PETITION OF THE FARCES

293

titioners did, for many years, enjoy the said privileges unmolested, until the period of the governments of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, under R. B. Sheridan, who did thereon tolerate certain Bulls; and of Covent Garden, under Harris and Kemble, who bave far exceeded the misdoings of the said Drury Lane; and have most mummingly and mountebankly introduced divers horses, tumblers, rope-dancers, and fireeaters, on the stage, against the statute of decorum in that case made and provided.

That, in conséquence of such introduction, your Petitioners have, for weeks and months together, been deprived of their just privilege of amusing the public, while, for a series of forty, and sometimes fifty, nights, the same despicable display of equestrian abomination has been palmed upon the public, to their great detriment, and to the utter destruction, of your Petitioners.

That your Petitioners, the legitimate offspring of the brains of the best writers this country ever produced, feel themselves especially aggrieved, inasmuch as they considered themselves the means, delectando pariterque monendo, of correcting those levities and follies which were beneath the notice of their respected relations, Thalia and Melpomene; and that they thus acted as gleaners in the fields of absurdity, leaving no head of human absurdity unculled; and that this their appropriate and essential use is annulled and rendered utterly abortive, by the perseverance of the above Harris and Kemble, in sanctioning, continuing, pay, it would appear perpetuating, the prancing of horses on the boards of a regular theatre, to the utter exclusion of your Petitioners.

That your Petitioners have heard, with sincere satisfaction, of the intended motion of Mr. Taylor for a Select Committee, to inquire into the relative advantages and disadvantages of a dramatiz monopoly,

in the hands of Patentees who so utterly misconduct their concerns; and look to the meeting at the Thatched House, lately held to determine upon the erection of a new Theatre, with well-founded hopes, that, through the intervention of persons of real taste, spirit, and talents, your Petitioners may be recalled from their present exile, and restored to their ancient rights.

Your Petitioners beg leave to say, as for the abovementioned Sheridan, that, in consideration of his having done credit to their order, by the production of certain most ingenious and amusing afterpieces, they have pardoned, excused, and forgiven him, on the express condition that he never more repeats the above-mentioned enormity of bulls: but that Harris and Kemble having, in the utter barrenness of their brains, no atonement to offer for their most unprovoked and gothic attack upon our rights and privileges, we do most cordially and solemnly condemn the said Harris and Kemble as recreants to true dramatic dignity, taste, and feeling, and do esteem them no longer in the illustrious rank of our progenitors, Garrick, Foote, Murphy, and Colman, but consign them to the class of jockies, stable-keepers, mountebanks, and buffcons.

That your Petitioners, though they suffered materially by the O. P. war, lament that public indignation wasted itself on an object so comparatively trifling as the occupation of a few private boxes by a certain description of wealthy idlers, esteeming that mischief, great as it was, infinitely inferior to the present endured by your Petitioners, who are, with our excellent and esteemed representatives, Liston, Munden, and other our well-beloved coadjutors, absolutely shut out from the performance of what is not less our pleasure than our imperative duty.

That, under these circumstances, your Petitioners do humbly expect that you will, in your wisdom and

humanity,

ADDRESS TO THE FRIENDS OF REFORM.

205

humanity, take such steps in these premises as may relieve your Petitioners from this their distressing pre dicament, and restore them, and the drama in general, to their proper place, and their appropriate functions. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever make you laugh.

[From the Morning Chronicle, May 6.]

EPIGRAM.

[From the same, May 7.]

No more the poet's strains engage

Our admiration of the stage;
For there, instead of actors playing,
Nothing is heard but horses neighing,
While they curvet it on each leg:
But none have wings-alas, poor Peg!

Hampstead Heath, May 6.

CIRCULAR ADDRESS TO THE FRIENDS OF
REFORM,

AS PERFORMED BY MAJOR J. CARTWRIGHT,

AT THE SELECT MEETING HELD BY THOSE GENTLEMEN ON THE 6TH OF APRIL.

CONTAINING THE ORIGINAL SENTIMENTS AND LANGUAGE OF THE CIRCULAR LETTER SINCE DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE SUPPORTERS OF THAT GOOD OLD CAUSE.

[From the Morning Post, May 8.]

MAJOR CARTWRIGHT.

A

AIR" Sir, prior to the Revolution."-See Address in the
Morning Post of Friday last.

SIR, prior to the Revolution,
Notwithstanding all the teaching

Of our holy Constitution,

Rights from Magna Charta preaching,

Parliament

We never have had or have heard of;

An old constitution that never existed,

Old rights which our ancestors always resisted, And many wise people despair'd of.-(Da Capo.).

CHORUS.

We'll recover and 'stablish fair Liberty's reign;
We ne'er had it before-so we 'll get it again.

GRAND MOVEMENT.

"Those whose guide is truth," &c.

The men whose guide is truth are the enlighten'd,
Those who appeal to reason can't be frighten'd ;.
We're temperate and moderate, wise and chaste;
Be just in future, we'll forget what's past.
Fee-faw-fum,

This is the way to tranquillity;
But falsehood, fraud, force, and oppression,
In vain hope for any concession,
Or even for common civility.

MADRIGAL.

"As the beneficial effects,”", &c.

As nine parts in ten

Are not Gentlemen,

Of those who attend at our meeting,
If a few would but come

To keep up the hum,

They should not complain of their treating.
Or if even their names,

To strengthen our claims,

Would give an eclat to the party,

Though in person they fail,

From sickness or jail,

We'll swear that they 're all well and hearty.

Then, Sir, let me put

Your name at the foot

If

Of my list, and believe an old stager,
your friends too should come,
There is plenty of room,

And I rest your obedient MAJOR.

IMPROMPTU

(209
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IMPROMPTU

ON THE PRINCE'S ABSENCE FROM THE CEREMONY OF LAYING THE FIRST STONE OF THE VAUXHALL BRIDGE.

[From the Morning Chronicle, May 11.]

AN arch wag has declar'd, that he truly can say
Why the Prince did not lay the first stone t' other day:
The Restrictions prevented-the reason is clear;
The Regent can't meddle in making a pier.

T. H.

STATE OF THE COIN.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.

[May 13.]

I

SIR,

HAVE been lately taking what Mawworm calls an excrescence into the country, to keep up my in terest with my constituents, and prevent any other candidate from insinuating himself into the repair of their pots and their frying-pans. It is with sincere satisfaction that I perceive, on my return, the com plete adoption of the schemes proposed in my former letters, and that my coadjutors the State Tinkers (who are so laudably polishing the handle of the State Kettle while they are boring a large hole in its bottom) have so thoroughly entered into and adopted my plans. No man, though I say it who should not say it, takes a warmer interest in the welfare of my country than myself. I never replace the nozzel in the extremity of a decayed pair of bellows, without glowing at the hope of a Reform in Parliament; or solder a tin spout on a dismantled teapot, unmoved by the services of the Bullion Committee: judge, then, of my rapture at the adoption of the Irish plan of a depreciated currency, and the oracular words" a new coinage is about to be introduced to the public, and directions

have