Mayor,
First get a license, then produce our ware;
We sound a trumpet, or we beat a drum:
Huzza! (the schoolboys roar) the players are come;
And then we cry, to spur the bumpkins on,
Gallants, by Tuesday next we must be gone.
I told him in the smoothest way I could,
All this, and more, yet it would do no good.
But Elrington, tears falling from his cheeks,
He that has shone with Betterton and Wilks,[2]
To whom our country has been always dear,
Who chose to leave his dearest pledges here,
Owns all your favours, here intends to stay,
And, as a stroller, act in every play:
And the whole crew this resolution takes,
To live and die all strollers, for your sakes;
Not frighted with an ignominious name,
For your displeasure is their only shame.
A pox on Elrington's majestic tone!
Now to a word of business in our own.
Gallants, next Thursday night will be our last:
Then without fail we pack up for Belfast.
Lose not your time, nor our diversion miss,
The next we act shall be as good as this.
[Footnote 1: Thomas Elrington, born in 1688, an English actor of great
reputation at Drury Lane from 1709 till 1712, when he was engaged by
Joseph Ashbury, manager of the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.
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