Essays on the Stage

hat was in his pate, or had ever perus'd that Giant of an Author, upon whom I am the Pigmy, as he wittily observes, he would have found the Bockheaded Chaplain had been greazing his old Gassock there long before I new rigg'd him: But that's all one, I, poor I, must be denounc'd as Criminal; I brought him upon the Stage, I wash'd his Face, put on a new Crape Vest, and a clean Band, which, oh, fatal accident, made him look so like somebody, that I, in his opinion, and condemn'd by his infallibility, have been no body ever since, _vox & præterea nihil_. Well, however this is determin'd, let me beg of my impartial Readers, to give me leave to try what I can be, I have had good fortune I am told by others in Lyrical Verse, which I am sure is one principal part of Poetry, I'll see now if I can match my Antagonist in Rallying Prose. Several ingenious Authors have already, I think, so well confuted his Assertions against the Stage, by proofs from the Antient Poets, the Primitive Fathers, and the