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The monarch quits his throne, and condescends
Humbly to court the favour of his friends;
For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps,
And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps.
Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome,
To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume,

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composition, a little farm worth about £800 for his particular share. Fannius also sued separately, and was supposed to have gained as much, but pretending to have recovered nothing, sued Roscius for the moiety of what he had recovered. Cicero in his oration, draws a pleasing picture of the actor, whom he represents as enjoying the familiarity and friendship of the greatest men in Rome, and then proceeds: "Has Roscius then defrauded his partner! can such a stain attach to such a man? who, I speak it with confidence, has more integrity than skill, more veracity than experience, whom the people of Rome know to be a better man than he is an actor; and who while he makes the first figure on the stage for his art, is worthy of the senate for his virtue." In another place, he says of him, "that he was such an artist as to seem the only one fit to come upon the stage, yet such a man as to seem the only one unfit to come upon it at all; and that his action was so perfect and admirable, that when a man excelled in any other profession it was grown into a proverb to call him a Roscius." His daily pay for acting is said to have been about thirty pounds sterling. Pliny computes his yearly profit at £4000, but Cicero seems to rate it at £5000. He was generous, benevolent, and a contemner of money; and after he had raised an ample fortune from the stage, gave his pains to the public for many years without any pay; whence Cicero urges it as incredible, that he who, in ten years past, might honestly have gained £50,000, which he refused, should be tempted to commit a fraud for the paltry sum of £400. Roscius was the first actor who wore a mask on the stage, which he did to conceal an affection of the eyes, and an unprepossessing countenance, yet when occasionally unmasked, the extraordinary powers of his voice and action conciliated

In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war, And shew where honour bled in every scar.

But though bare merit might in Rome appear The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here; We form our judgment in another way, And they will best succeed, who best can pay:

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to him the applauses of his auditors in greater measure than were bestowed on his brother players. We are told that Cicero used to divert himself sometimes with Roscius, and make it an exercise or trial of skill between them, which could express the same passion the most variously, the one by words, the other by gestures. Roscius died at an advanced age, sixty-one years before the birth of Christ.

10 It was the custom for those who pretended to offices and dignities among the Romans, to solicit and caress the people at their general assemblies, clad only in a loose gown, without any coat under it, either to promote their supplications the better, by suing in such an humble habit, or that such as had received wounds in the war might thus more readily demonstrate the visible tokens of their fortitude. Plutarch mentions this circumstance in his life of Coriolanus, who was banished U. C. 262, although then, and until the time of Manlius Torquatus, U. C. 393, the senate chose both the Consuls. Shakespeare, misled by this authority, has made the haughty refusal of Coriolanus to comply with this custom, the immediate cause of his banishment, and of the indignation of the tribunes, one of whom

heard him swear

Were he to stand for Consul, never would he
Appear i' the market place, nor on him put

The napless vesture of humility;

Nor shewing (as the manner is) his wounds

To the people, beg their stinking breaths.

It was his word: O! he would miss it rather

Than carry it, but by the suit of the gentry to him
And the desire of the nobles.

Those, who would gain the votes of British tribes,. Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.

What can an actor give? in every age

Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage; a Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player, Appear as often as their image there;

They can't, like candidate for other seat,

18 The national debt, and the consequent increase of oligarchical influence, may be considered as the causes of the increased eagerness of individuals to become members of the house of Commons, and of their indifference as to the means used to gratify their ambition. The evidence of which may be found in the acts of the legislature, on reference to which, it appears that with every progressive addition to the debt, it has been found necessary to extend the number of provisions against corruption in elections: thus, at the Revolution, there existed only fourteen statutes to preserve the freedom and independence of parliament, to regulate elections, and to prevent frauds, bribery, &c. At the death of William III. these statutes increased to twenty-six, at the death of Queen Anne to thirty-five, at the death of George I. to thirty-seven, of George II. to forty-nine, and in the year 1790, to no less than sixty-five. At the period of passing the Reform Bill in 1832, they exceeded one hundred in number, while the subsequent operation of that Bill has been at once to increase the expense of the seat, by an aggravated amount of bribery and of every other election crime, and in an inverse ratio to reduce the moral, intellectual, and gentlemanly standard of the member, inasmuch as the nominee of a noble or wealthy patron may be readily supposed to have been of superior calibre in all those essential requisites, as compared with a dependent on the sweet voices of a constituency of householders, with most of whom ten pounds is at once qualification and price.

19 The antients were more liberal in their encouragement f histrionic eminence, although in general holding the prolessors of that art in great contempt, if we are to credit the immense sums which Roscius and Esopus are said to have

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Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat. Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon, And of Roast Beef, they only know the tune: But what they have they give; could Clive do more, Though for each million he had brought home four?

Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair, And hopes the friends of humour will be there; 30 acquired by acting. The latter was contemporary with Roscius, and equally the friend and companion of Cicero. Melmoth states his having left behind him about £200,000 sterling; and we shall only be induced to wonder at the smallness of this sum, when we are told that, at a feast he presented one dish which alone cost him near £4,900.

27 Robert Lord Clive, the restorer, if not the founder of the British Empire in India. By the sole force of his personal abilities he raised himself from a middling rank in life, to honours, distinction, and unbounded wealth. Soon after his return to England, his mind too active preyed upon itself, and in a fit of despondence, this illustrious warrior and consummate statesman put a period to his own life in 1774, soon after he had entered upon the fiftieth year of his age. The considerable fortune he had so nobly earned raised a popular outery against him, in which our author here, and again in his poem called the Farewell, too readily joined, in a note on which the reader will find some farther particulars of this heaven-born hero, as the Earl of Chatham styled him, and of his spirited speech in the House of Commons in vindication of his conduct.

29 Edward Shuter, a comic actor, who, after various theatrical vicissitudes, died a zealous methodist and disciple of George Whitefield in 1776. His father was a clergyman, and young Shuter was originally employed as a marker at a billiard-table; but discovering a turn for the stage, he was engaged at Covent Garden, and became a performer of considerable merit in low comedy. The difficult part of Falstaff he filled with ability; what he wanted in judgment he supolied by archness and drollery. He enjoyed the effects of

In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat
For those who laughter love, instead of meat.

his roguery with a chuckle of his own compounding, and rolled his full eye, when detected, with a most laughable effect; but his comic humour often degenerated into buffoonery to please the galleries. Shuter had a happy knack at imitating the various sounds of animals, and successfully exerted his talent on the following occasion: When Foote first opened the theatre in the Haymarket, amongst other projects he proposed to entertain the public with an imitation of cat music; for this purpose he engaged a man famous for his skill in mimicking the mewing of cats. This person was called Cat Harris, he not attending a rehearsal of this odd concert, Foote desired Shuter would endeavour to find him out, and bring him with him. Shuter was directed to some court in the Minories, where this extraordinary musician lived, but not knowing the house, Shuter began a cat-solo. Upon this, the other looked out of window, and answered with a cantata of the same sort. "Come along," said Shuter, "I want no better information that you are the man; Mr. Foote stays for us, and cannot begin the cat-opera without you." On passing the act for licensing the Playhouses, Lord Chesterfield observed, "How cruel it is to lay a tax on so scarce a commodity as wit; it is a sort of property of those who have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on-it is, indeed, a precarious dependence. Thank God, we, my lords, have a dependence of another kind." Shuter revenged the treatment he met with in this poem by getting merry with the author.

31 Richard Yates, from filling the most insignificant characters, gradually rose to eminence in the comic line, and deservedly acquired the high degree of estimation which he possessed without a rival for many years: he was remarkable for pure and chaste acting up to the words of his author, with a scrupulous attention; he was distinguished for peculiar appropriateness of dress; and excelled in teaching or drilling an actor in a higher degree than any one of his time. His second wife was a very superior actress, whom we shall have further occasion to mention. Yates kept a booth at Smithfield

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