Athens over Ariftophanes, nor the great Pompey at Rome, over the actor who had the infolence to abuse him under the name of Magnus, by which he was univerfally known, and to tell him from the stage, Miferiis noftris Magnus Magnus es. A man of lefs philofophy than yourself, would, perhaps, have chaftifed Mr. Foote corporally, and have made him feel that your wooden leg which he mimicked, had an avenging arm to protect it; but you scorned fo glorious a victory, and called juftice, and the laws of your country to punish the criminal, and to avenge your caufe. You triumphed; and I heartily join my weak voice to the loud acclamations of the good citizens of Dublin upon this occafion. I take it for granted that fome of your many tributary wits have already prefented you with gratulatory poems, odes, &c. upon this fubject: I own I had fome thoughts myself of infcribing a fhort poem to you upon your triumph; but, to tell you the truth, when I had writ not above two thousand verses of it, my Mufe forfook me, my poetic vein stopped, I threw away my pen, and I burned my poem, to the irreparable lofs not only of the present age, but alfo of latest posterity.

I very feriously and fincerely wish you a great many very happy new years, and am

Yur most faithful friend and fervant,

CHESTERFIELD.

I like your meffenger, young Dunkin, mightily: he is a very fenfible, well-behaved young man.

But we must not trefpafs much farther on the property of the publisher of thefe entertaining letters; we fhall take our leave of them, therefore, with the quotation only of one or two more.

LETTER IX.

TO THE SAME.

MY WORTHY FRIEND,

London, May 22, 1766.

YOU reproach me gently, but with feeming juftice, for my long filence; I confefs the fact, but think that I can, in fome degree at leaft, excufe it. I am grown very old, and both my mind and my body feel the fad effects of old age. All the parts of my body now refufe me their former affiftance, and my mind (if I may ufe that expreffion) ftutters, and is as unready as any part of my body. Under thefe circumftances, it is no wonder that I delayed writing to fuch a critic and philofopher as you are. However, I will not trust to your indulgence.

I thank you for the book you fent me, in which there is great la bour and great learning; but I contess that it is a great deal ahove me, and I am now too old to begin to learn Celtic.

Your

Your feptennial patriotic bill is unfortunately loft here, and I humbly prefume, to the great joy of the patriots who brought it in, to whom one may apply what has hitherto been charged as a blunder upon our country, that they have got a loss. It is not the cafe with a Habeas Corpus act, if they can ever get one, and were nobody wifer than I, you should have one to-day; for I think, every human creature has a right to liberty, which cannot with justice be taken from him, unless he forfeits it by fome crime.

I cannot help obferving, and with fome fatisfaction, that heaven has avenged your caufe, as well and ftill more feverely, than the courts of temporal juftice in Ireland did, having punished your adversary Foote in the part offending. The vulgar faying, that mocking is catching is verified in his cafe; you may, in your turn, mock him, without dan ger to your adopted leg.

Adieu, my good friend; be as well as ever you can, and as ferenely chearful as you please. I need not bid you grow rich, for you have taken good care of that already, and if you were now to grow richer, you would be overgrown, and, after all, eft modus in rebus. I am very ferioutly, and truly,

LORD Chesterfield fends his compliments to his good friend Mr, Faulkner, hungers and thirsts after him, and hopes that he will take fome mutton with him at Blackheath, any day or days that he has leifure.

-Blackheath, August 13, 1766.

LETTER X.

то THE

A ME.

London, July 7, 1767

MY WORTHY FRIEND,

I AM to thank you, and I heartily do thank you, for your kind and welcome prefent. You have cloathed your own friend the Dean very richly, and fuitably to his merit, and your own prefent dignity; but, after all, the poor Dean pays dear for his own fame; fince every fcrap of paper of his, every rebus, quibble, pun and converfation joke is to be publifhed, because it was his. It is true his Bagatelles are much better than other people's; but ftill many of them, I believe, he would have been forry to have had published. How does your new dignity agree with you? Do you mantully withstand the attacks of claret? or do you run into the danger to avoid the apprehenfion? You may fet the fashion of fobriery if you pleate, and a fingular one it will be; for I dare fay that, in the records of Dublin, there is no one inllance to be found of a fober high fheriff. Remember Sir William Temple's rule, and confider that every glass of wine that you

- drink

drink beyond the third, is for Foote, the only enemy that I believe you have in the world. I am fure you have a friend, though a very ufelefs one, in Your faithful fervant,

CHESTERFIELD

To this pamphlet is prefixed an elegant little engraving of the head of Mr, Faulkner..

A Genuine Narrative of the Life and Theatrical Tranfactions Mr. John Henderfon, commonly called the Bath Rofcius 8vo. Is. Evans,

*

Time was, when, in this uncivilized nation, the theatrical Tranfactions of a Country Comedian came under the cognizance only of a barn-full of country boobies, and his worship the neighbouring country juftice. They were not deemed worthy the pen of the Biographer; but the life of the ftroling player was configned to the pen of the fcribbler of Comic Romance. The humour of the fock could not protect the buffoon from the Beadle, nor the dignity of the bufkin preserve the hero from Bridewell.-But times are changed, apd, in imita tion of our polished neighbours the French, we begin to think the life, character and tranfactions of a Comedian, of as much importance to the world, and as deferving the dignity of Biography, as thofe of an Alexander the Great, a Louis the fourteenth, or a Sixteen-ftring Jack. Royal theatres have been erected in our country towns, and of courfe have raised into confequence our country comedians; no longer doomed, as heretofore, to pick up a precarious fubfiftence, like barn door. fowls, among the fweepings of the wheat ftraw. Like fuch cocks too, they begin to crow, and, in imitation of the great bantum Rofcius, to ftrut and clap their wings accordingly. As it is the humour of the age, we fhall, therefore, give into this opinion of the mighty importance of the mimic tribe; and treat

By way of diftinguishing him from Mr. Garrick; frequently filed Rofcius, and now more emphatically diftinguished by his chronicle encomiafts, under the name of the real Rofcius: either by way of infinuating, that the foul of the Roman Rofcius had really and bona fide tranfmigrated into Mr. Garrick, or that our Bath Rofcius is, like a bath-metal ring, only a counterfeit. If the latter, we will venture to predict we shall have many more: nay, we have an Edinburgh Rofcius already, and hall have our Birmingham Rofcius, our Redriff Rofcius; and, who knows if, amidft this humour of Rofciufing, Mr. Rofs himfelf may not give a Latin termination to his name and claim a fuperiority in right of inheritance! Rev.

the

the prefent performance with a gravity equal to its confequence. For, as our Biographer fagely remarks, "The dignity of the perfon gives confequence to trifles. A Garrick quarrelling with Henderson for a ftraw, becomes an object of attention." -With becoming caution, therefore, to give no offence to the dignity of fuch illuftrious perfonages, we fhall lay before our readers an extract or two from the narrative before us.

Before we enter upon this, however, we muft pay the deference due to the Biographer himfelf; who, we understand, is of the fame dignified and illuftrious profeffion. It were against all the rules, therefore, of literary good breeding, not to let him fpeak firft.-Take then his preliminary advertifement.

"Perhaps no man, who through his whole life has behaved fo inoffenfively as Mr. Henderson, was ever more feverely as well as unjustly treated. The difpenfers of theatrical favours, instead of confidering him as a candidate for fame, and one who had fome claim to their protection and encouragement, feemed to have viewed him with an hoftile eye. When two great Managers, men diftinguished for their various abilities, had difcouraged his application for employment in London, he found patronage at Bath from the nobility and all ranks of people, who either refide in, or occafionally vifit, that city. His fuccefs there made him hope that the ample approbation of thofe who form the most confiderable and polite part of a London audience, might probably prove the paffport of recoinmendation to the gentlemen patentees of our eftablished theatres; but his ambition was dif appointed, and these men, who are thought to have the eyes of a lynx in whatever regards their own intereft, were either overflocked with actors of genius, fo as to find no room for Henderson, or looked upon him as a man of fmall abilities, and not worthy of their bidding a very moderate price for him.

"The following fheets contain a plain narrative of facts, vouchers of which can be produced if demanded. No colouring has been attempted, except, perhaps, in defcribing Henderfon's first interview with Mr. Foote; fo glaring a fubject might poflibly demand fome particular exertion, at least an attempt to draw the peculiar manner of that remarkable man; and it is hoped, that though the portrait should be faint and unequal, it may be tolerated.

Truths will often offend, we know, merely becaufe they are truths; and if offence should arife here, it can proceed from nothing elfe. A fhort vindication of Mr. Henderfon was thought neceflary. He has been made the fubject of much unjust obloquy and illiberal cenfure, for no other reason in the world than becaufe he is fucceisful; the plan of his enemies was concerted with a view to make him

We might have faid has been, as, like other great perfonages, he fome time fince refigned and retired; not, however, to folitude and idienefs; but, like a man of mettle, to buftling bufinefs; throwing away his truncheon oply to take up the goofe-quill and the folding-flick, Ecce fignum! VOL. VI.

Z z

a drawer

a drawer of water and hewer of wood through life, Had he conti nued ftill a turn-fpit at Bath, I mean confined to the drudgery of Mr. Palmer's theatre, where he might have acted thirty new characters in a feafon, how happy and how pleafed would his enemies have been!

But mark the confequence of acting with applaufe at a London theatre royal. Then the criticks, and others their affociates, open in full cry against him; one calls him a pragmatical puppy for dar ing to act Garrick's parts, as if Garrick, like the Emperor Tiberius, withed the world on fire when he was dead. Another tells him that he cannot act a particular character, because he has neither voice nor figure fuitable to it. However, he bids him be of good comfort, for if he will but liften to his advice, he will, notwithstanding thefe eminent defects, teach him to act it very well; that is, he will make him a prefent of a ftrong voice and a large figure,

One reproaches him with imitating Garrick too much; but before he has finished his critical lecture, he advises him not to be fo fond of himself, but to copy the great Rofcius more exactly.

One man declares that he is a fellow of no family; fo that poor poor Henderfon is reduced to give fome account of his parentage, for fear he fhould be in Prince Prettyman's cafe, in the Reheartal, who was not unhappy to be called the fisherman's fon, but to be thought that he came into the world without a father.

The terms infolent, arrogant, avaricious, and impudent, have been moft liberally bestowed upon him in private converfation, and in the public prints,

However, he cannot be very unhappy, fince the kind publick, who are always willing to fupport the fmalleft promife of ability, and the leaft fpark of genius, and to encourage any the leaft indication of diligence and affiduity, have taken him by the hand.

He wishes to ftand or fall by their decifion only,

"Many expreffions of ill-will, and of unprovoked resentment, un worthy the mouths of those who uttered them, are entirely fuppreffed; much peevish and fpiteful behaviour, to fay no worfe, from perfons of known eminence (though to publish fuch kind of anec dotes would gratify many curious people) is filently paffed over. Matters that would bear the higheft colouring and warmest tints, if theatrical history could deferve them, are thrown into fhade. The whole is fubmitted to the impartial reader."

Such is our Biographer's introduction.-In the narrative itfelf (much more properly ftiled "Anecdotes of Mr. Henderfon," he fets out with relieving poor Henderfon from the pitiful predicament of Prince Prettyman, by acquainting uş

that

"Mr. John Henderfon, the Actor, was born in London; his family was originally Scotch, and was fettled at Fordell, a town in the north of Scotland. He is defcended in a right line from the famous Dr. Alexander Henderson, who maintained the caufe of the Covepant, and the Prefbyterian church difcipline, in a conference at the