ee was rich, generous, bountiful, polite,
learned, a _Maecenas_, while as in very deede he was nothing lesse:
what weeping, sighing, sorrowing, honing, complaining, kinsmen,
friends, relatives, fourtieth cousins, poor relatives, lamenting for
the deceased; hypocriticall heirs, sobbing, striking their breasts
(they care not if he had died a year ago); so many clients,
dependants, flatterers, _parasites, cunning Gnathoes_, tramping on
foot after the hearse, all their care is, who shall stand fairest
with the successour; he mean time (like enough) spurns them from him,
spits at them, treads them under his foot, will have nought to do
with any such cattle. I think him in the right: _Hoec sunt majora
gravitate Heracliti. These follies are enough to give crying
Heraclitus a fit of the spleene._"

MR. H----.

A FARCE, IN TWO ACTS.

AS IT WAS PERFORMED AT DRURY LANE THEATRE,
DECEMBER, 1806.

* * * * *

"Mr. H----, thou wert DAMNED. Bright shone the morning on the
play-bills that announced thy appearance, and the streets were filled
with the buzz of persons asking one another if they would go to see
Mr. H----, and answering that they would certainly; but before night
the gaiety, not of the author, but of his friends and the town, was
eclipsed, for thou wert DAMNED! Hadst thou been anonymous, thou haply
mightst have lived. Bet thou didst come to an untimely end for thy
tricks, and for want of a better name to pass them off--" _Theatrical
Examiner_.

* * * * *

CHARACTERS.

Mr. H---- _Mr. Elliston_.
BELVIL _Mr. Bartley_.
LANDLORD PRY _Mr. Wewitzer_.
MELESINDA _Miss Mellon_.
MAID TO MELESINDA _Mrs. Harlowe_.
Gentlemen, Ladies, Waiters, Servants, &c.

_Scene_--BATH.

PROLOGUE, SPOKEN BY MR. ELLISTON.

If we have sinn'd in paring down a name,
All civil, well-bred authors do the same.
Survey the columns of our daily writers--
You'll find that some Initials are great fighters.
How fierce the shock, how fatal is the jar,
When Ensign W. meets Lieutenant R.
With two stout seconds, just of their own gizzard,
Cross Captain X. and rough old General Izzard!
Letter to Letter spreads the dire alarms,
Till half the Alphabet is up in arms.
Nor with less lustre have Initials shone,
To grace the gentler annals of Crim. Con.
Where the dispensers of the public lash
Soft penance give;