

Sneer. Oh! but I wou'dn't have told you, only to divert you.

Sir F. I know it. I am diverted ;-ha, ha!— ha!-not the least invention! ha, ha, ha! very good!-very good!

Sneer. Yes, no genius! ha! ha! ha!

Dan. A severe rogue! ha! ha! ha! but you are quite right, Sir Fretful, never to read such

nonsense.

Sir F. To be sure;-for if there is any thing to one's praise, it is a foolish vanity to be gratified at it; and if it is abuse,-why one is always sure to hear of it from some d-d good-natured friend

or other!

Enter Servant.

Serv. Mr. Puff, sir, has sent word that the last rehearsal is to be this morning, and he'll call on you presently.

Dan. That's true: I shall certainly be at home. [Exit Servant.] Now, Sir Fretful, if you have a mind to have justice done you in the way of answer, egad! Mr. Puff's your man.

Sir F. Psha! sir, why should I wish to have it answered, when I tell you I am pleased at it? Dan. True, I had forgotten that. But I hope you are not fretted at what Mr. Sneer

Sir F. Zounds! no, Mr. Dangle; don't I tell you these things never fret me in the least? Dan. Nay, I only thought

Sir F. And let me tell you, Mr. Dangle, 'tis d—'d affronting in you to suppose that I am hurt when I tell you I am not.

Sneer. But why so warm, Sir Fretful?

Sir F. Gadslife! Mr. Sneer, you are as absurd as Dangle; how often must I repeat it to you, the nothing can vex me but your supposing it possible for me to mind the damn'd nonsense you have bee repeating to me ;-and let me tell you, if you con tinue to believe this, you must mean to insult me, gentlemen; and then your disrespect will affect me no more than the newspaper criticisms; and I

servant.

shall treat it with exactly the same calm indifference and philosophic contempt;-and so, your [Exit. Sneer. Ha, ha, ha! poor sir Fretful! Now will he go and vent his philosophy in anonymous abuse of all modern critics and authors. But, Dangle, you must get your friend Puff to take me to the rehearsal of his tragedy.

Dan. I'll answer for't, he'll thank you for desiring it.

Sneer. I am at your disposal the whole morning. Dan. I'faith, Šneer, though, I am afraid we were a little too severe on Sir Fretful; though he is my friend.

Sneer. Why, 'tis certain, that unnecessarily to mortify the vanity of any writer, is a cruelty which mere dulness never can deserve; but where a base and personal malignity usurps the place of literary emulation, the aggressor deserves neither quarter nor pity.

Dan. That's true, egad! though he's my friend! Re-enter Servant.

Sneer. Dear sir

Dan. Nay, don't be modest, Sneer; my friend Puff only talks to you in the style of his profession. Sneer. His profession!

Puff. Yes, sir; I make no secret of the trade I follow. Among friends and brother authors, Dangle knows I love to be frank on the subject, and to advertise myself vivá voce. I am, sir, a practitioner in panegyric; or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing, at your service, or anybody else's.

Sneer. Sir, you are very obliging. I believe, Mr. Puff, I have often admired your talents in the daily prints.

Puff. Yes, sir; I flatter myself I do as much business in that way, as any six of the fraternity in town. Devilish hard work all the summer, friend Dangle! Never worked harder! But, harkye! the winter managers were a little sore, I believe. Dan. No: I believe they took it all in good part. Puff. Ay!-then that must have been affectation in them; for, egad! there were some of the attacks which there was no laughing at!

Sneer. Ay! the humorous ones; but I should think, Mr. Puff, that authors would in general be able to do this sort of work for themselves.

Puff. Why, yes; but in a clumsy way. Besides, we look on that as an encroachment, and so take the opposite side. I dare say now you conceive half the very civil paragraphs and advertisements you see, to be written by the parties concerned, or their friends? No such thing: nine out of ten, manufactured by me in the way of business.

Sneer. Indeed!

Puff. Even the auctioneers now-the auctioneers I say, though the rogues have lately got some credit for their language-not an article of the merit their's! Take them out of their pulpits, and they are as dull as catalogues! No, sir; 'twas I first enriched their style; 'twas I first taught them to crowd their advertisements with panegyrical superlatives, each epithet rising above the other-like the bidders in their own auction-rooms! From me they learned to inlay their phraseology with variegated chips of exotic metaphor :---by me,

too, their inventive faculties were called forth. Yes, sir, by me they were instructed to clothe ideal walls with gratuitous fruits; to insinuate obsequious rivulets into visionary groves; to teach courteous shrubs to nod their approbation of the grateful soil; or, on emergencies, to raise upstart oaks, where there never had been an acorn; to create a delightful vicinage without the assistance of a neighbour; or fix the temple of Hygeia in the fens of Lincoln

shire !

Dan. I am sure you have done them infinite service; for now, when a gentleman is ruined, he parts with his house with some credit.

Sneer. Service! If they had any gratitude, they would erect a statue to him; they would figure him as a presiding Mercury, the god of traflic and fiction, with a hammer in his hand instead of a caduceus. But pray, Mr. Puff, what first put you on exercising your talents in this way?

Puff. Egad! sir, sheer necessity-the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention. You must know, Mr. Sneer, that from the first time I tried my hand at an advertisement, my success was such, that for some time after, I led a most extraordinary life indeed!

Sneer. How, pray?

Puff. Sir, I supported myself two years entirely by my misfortunes.

Sneer. By your misfortunes?

Puff. Yes, sir; assisted by a long sickness, and other occasional disorders; and a very comfortable living I had of it.

You

Sneer. From sickness and misfortunes! practised as a doctor and attorney at once? Puff. No, egad! both maladies and miseries were my own.

Sneer. Eh! what the plague!

Dan. 'Tis true, i'faith.

Puff. Harkye!-By advertisements- To the 'charitable and humane!' and To those whom 'Providence hath blessed with affluence!'

Sneer. Oh! I understand you.

Puff. And, in truth, I deserved what I got; for I suppose never man went through such a series of calamities in the same space of time! Sir, I was five times made a bankrupt, and reduced from a state of affluence, by a train of unavoidable misfortunes! Then, sir, though a very industrious tradesman, I was twice burnt out, and lost my little all, both times! I lived upon those fires a month. I soon after was confined by a most excruciating disorder, and lost the use of my limbs! That told very well; for I had the case strongly attested, and went about to collect the subscriptions myself.

Dan. Egad! I believe that was when you first called on me

Puff. In November last?-O no! I was at that time a close prisoner in the Marshalsea, for a debt benevolently contracted to serve a friend. I was afterwards twice tapped for a dropsy, which declined into a very profitable consumption. I was then reduced to-0 no-then, I became a widow with six helpless children,-after having had eleven husbands pressed, and being left every time eight months gone with child, and without money to get me into an hospital.

Sneer. And you bore all with patience, I make no doubt?

Puff. Why, yes, though I made some occasional attempts at felo de se; but as I did not find those rash actions answer, I left off killing myself very soon. Well, sir, at last, what with bankruptcies, fires, gouts, dropsies, imprisonments, and other valuable calamities, having got together a pretty handsome sum, I determined to quit a business which had always gone rather against my conscience, and in a more liberal way, still to indulge my talents