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Mr. W. Cobbett, in a letter addressed to you, dated the 30th of January, and published in his Weekly Political Register of the 7th of the following month, has amused, or rather abused, you with a number of gross and false reflections upon the profession of an Actor; so gross as to be unworthy of any pen but his own, and so false as to justify my applying to him the motto printed at the head of this article. Lest any one of you, imputing a quality to this man which he does not possess, should give any credit to his statements, and so entertain an unjust prejudice towards a respectable part of the community, whom he contemptuously calls Play Actors,' I have been induced to vindicate the Professors of the Stage from his scurrility; and this point I shall most completely accomplish, if facts are allowed to be of more weight than assertions, and truth to have a greater title to respect, than falsehood.

GENTLEMEN,-Mr. Cobbett quotes the well known line of Pope, 'unelbowed by a Flatterer, Pimp or Player,' because he thinks, probably, that what he himself might say, would produce little effect, without the apparent sanction of some respectable authority; but it happens to be notorious, that Pope's satire upon the actors, originated in chagrin; the bad success of a Dramatic piece called Three Hours after Marriage, in which he was concerned with Gay and Arbuthnot, mortified his vanity, and provoked his petulance; and, because Cibber introduced what he calls a fling, at this condemned three-act piece into his performance of Bayes, which set the audience in a roar, and still further increased the mortification of the Author; he revenged himself by substituting Cibber for Theobald as the hero of his Dunciad, and gratified the malignity of his 'wise and just mind,' by insinuating that a Player merited the same degree of contempt, with a flatterer and a pimp. And yet he had lived upon terms of intimacy with Betterton, and published under that Player's name, a version, into modern English, of Chaucer's YOL. I.

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prologues, which Fenton believed to have been the performance of
Pope himself.
If he had thought therefore that a Player, as such,
was an associate fit only for a pimp and a flatterer, it is not likely
that he would have published a work in the name of an actor; that
he would have painted the portrait of Betterton, and have re-
garded him, as his biographers tell us he did, with kindness and
esteem. In his youth he was so delighted with theatrical exhi-
bitions, that he formed a kind of play from Ogilby's Iliad, with some
verses of his own intermixed, which he persuaded his school-fellows
to act, with the addition of his master's gardener, who personated
Ajax. Besides the share he had in Three Hours after Marriage, he
wrote a comedy; and a tragedy on the legend of St. Genevieve; and
in his justly celebrated prologue to Cato, he thus asserts the utility
and dignity of the Drama.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the tragic muse first trod the stage;
Commanding tears to stream through every age.
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept

And foes to virtue wondered how they wept.

I think I have advanced enough to prove that the line which Mr. Cobbett has selected, to shew the degree of estimation in which Play-Actors stood' with Pope, was the result of disappointment, spleen and malice; and that he had, in fact, a reverence more than common, both for actors and the stage.

Gentlemen; the actors are abused by Mr. Cobbett for " co-operat ing to stifle your voice," and Mr. Sheridan is taxed with meanness for accepting of a feast" at their hands. A company of comedians can no more stifle the voice of the Electors of Westminster, than any other company or body. An actor, if he be a housekeeper, will no doubt vote for his favourite candidate, and promote his interests as far as in his power. Is not Mr. Cobbet entitled to do this for any person to whose cause he should wish well; and shall we blame the performers of Drury-lane for using their exertions to secure the election of a gentleman whose dramatic writings are the boast of the age, and whose brilliant genius, and captivating eloquence, have so long and often excited the highest admiration in the Parliament of Great Britain?

This is the "head and fro..t of their offending;" they wished success to Mr. Sheridan's election; to protect him from the violence of a set of ruffians who threatened his life, and actually struck at his head with a cleaver, they put their own persons to some hazard; to celebrate his return as the member for Westminster, they asked Mr. Sheridan to a dinner, and he thought it an honour to accept the invitation.

Mr. Cobbett next talks of the law, and with the same knowledge of his subject as I have shewn that he possesses with respect to Pope and the players. He tells you that the law makes Richard Brinsley Sheridan "Right Honourable ;"---no such thing. When the King issues his Royal command that a person shall be sworn a Privy Counsellor, the oath is no sooner administered to him than he takes, as a matter of courtesy, the title of "Right Honourable." He

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tells you that the law, or our code of laws, denominate play-actors "vagabonds ;"— -no such thing. Actors, merely as such, are not, nor ever were considered as vagabonds. By a statute of Elizabeth, common players, unless authorised, are deemed rogues:" By an act of the 10th, George II, c. 19. " Players acting within five miles of either university, are deemed rogues and vagabonds; and by the 26th of the same King, c. 25, which contains some other regulations respecting theatres, there is an exception in favour of Drury-lane, and CoventGarden," and of such performances and public entertainments as are or shall be lawfully exercised and carried on under, or by virtue of letters patent or licence from the Crown, or the Lord Chamberlain of his Majesty's household:" so that it necessarily follows that such players only are vagabonds as commit an offence which the law has forbidden. If actors were vagabonds, would his MAJESTY condescend to call them his servants; would he honour them, as he does, with his especial countenance? and would the legislature have passed an act of parliament to sanction a fund for the decayed members of the theatrical profession? The law, as well as the fact, therefore are both against Mr. Cobbett's assertions. ashamed, Gentlemen, to offer such stale arguments in opposition to the "despicable cant" which this ignorant and impudent libeller has dealt out "for the sole purpose of silencing the voice of truth;" and then he asks with an affected simplicity, as if he had really stated facts, are we to be called ILLIBERAL?" certainly not illiberal; the epithet is too mild. Such are some of the " gross and scurrilous untruths" which, as Mr. Sheridan has so justly observed, "his nature, his habits, and his cause, compel him to deal in.” Í so far disagree with Mr. Sheridan in his opinion, that "it is useless to continue to detect and expose them," that I think I am doing a service to society, the stage, and particularly to the electors of Westminster, in exhibiting this man, who does not even lye like truth,' in his proper colours.

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Following the order of Mr. Cobbett's letter, I shall quote his next falsehood, and then proceed to confute it. "He (Mr. Sheridan) told the play-actors, who, by the bye, were amongst the lowest of that tribe, that he had royal blood flowing in his veins; that he has, said Munden, in a whisper to Mathews, " for the only time I ever saw his father, he was King of Denmark." Of the benefit of this bit of wit, such as it is, I will not seek to deprive the satyrical rogue; but like the story of Alice in the Castle Spectre, the remark has one great fault in it, it is not true. Mr. Sheridan made no boast of his royal blood; on the contrary, he considered it as a weakness to insist on the claims of mere descent, and, referring to the aspersions which had been cast upon him and his family, only observed, in the same modest spirit as Othello makes mention of his lineage, that he might say

"If boasting were an honour, he fetched his life and being From men of Royal siege."

There were present most of the principal actors of both theatres. Mr. Kemble pleaded illness, and did not attend. Mr. Munden never saw Mr. Sheridan, senior, in Hamlet, and he could not have whispered to Mr. Mathews, because they sat at different tables, and had no conversation with each other during the whole of the evening,

There are, after these "gross and scurrilous untruths," some opinions of Mr. Cobbett respecting the calling of an actor, which, to use his own words on another occasion, "I could demolish in three minutes." But with his opinions I have nothing to do; they are as worthless as himself, and need not be disturbed. I propose only to detect his falsehoods; to these I shall confine myself, and it will be› seen that I have business enough on my hands.

"Mr. Sheridan's father was a play-actor; a play-actor too, not like the Kemble's; whose rare endowments, and whose excellent characters, serve to screen from universal contempt, a profession, the followers of which hate and envy them in return; not a playactor of this description, but a play-actor of the lowest, of the very lowest cast, of a cast not less low, and that is saying much, than any one of the hosts of the dinner given in honour of his son.'

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The assertion in the latter part of this quotation has already been refuted. The endowments of the Kembles, and their characters, shall be just what Mr. Cobbett pleases. But, as the Kembles cannot believe an iota of what he has said with respect to the rank which Mr. Sheridan bore in society, and on the stage; and as they will not assert, because they will not assert what is false, that their own pretensions are of an order superior to those of Mr. Thomas Sheridan, they will know how to appreciate the value of Mr. Cobbett's praise. Leaving the Kembles out of the question, whose great professional talents nobody will attempt to deny, let me remind you, gentlemen, that such men as Betterton, Booth, Wilks, Quin, Garrick, Barry, Henderson, Mossop, this very Mr. Sheridan (I speak now of trage. dians only); and such women as Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Pope, and many others, have had rare endowments, and excellent characters as well as the Kembles, and then I leave you to judge whether it was left to them, to screen" this under-rated profession "from universal contempt." If on account of the "rare endowments" with which we know they are gifted, and of those "excellent characters" which we will hope and believe they possess, they are envied and hated by their fellow performers, they are indeed most unfortunate---but that they are so hated and envied, few will believe, now Mr. Cobbett has told us so, and if he should have stumbled upon a truth by accident, this hatred and envy, may be attributable to causes more germane to the matter," than their rare endowments, and excellent characters.

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"Mr. Sheridan was a play-actor of the lowest cast" COBBETT. say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie." SHAKSPEARE. Now to the proof. Hear, Gentlemen, what is said of this, "play-actor of the lowest cast," by those whose veracity may be relied on. "As if one period had been fixed on by fate for awakening the almost expiring taste of both kingdoms, it was nearly at the same time that our great brilliant star appeared at once with dazzling lustre in the East, and this other new phenomenon (Mr. Sheridan) shone forth with almost equal lustre from the West of the theatric hemisphere."-Biog. Dram.---Mr. Davies states, that his success on the Dublin stage was so great, that Quin, "who arrived in that city during the first warm glow of Mr. Sheridan's prosperity, with an intention to act, was obliged to quit that metropolis with disgust, if not disgrace." Such was the merit and attraction of this actor of the very lowest cast.

But this, Mr. Cobbett, may say, was in his native city. Be it so, let us bring him to London. "The acquisition of such an actor as Mr. Sheridan must have been desirable to the managers of either of the London theatres. It was the mutual interest of Mr. Garrick and Mr. Sheridan to come to a reasonable agreement; this was soon effected, notwithstanding a coldness had for some time subsisted between them. It was stipulated that Mr. Sheridan should act a certain number of nights, and receive a fourth share of profits, after deducting 801. for the expences of the theatre. This Gentleman had been long esteemed a man of eminence in his profession; and, notwithstanding Mr. Garrick's great reputation for acting, some critics did not scruple to compare, nay, prefer, Sheridan's perform< ance of certain capital characters, such as Macbeth and Hamlet, to the other's utmost efforts in those parts. But indeed the manager's own jealousy justified the public good opinion of Mr. Sheridan's ability. Mr. Garrick soon found that his engagement with this actor was of very great advantage to him. Little difference in the bulk of audiences was to be perceived when they acted separately the parts of Hamlet and Richard, or any other capital character. The manager himself owned that except Barry, he had never found so able an assistant; for the best of them he said, could scarcely draw together a hundred pound audience. But Garrick's ruling passion was the love of fame; and his uneasiness, arising from the success of Sheridan, began every day to be more and more visible. However, he seemed for a time to suspend his jealousy, and promote every scheme proposed by Sheridan for their mutual profit.

"This account is taken from the Life of Garrick by Mr. Davies, who is not likely to have over-rated Mr. Sheridan's abilities and success as an actor, while contrasting him with his hero Mr. Garrick.

It is also an indisputable fact, that to the character, talents, and exertions of Mr. Sheridan, the improved state of the Irish stage is entirely indebted.

I will now tell you what this "lowest of the low" was in his family, his education, and manners; what was his estimation with those whose esteem was valuable, and the public honours and testimonies of respect which followed him, as a man, a scholar, and a gentleman. His father Dr. Thomas Sheridan, was the intimate friend of Dean Swift, that Swift who was the associate of that Pope whom Mr. Cobbett professes so highly to revere. He was, as Lord Corke has observed, "deeply versed in the Greek and Roman Languages, and in their customs and antiquities." Mr. T. Sheridan, his son, was educated at Westminster school,and by pure merit elected a King's scholar. On his return to Dublin, he was sent to the Univer sity, and was chosen of the foundation, and soon after obtained an exhibition. His academic honours, and public distinctions were considerable. He was Master of Arts in three of the most learned Universities of Europe-Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin; in the latter of which, his Alma-Mater, he was regularly matriculated, and obtained the distinction in due course of gradation, where the qualifications are by no means trifling, and the examinations singularly severe. In the year 1758 he paid a visit in his literary capacity to Oxford, and immediately on his arrival in that renowned seat of eminent professors, he was distinguished with unusual attention;

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