ページの画像
PDF
ePub

owing to some disgraceful circumstances relative to his conduct to his wife, was not held in the most respectable light. Quin's sarcasm on him is too gross to be here inserted. A duel was fought in the Piazza, Covent-garden, between these two actors; Quin having pulled Cibber out of the Bedford coffee-house, to answer for some words he had used in a letter to Mr. Fleetwood, relative to his refusing a part in King Lear for Mr. Quin's benefit. Cibber was slightly wounded in the arm, and Mr. Quin wounded in his fingers. After each had their wounds dressed, they came into the Bedford coffee-house and abused each other, but the company prevented farther mischief.

In the season of 1739-40, there was acted at Drury-lane theatre, on the 12th of November, a tragedy, intitled The Fatal Retirement, by a Mr. Anthony Brown, which received its sentence of condemnation on the first night. In this play Mr. Quin had been solicited to perform, which he refused; and the ill success which attended the piece, irritated the author and his friends so much, that they ascribed its failure to the absence of Mr. Quin, and, in consequence of it, insulted him for several nights afterwards, when he appeared on the stage. This treatment at length Mr. Quin resented, and determined to repel. Coming forward, therefore, he addressed the audience, and informed them, " that at the request of the author, " he had read his piece before it was acted, and given him his very ❝ sincere opinion of it; that it was the very worst play he had ever "read in his life, and for that reason had refused to act in it." This spirited explanation was received with great applause; and, for the future, entirely silenced the opposition to him. In this season he performed in Lillo's Elmerick.

On the first of August, 1740, an entertainment of a peculiar kind was given by Frederick prince of Wales, father of his present majesty, in the gardens of Cliefden, in commemoration of the accession of king George I., and in honour of the birth of the princess Augusta, afterwards dutchess of Brunswick. It consisted of the Masque of Alfred, by Thomson and Mallet; the masque of the Judgment of Paris, and some scenes from Rich's pantomimes, by him and La Lanze; with dancing by Signora Barbarini, then lately arrived from Paris. The whole was exhibited upon a theatre in the garden, composed of vegetables, and decorated with festoons of flowers; at the end of which was erected a pavilion for the prince and princess of Wales, prince George, and princess Augusta. The per

formers in Alfred were Quin, who represented the Hermit; Milward, Mills, Solway, Mrs. Clive, and Horton.

The next season, that of 1740-1, concluded Mr. Quin's engagement at Drury-lane. The irregular conduct of the manager, Mr. Fleetwood, induced Quin to relinquish his situation.

In the summer of 1741, Mr. Quin, Mrs. Clive, Mr. Ryan, and Mademoiselle Chateauneuf, then esteemed the best female dancer in Europe, made an excursion to Dublin. Mr. Quin had been there before, in the month of June 1739, accompanied by Mr. Giffard, and received at his benefit 1367., at that time esteemed a great sum. On his second visit, he opened in his favourite part of Cato, to as crowded an audience as the theatre could contain. Mrs. Clive next appeared in Lappet, in the Miser; and Mr. Ryan came forward in Iago, to Mr. Quin's Othello. With such excellent performers, we may naturally suppose the plays were admirably sustained. Here Quin played Lord Townley, in the Provoked Husband; Manley, Mr. Ryan; and Lady Townley, Mrs. Clive: he also played King Lear; Cordelia, Mrs. Clive; and Comus, Euphrosyne Mrs. Clive. Mr. Quin, it seems, attended the Dublin company to Cork and Limerick, and the next season performed in Dublin, where he acted the part of Justice Balance, in the Recruiting Officer, at the opening of the theatre in October, on a government night. He afterwards performed a variety of characters of the first cast in the drama, with great applause, and to well-attended houses.

The state of the Irish stage was then so low, that it was often found that the whole receipt of the house was not more than sufficient to discharge Mr. Quin's engagement; and so attentive was he to his interest, and so rigid in demanding its execution, that he refused to let the curtain be drawn up until the money was regularly brought to him.

He left Dublin in February 1741-2; and on his arrival in London, he found the attention of the theatrical world entirely occupied by the merits of Mr. Garrick, who, in October preceding, had begun his theatrical career; and was then performing with prodigious success at Goodman's-fields. The fame of the new performer afforded no pleasure to Quin, who sarcastically observed, that Garrick was a new religion, and that Whitfield was followed for a time; but they would all come to church again.

(To be continued.)

353

MISCELLANY.

FOR THE MIRROR OF TASTE.

IF, in speaking of the following admirable verses, we were to say of them half what we think, we should indulge ourselves at the expense of the author's feelings. To him, but to him alone, it would appear flattery; and we respect him too sincerely, and set too high a value on his good opinion, to hazard a word which his modesty could interpret into the most distant suggestion of complimentary adulation. Nor is it necessary, since every thing we are capable of uttering on the merit of the lines, will be at once conceived by our readers, when we state that they come from the pen of WILLIAM MOORE SMITH, Esq.

ODE TO SORROW,

Occasioned by the death of Miss Juliana Riché, Mrs. Mary Swift, and Mrs. Grace Coxe, three daughters of Th. Riché, Esq., of Windsor, Bucks county,-addressed to Miss Sally Riché.

Oh thou! whose venom'd arrows tear

The human breast with pangs severe,
To peace, to bliss, the constant foe;
Sorrow! to thee my weeping muse
Once more the leaves of cypress strews,
And bids the mournful verse to flow!

But ah! why steep for me thy dart,
Why pierce again this throbbing heart,
Sad mistress of the tear-worn eye?
Oft with thy wound my soul has bled,
Oft, at thy shrine, my griefs were shed,
While pensive echo learnt to sigh.

Witness bright Anna's sacred tomb!
Bear witness too, the willow'd gloom
Where Schuylkill rolls his waves along!
Constant as evening dimm'd the plain,
Responsive to the night bird's strain
To thee, I've pour'd my plaintive song.
2 Y

VOL. III.

1

And now, in Windsor's dreary grove,
The former seat of beauty, love,

Dost thou erect thy ebon throne;
Each flow'ret blasted, droops its head,
The pride of all its fields is dead,

And every smile of transport's flown!

There, bending o'er her Julia's urn,
Behold the hapless mother mourn,

A weeping train around her wait;
In vain the hoary father tries
With fondest care to soothe her sighs
And mitigate the blow of fate.

For ah! to Julia's sainted shade
Is sorrow's tribute scarcely paid,

Scarce dry the drops which dew'd her urn;
When, in the pride of all her charms,
From a fond husband's clasping arms
Behold the lov'd Maria-torn!

Yet keen suspense arrests the tear
Which starts to meet Maria's bier,

And points to scenes of deeper gloom;
O'er hapless Grace's fainting head
Disease her baleful wing has spread,
And leads the suff'rer to the tomb.

Oh!-not prophetic be the muse,
Whose boding eye with fear pursues

Yon horror-shedding phantom's way!-
Scar'd at his step, pale Hope expires,
Hygeia's blasted form retires

Beneath his stern resistless sway.

'Tis Death!-what monsters round him wait, Supporters of their monarch's state;

High waves his lurid arm in air. Avert, oh Heav'n!-the fatal blow, This scene of complicated wo,

Of anguish, agony, despair.

'Tis past; the fatal dart is sped,
The meek-ey'd victim bows her head,

Submissive to the dread behest:-
The cares, the toils of life are o'er,
And pain and sorrow now no more

Can rack the lovely seraph's breast.

She sleeps in peace; but oh! what balm,
What healing, heavenly art, can calm

The storms that rend each kindred soul?
Long, long must mem❜ry prompt the sigh,
The tear long dim affection's eye,

As in review her virtues roll.

Yet, mid this scene of heighten'd grief,
The muse would try to bring relief,
And blunt the soul-corroding dart;
Her voice, soft whisp'ring on the gale,
Might o'er the sharpest pangs prevail,
And consolation's balm impart.

In mild religion's form array'd,

Come then, blest muse, to Sorrow's aid;

Meek Resignation too, be there:

Oh! bring the sadly pleasing strain

Which steals the soul from thoughts of pain, And dries Affliction's trembling tear.

Unfading wreaths thy hand shall twine
Around the consecrated shrine

Where rests each sainted slumberer's clay!
Nor thou, fond mourner, deem too rude
The bard whose steps have dar'd intrude
Where you and Sorrow love to stray,

For oft in Windsor's tuneful bowers
'Twas his to spend the social hours,
When beauty rais'd the song of joy;-
And now affliction clouds the grove,
And mute is music, dead is love,

Should he the scene ungrateful fly;

« 前へ次へ »