er in a fiery sign. What the one wants
in wit, the other must supply in law. As for malice, their quotas are
indifferently well adjusted; the rough draught, I take for granted, is
the poet's, the finishings the lawyer's. They begin,--that in order to
one Mr Friend's commands, one of them went to see the play. This was
not the poet, I am certain; for nobody saw him there, and he is not of
a size to be concealed. But the mountain, they say, was delivered of a
mouse. I have been gossip to many such labours of a dull fat
scribbler, where the mountain has been bigger, and the mouse less. The
next sally is on the city-elections, and a charge is brought against
my lord mayor, and the two sheriffs, for excluding true electors. I
have heard, that a Whig gentleman of the Temple hired a livery-gown,
to give his voice among the companies at Guild-hall; let the question
be put, whether or no he were a true elector?--Then their own juries
are commended from several topics; they are the wisest, richest, and
most conscientious: to which is answered, _ignoramus_. But our juries
give most prodigious and unheard-of damages. Hitherto there is nothing
but boys-play in our authors: _My mill grinds pepper and spice, your
mill grinds rats and mice._ They go on,--"if I may be allowed to
judge;" (as men that do not poetize may be judges of wit, human
nature, and common decencies;) so then the sentence is begun with _I_;
there is but one of them puts in for a judge's place, that is, he in
the grey; but presently it is--_men_; two more in buckram would be
judges too. Neither of them, it seems, poetize; that is true, but both
of them are in at rhime doggrel; witness the song against the bishops,
and the Tunbridge ballad[35]. By the way, I find all my scribbling
enemies have a mind to be judges, and chief barons. Proceed,
gentlemen:--"This play, as I am informed by some, who have a nearer
communication with the poets and the players, than I have,--". Which
of the two Sosias is it that now speaks? If the lawyer, it is true he
has but little communication with the players; if the poet, the
players have but little communication with him; for it is not long
ago, he said to somebody, "By G----, my lord, those Tory rogues will
act none of my plays." Well, but the accusation,--that this play was
once written by another, and then it was called the "Parisian
Massacre." Such a play I have heard indeed was written; but I never
saw it[36]. Whether this be any of