O' Fl. Oho! if you come out of the tombs, 'tis no wonder you speak the dead languages. Dump. Recte. Sir Jeff. Dumps. Sir Jeff. When will your Master be here, fellow? Hark ye, David, take this mummy into the cellar, and wet his duft with a cup of October. You'll find better company in my vaults, friend, than the abbey's. Dumps. Oh dear, Sir, I was reasonably merry, till I came into my Master's fervice; he is a monument of a man: we shou'd have had a terrible journey of it, if we had not luckily fallen in with a black job by the way, and kept company with the corpse of Exeter cathedral. 1 Jack. I must be acquainted with this fellow What is your name? Dumps. My name is Dumps an' please you. Jack. How long have you been in Mr. Ruefull's fervice? Dumps. Five years by the calendar, five centuries by calculation I had indeed the choice of being keeper of a pesthouse; but I was fool enough to withstand the offer; and, all other trades failing, took into my prefent fervice. What other trades have you followed?. Let us know your history. Dumps. 'Tis foon told, gentlemen I am the son of a fexton, and worked at my father's business in my youth; I then went into the service of a diffecting furgeon, and with my father's help furnifh'd my mafter's academy with fubjects. O' Fl. O Fl. Oh Lord, have mercy upon us! Dumps. When that trade fail'd, I hir'd myself out to the Humane Society *). O' Fl. That was the devil of a jump backwards. Dumps. Many an honeft gentleman now walks about with breath of my blowing; but it was too much labour for one pair of lungs; and by giving life to a drowned Alderman upon a fwan - hopping party I contracted a consumption, and turn'd murder-monger to a morning paper. O' Fl. Murder-monger! there you are in your old quarters once more! And what 's murder-monger, I would fain ask. Dumps. Cafualty -> compiler, an' please you, inventer of murders to amuse our customers; but they said I wanted variety in my violent deaths, I made to much ufe of the brewer's dray; fo they took a tragic poet in my place, and I was turn'd into Westminster - Abbey as Valet de Chambre to the ragged Regiment, to brufh the duft of the faces of the wax - work; from thence I came into Squire Ruefull's fervice; and if I take another step downwards, it must be to the old one; for I can go no lower in this world, Sir Jeff. Try the depth of my cellar first; and then we'll talk further with you. Get you gone? Eine Gesellschaft in London, sur Rettung ertrunkener und andrer verunglückter Personen. 10 XVIII, urp hv. Beides, die komische und tragische Gattung des Schant spiels, ist auch von Arthur Nurphy, einem noch lebenden Rechtsgelehrten und Sachwalter in London, nicht ohne glücks lichen Erfolg bearbeitet worden. Er ist ein geborner Jrlåns der, und Corte soll seine Vaterstadt seyn. Die schriftstelles rische Laufbahn betrat er zuerst im J. 1752 mit der Heraust gabe des Gray's-Inn Journal, welches er zwei Jahre lang fortsette. Im J. 1754 versuchte er sich als Schauspieler auf der Bühne in Coventgarden, wo er zuerst im Othello erschien. Ob es ihm aber gleich an! Talenten zu dieser Kunst nicht fehlte, und er bald hernach sich darin auch auf dem Theater in Drurylane zeigte, so gab er sie doch ganz wieder auf, und schrieb nun für die Schaubühne und Politik, wobei er jedoch das & Studium der Rechte mit vorzüglichem Eifer trieb. Man tennt die Verdienste, welche er sich um die vollständige Ausgabe von Fielding's Werken erwarb. Seine eigne Werke sammelte er im I 1786 in sieben Bånden, in gr. 8. Die darin enthaltenen Lustspiele find: The Apprentice - The Upholsterer→ The Old Maid tizen The Way to keep him. The Desert Island The Ci- What we T All in Know your own - No Man's Enemy but His Own Veeks after Marriage, auch unter dem Titel: nuft all come to the Wrong Mind The School for Guardians The Choice. Zu dem Lustspiele, Know your own Mind nahm er die Grundlage aus dem Irrefolu des Destouches, wusste aber die Charaktere sehr glücklich auf englischen Boden zu verpflans zen, und den Dialog durch Laune und Originalzüge zu beles ben. In dem am meisten auffallenden Charakter des Dashwould soll er, vornehmlich in folgender Scene, den berühmten Schauspieler Foote zu schildern gesucht häben: Ente Enter Lady BELL, DASHWOULD, and MALVIL. Lady Bell. Mr. Dafhwould, do you think, I'll bear this? What liberty will you take next? You think, because I laugh, that I am not offended. Aunt, T received a letter, and he has attempted to snatch it from me. Dafhwould. Why, it brings a little cargo of ridicule from the country, and my friend Malvil fees no joke in it. Malvil. When my friend's name is brought in question, Sir Lady Bell. It is diverting notwithstanding Aunt, what do you think? My cousin Cynthia, you know, was to be married to Sir George Squanderstock; her mother oppofed it, and broke off the match, and now it's come out, that she was all the time the clandestine rival of her own daughter.. Millamour. (afide) Not inapplicable to the present bufinefs. Mrs. Brom. Go, you giddy girl, no fuch things, Mil. (afide) She charms by her very faults. Sir Har. (goes up to Bygrove) And Dashwould has been saying Bygr, Po! repeat none of his fayings to me. Lady Bell. Did you fay any thing, Mr. Dashwould? what was it? Dafhw. Oh! nothing. Sir John Squanderstock is my very good friend Mal. And for that reafon you might spare him, No man is without his faults. Dafhw. Ay, allow himn faults, out of tenderness. Bygr. Sir John is a valuable man, Sir, and reprefents his country to great advantage, Dafhw. He does fo; takes a world of pains; nothing can escape him; Manilla ransom not paid; there must be a motion about that matter: he knots his handkerchief to remember it. Scarcity of corn; another knot! — triennial parliaments (knots) Juries, judges of law as well as fact (knots) national debt (knots) bail in criminal caufes, (knots) and fo on he goes, till his handkerchief is twifted into queftions of ftate; the liberties and fortunes of all pofterity dangling likę a bede roll; he puts it in his pocket, drives to the gaming table, and the next morning his handkerchief goes to the wash, and his country and the minority are both 'left in the fuds. Lady Bell. What a description! Sir Har, Hey! lively Lady Bell! Both laugh. Mil. Ho, ho! I thank you, Dashwould. Mrs. Brom. (afide to Millamour) How can you encourage him? Let us leave'em to themselves. Mal. You fee, Mr. Bygrove Bygr. Ay, thus he gets a story to graft his malice upon, and then he sets the table in a roar at the next tavern. Sir Har. Never be out of humour with Dashwould, Mr. Bygrove; he keeps me alive; he has been exhibiting pictures of this fort all the morning, as we rambled about the town. Dafhie. Oh! no; no pictures; I have fhewn him real life. Sir Har. Very true, Dafhwould; and now mind him; he will touch them off to the life for you. Mrs. Brom. (afide) Millamour fo close with Lady Bell! The forward importunity of that girl! (She goes to Millamour.) Dafhu. |