To DAVID GARRICK, Efq. SIR, THE author of the following Eclogue, having requested my affiftance to introduce it to the world; it was with more indignation than furprize I was informed of your having ufed your extensive influence over the prefs to prevent its being advertised in the News-papers. How are you, Sir, concerned in the Lamentation of Rofcius for his Nyky? Does your modefty think no man entitled to the appellation of Rofcius but yourfelf? Does Nyky refemble any nick-named favourite of yours? Or does it follow, that if you have cherished an unworthy favourite, you must bear too near a resemblance to him? Qui capit ille facit; beware of felf-accufation, where others bring no charge! Or, granting you right in thefe particulars, by what right or privilege do you, Sir, fet up for a licenfer of the prefs? That you have long fuccefsfully ufurped that privilege, to fwell both your fame and fortune, is well known. Not the puffs of the quacks of Bayfwater and Chelsea are so numerous and notorious: but by what authority do you take upon you to fhut up the general channel, in which writers ufher their performances to the public? If they attack either your talents or your character, in utrumque paratus, you are armed to defend yourself. You have, befides your ingenuous countenance and confcious innocence; Nil confcire fibi, nulla pallefcere culpa; Befides this brazen bulwark, I fay, you have a ready pen and a long purse. The prefs is open to the one, and the bar is ever ready to open with the other. For a poor author, not a printer will publish a paragraph, not a pleader will utter a quibble. You have then every advantage in the conteft: It is needlefs, therefore, to endeavour to intimidate your antagonists by countenancing your retainers to threaten their lives! These intimidations, let me tell you Sir, have an ugly, fufpicious look. They are befides needlefs; the genus irritabile vatum want no fuch perfonal provocations; Heaven knows, the life of a play-wright, like that of a fpider, is in a ftate of the moft flender dependency. It is well for my rhiming friend that his hangs not on fo flight a thread. He thinks, nevertheless, that he has reafon to complain, as well as the publick, of your having long preferred the flimzy, tranflated, patch'd-up and mif-altered pieces of your favourite compilers, to the arduous attempts at originality of writers, who have no personal intereft with the manager. In particular, he thinks A 2 the the two pieces, you are projecting to get up next winter, for the emolument of your favorite in difgrace, or to reimburse yourself the money, you may have advanced him, might, for the prefent at leaft, be laid afide. But you will afk me, perhaps, in turn, Sir, what right I have to interfere with the bufinefs of other people, or with yours? I will answer you. It is because I think your bufinefs, as patentee of a theatre-royal, is not fo entirely yours, but that the publick alfo have fome concern in it. You, Sir, indeed have long be-haved as if you thought the town itself a purchased purchased appurtenance. to the theatre; but, tho' the fcenes and machines are yours; nay,, tho' you have even found means to make comedians and poets your property; it should be with more caution than you practifé, that you various arts to make fo fcandalous a properextend your ty of the publick. Again I answer, it is becaufe I have fome regard for my friend,. and as much for myfelf, whom you have treated as ill perhaps as you have done any other writer; while under your aufpices, fome of the perfons ftigmatifed by the fatirift, have frequently combined to do me the moft effential injury. But nemo me impunè laceffit. Not that I mean now to enter into particulars which may be thought to relate too much to myself and too little to the publick. When I fhall have leifure to draw a faithful portraiture of Mr. Garrick, not only from his behaviour to me in particular, but: from his conduct towards poets, players and the town in general, I doubt not to convince the most partial of his admirers that he hath accumulated a fortune, as manager, by the meaneft and moft me-. retricious devices, and that the theatrical props, which have long fupported his exalted reputation, as an actor, have been raised on the ruins of the English stage. In the mean time, I leave you to amufe yourself with the following jeu d'efprit of my friend; hoping, tho' it be a fevere correction for the errours of your paft favouritifm, it may prove a falutary guide to you for the future. With regard to the mode of its publication I hope alfo to ftand excufed with the reader for thus interpofing to defeat the fuccefs of thofe arts, which you fo unfairly practife to. prevent, from reaching the public eye, whatever is disagreeable to: your own. I am, Sir, Yours, &c. W. KENRICK, |