82
LIFE OF EDMOND MALONE.
Thus I'll begin: but it will never do,
Unless some recent anecdotes ensue:
Has no frail dame been caught behind a screen?
No panting virgin flown to Gretna Green?
Have we no news of Digby or the Dutch?
At some rich Nabob can't I have a touch?
Or the famed quack,[1] who, but for duns terrestrial,
Had gain'd the Indies by his bed celestial.
“Bravo, Miss Younge!—the thought my friend will bless,
“This modish medley must insure success.”
Won by his smooth-tongued flattery I've dared
To do what ev'n our fluent author fear'd.
If I succeed to-night the trade I'll follow,
And dedicate my leisure to Apollo.
Before my house a board shall straight be hung,
With—“Epilogues made here by Dr. Younge!”
Nor will I, like my brethren, take a fee,
Your hands and smiles are wealth enough for me.[2]
Unless some recent anecdotes ensue:
Has no frail dame been caught behind a screen?
No panting virgin flown to Gretna Green?
Have we no news of Digby or the Dutch?
At some rich Nabob can't I have a touch?
Or the famed quack,[1] who, but for duns terrestrial,
Had gain'd the Indies by his bed celestial.
“Bravo, Miss Younge!—the thought my friend will bless,
“This modish medley must insure success.”
Won by his smooth-tongued flattery I've dared
To do what ev'n our fluent author fear'd.
If I succeed to-night the trade I'll follow,
And dedicate my leisure to Apollo.
Before my house a board shall straight be hung,
With—“Epilogues made here by Dr. Younge!”
Nor will I, like my brethren, take a fee,
Your hands and smiles are wealth enough for me.[2]
- ↑ Dr. Graham, from his “Temple of Hymen,” had announced that “if it were not for unprecedented cruelty, he would in a few years have been one of his Majesty's richest and most respectable subjects.”
- ↑ In addition to these and other tragic pieces hereafter to be mentione the sister muse was not forgotten. He is recorded to have written the Hotel farce, 1783; the Campaign, opera, 1785; Love and War, 1787; Two Strings to your Bow, 1791, only the last of which met with popular favour. But I have met with no communication on these pieces to his critical confidant in London, the letters to Malone being probably returned, as in other instances to the family.
