Foote. A black! Snar. Yes. Lac. Zounds, Snarl, what a curl-pated negroe! Snar. Aye, I suppose that won't make any difference?' Foote. None at all: a good actress, like a good horse, can't be of a bad colour: I beg I may see her. are? Snar. You shall: your servant. [Exeunt Laconic and Snarl. - Serv. No, Sir, but there is one wants you without, that you know. Serv. The Builder. Foote. Oh! bid him come in. Enter SCAFFOLD. Well, master Scaffold, what's the best news with you? Scaff. Sarvent, master, I hope things are as they should be? Scaff. Conwenent and greable, and quite a propos. Foote. If the public, whose servant I am, are but satisfied, you are sure of my voice. Scaff. Why, I don't see any fault they can find; the Orchester indeed is rather too small, Foote. No, pretty well. Scaff. Aye, at present; but if in the winter you should chance to have oratorios, you will scarce have room for the hapsicol. Foote. Oh! that may be easily altered. Scaff. True;-well, master Foote, let us now talk a little of bu siness, Foote. Oh! the deuce! Scaff. A pretty long account-here it is. [Shews the bill. Scaff. To you! to be paid, to be sure. Foote. I pay you! Scaff. Without doubt. Foote. No, there you are mistaken, my good master Scaffold, you are much better off; it is these ladies and gentlemen who are to be your paymasters, Scaff What, the gentlefolk above and below? Foote. Aye, the whole public! for if they don't, I am sure it is my power. out of Scaff. Why, I can't say but my security is mended, that is if so be as how they be willing-but-ah!-this is one of your skits, you' GVOL. XVII. will never leave off;-but come, master Foote, you should not be long winded, consider what expedition we have made; all this work here in three months: a tight job, master Foote. Foote. And you, master Scaffold, claim much merit from that? Scaff. To be sure. Foote. Look into the pit. Scaff. Well, I do. Foote. I will undertake, that less than half that number of hands shall undo more work in an hour, than you can complete in a year. Scaff. May be so, I see there is amongst them some tight likely lads; but, come master, let us now be serus a little? Foote. Upon my word, I am serious; I consider myself but as a trustee for the public; and what their generosity bestows upon me, I will most justly assign over to you. Scaff. Aye, why then, since that is the case, let us hear a little of how and about it; well now, and what scheme, what plan have you got, to give a jog to the generous? Foote. Why, I have some things they have liked, and others that I hope they will like. Scaff. What, I suppose men and women, and talking stuff, that you take out of play-books. Foote. Of that kind. Scaff. Ah! pox! that will ne'er do, could not you give 'em a christening, or funeral? or hey!-aye, that is the best of 'em all; zooks, let 'em have a crownation. Foote. No. Scaff. No, why not? why then we shall have 'em crowd hither in shoals. Foote. No, no, no, Scaffold: No long processions crowd my narrow scenes, Lamp-lighting peers, and mantua-making queens. Scaff. Why, as you say, that work is little better than scandalous magnation: hey! gad, I have a thought! odd rot it, give 'em a pantomine; I likes to see that little patch-coated feller slap one, and kick t'other, and then pop he is out of the window. Foote. Nor shall great Philip's son, thro' our crime, Sully his triumph by a pantomime. Scaff. Philip, pshaw, I'd never mind Philip, nor any of the family: what harm can they do you? Come do, and I'll bate of my bill:-do, for the carpenter's credit. Foote. Your credit! Scaff. Aye, and to punish the prigmatical poets, for in that kind of work you will have no occasion for them.-There you know our trade takes the lead. Foote. Well, well, we'll feel a little for the taste of the town; and, if no other method can be found of paying your bill;—for we, Mr. Scaffold, may assume what airs of reforming we please, the stage is at best but an echo of the public voice; a mere rainbow; all its gaudy colours arise from reflection: or, as a modern bard more happily says, "The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give; "For we that live to please, must please to live." Scaff. Why then, after all, I find I am in a hobble. Foote. May be not; come, hope for the best. Prompter? Foote. Are the actors ready to open? Prompt. Immediately. Foote. Stay, and see the result of this evening: Consult with care each countenance around, Not one malignant aspect can be found, To check the royal hand that rais'd me from the ground. SEYMOUR'S NOTES UPON SHAKSPERE. CYMBELINE-ACT. IV. "Struck the main-top, o' Posthumus! alas!" This is the only line, of twenty, occurring in the play, where the accent rests on the first syllable of Posthumus; in all the others, it is decidedly (or by probable inference in the few imperfect lines) Posthūmus. Mr. Steevens, in his Remarks upon Pericles, prince of Tyre, has made a strange mistake in asserting that "this name, in Cymbeline, is always Pósthŭmus, and not Posthumus. But the false acceptation, so prevalent in this play, is not without authority.— In Warner's Albion's England, the same objection occurs more than once both in Posthumus and Arviragus. "Posthumus Sylvius did succeed; Lavinia was his mother. And Saturne him; from mother thus, Posthumus lacked not. Duke Arvirāgus, using then, the armour of the king. And through his gentle victorie bound Arvirāgus still. The son of PHILIP, when he saw the Tomb II. HER, of the Homeric, the Orfeàn Lyre Most worthy, or that shepherd, Mantua's Pride, Her Stars and unpropitious Fate denied * The structure of this sonnet, which is imitated in the translation, is rare and peculiar. It is a proof of the regularity with variety, by which the Italian sonnet, in ts different forms, is characterized. C. L. |