kspeare was, indeed as he should be, and when
nothing was talked of in this great metropolis, save the great Goliath
of Stratford, on the banks of the Avon, and little David, of the
Adelphic terrace, on the banks of the Thames.

This eloquent harangue was no sooner concluded, than your worship burst
into a horse-laugh, and stamping your foot on the floor, the room was
instantly filled with as motley a group as ever giggled decorum out of
countenance at a masquerade: among whom I recognized a zany, with a
blue perriwig, bestriding a large goose, and brandishing a golden egg,
whilst your worship was clapping your hands in all the raptures of
applause. "Perdition seize this fellow," cried your worship, pointing to
me, "his tongue chatters like a cherry-clapper, and lies like the
prospectus of a new magazine! All you, my pimps, parasites, and
pensioners--my leading mistresses and led captain--my mummers and
melo-dramatists, who conspire to drill holes in the breeches-pockets of
John Bull, that his coin may not corrode for want of circulation; if
ever this fellow enters my house again, with his deer-stealing Stratford
vagabond under his arm, tie them both up in a hopsack, and throw them
into the Thames!

Such treatment, sir, I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.
When I expected the golden apple,--to be then pelted with a golden egg,
was too much for human endurance; I, therefore, took my leave with the
following address: "May your worship's stage be glutted with monsters,
running upon all fours, with your own taste! May wit and humour wing
their flight to another region, and the mighty void be supplied by
maukish sentiment, horse-collar grins, wood-demons, and other
show-cattle of the Smithfield muses! May you be visited by a locust
tribe of scribblers, who shall conspire to torment that groaning martyr,
the Press, with ducal lampoons, drowsy epics, and zig-zag heroics! With
Hope the upholsterer, and Bryon the idler, with Joe Miller in quarto,
Genius in thin duodecimo, Leadenhall romances, and Puritan biography:
and should your worship ever find yourself deviating from the path of
virtue, may _Hannah Glasse_ preserve your temperance, _Hannah More_ your
soberness, and _Anacreon Moore_ your chastity!"

One word more, sir, and I take my leave. It was the opinion of Ophelia's
grave digger, that your worship was to the full as mad as the
hare-brained lover of that young lady. This circumstance gives that
royal you