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Whose Children of Thespis made actors look blue,
With rancour displaying false colours to view?

Why dost thou tack, most simple Anthony,
The name of Pasquin to thy ribald strains;
Is it a fetch of wit to let us see

Thou, like that statue, art devoid of brains?

But thou mistak'st: for know tho' Pasquin's head
Be full as hard and near as thick as thine,
Yet has the world, admiring, on it read

Many a keen gibe, and many a sportive line.

While nothing from thy jobbernowl can spring
But impudence and filth; for wit, alas!
Do what we will 'tis all the same vile thing,
Within all brick-dust, and without all brass.

Then blot the name of Pasquin from thy page
Thou see'st it will not thy poor riff-raff sell:
Some other would'st thou take; I dare engage,
John Williams or Tom Fool will do as well.

"It has been represented to me that I should do well to

.

Not content with the rod, he made use of a stick, And in dealing his blows gave a confounded hard lick.

66 avoid all mention of this man, from a consideration that one so "lost to all sense of decency and shame was a fitter object for "the beadle than the Muse. This has induced me to lay aside second castigation, which I had prepared for him, though I ❝ do not think it expedient to omit what I had formerly written. "One word more-I am told that there are men so weak as to

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deprecate this miserable object's abuse, and so vain, so despi

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cably vain, as to tolerate his praise; for such I have nothing "but pity-though the fate of Hastings, see the Pin "Basket to the Children of Thespis,' holds out a dreadful lesson "to the latter; but should there be a man or a woman, however "high in rank, base enough to purchase the venal pen of this "miscreant for the sake of traducing innocence and virtue; then

*The poem of the Children of Thespis was dedicated to Governor Hastings, and, during the trial of that persecuted gentleman, Pasquin proffered his literary services, which were, however, politely rejected; when some letters of a threatening nature passed, in the hope of procuring remuneration for puff direct paragraphs, concerning Mr. Hastings, which not being productive of the desired effect, Pasquin published the last of these epistles in his Pin Basket, in order to give (what he construed such conduct to be) a detail of the most finished human ingratitude.

He ne'er, when he black-balls, of feeling hath bowels, Instead of hair pencil resorting to trowels;

Wherewith he so daubs the poor wretched defaulter,

He nought has to do but procure a good halter. Good Lord! were each actor who merits the rope, To use, bona fide, an elegant trope,

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I was about to threaten, but it is not necessary-the profligate cowards who employ Anthony can know no severer punishment than the support of a man whose acquaintance is infamy and whose touch is poison."

Upon this unvarnished attack making its appearance, Williams became infuriate, and he, in consequence, commenced legal proceedings against several venders of the Baviad, when, instead of receiving any redress from this appeal to a court of judicature in vindication of his aspersed character, the judge, on the contrary, observed, that no man should enter a court of justice to ask damages for a libel who was himself a libeller; that the plaintiff, in question, was one of the latter description of persons, having "ate his libel, drank his libel, and slept upon his libel." In consequence of which a verdict was given in favour of the defendants.

How few would be found to exert Thespis' pow'r,
By strutting and sweating on boards the short hour,
Since half of the wearers of buskin and sock

Would dangle like pendulum fix'd to a clock!
Our Anthony now has recourse to his fort;
True Bondsman, that's fed by a slave of the Court. (p)

(p) It is most curious to observe the tergiversation which frequently occurs in the conduct of literary characters; for though Pasquin be now employed as dramatic censor, Parisian correspondent, and paragraph inditer, by the clerical baronet of Catherine-street, yet there was a period when no two individuals were greater opponents; and such were then the nature of Anthony's philippics against Bate Dudley, that the latter threatened him with a horse-whipping; upon which the former cancelled the offending paragraph, and inserted an humble apology for his "Error." Indeed, the above is not the only instance wherein this satirist has been subjected to the threat of castigation, as the case of Mr. Barrymore the comedian, and others, will fully demonstrate.

The famous Peter Aretin, who wielded the pen far better than the sword, having warmly espoused the part of Titian

His strictures evince no one portion of merit,
Condensing mere virulence void of all spirit:

Like

poor mawkish Hill, who pretends to Essays, (q) Thus handling performers, and judging of plays.

against Tintoret, in a dispute which had arisen between them, the latter resenting this behaviour, and being well acquainted with the timidity of Aretin, met him purposely one day near his own dwelling, into which he pressed him to enter that he might draw the portrait of so celebrated a character. The poet consented; when the artist, to his visible horror, advanced fiercely towards him with a pistol in his hand. "Alas!" said the satirist, "what are you going to do?" "I only mean to take your precise measure," answered Tintoret.

"You are, I perceive,

just four times and a half the length of my pistol." Aretin, however, not feeling any relish for such a prelude, ran away as fast as possible, without waiting to sit for his portrait,

Οντ' αυτω κακα τευχεν ανήρ, αλλω τευχων.

Such revengeful spirits, who prosecute their resentments with precipitancy against others; very frequently find the weightiest part of punition devolves upon themselves.

(9) The gentleman mentioned in the above line formerly

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