Life of Sheridan, vol 1 | Page 7

Was it not? hey! it required a little command,--a little presence of mind,--but I believe we had better proceed.
"_Monop._ The sooner the better,--come, gentlemen, resume your seats.
"_Sim._ Now for it. Draw up the curtain, and _(looking at his book)_ enter Sir Richard Ixion,--but stay,--zounds, Sir Richard ought to overhear Jupiter and his wife quarrelling,--but, never mind,--these accidents have spoilt the division of my piece.--So enter Sir Richard, and look as cunning as if you had overheard them. Now for it, gentlemen,--you can't be too attentive.
"Enter Sir RICHARD IXION _completely dressed, with bag, sword, &c._
"_Ix._
'Fore George, at logger-heads,--a lucky minute, 'Pon honor, I may make my market in it. Dem it, my air, address, and mien must touch her, Now out of sorts with him,--less God than butcher. O rat the fellow,--where can all his sense lie, To gallify the lady so immensely? Ah! _le grand bete qu'il est!_--how rude the bear is! The world to two-pence he was ne'er at Paris. Perdition stop my vitals,--now or never I'll niggle snugly into Juno's favor. Let's see,--(_looking in a glass_) my face,--toll loll-- 'twill work upon her. My person--oh, immense, upon my honor. My eyes,--oh fie.--the naughty glass it flatters,-- Courage,--Ixion flogs the world to tatters. [Exit Ixion.]
"_Sim._ There is a fine gentleman for you,--In the very pink of the mode, with not a single article about him his own,--his words pilfered from Magazines, his address from French valets, and his clothes not paid for.
"_Macd._ But pray, Mr. Simile, how did Ixion get into heaven?
"_Sim._ Why, Sir, what's that to any body?--perhaps by Salmoneus's Brazen Bridge, or the Giant's Mountain, or the Tower of Babel, or on Theobald's bull-dogs, or--who the devil cares how?--he is there, and that's enough."
* * * * *
"_Sim._ Now for a Phoenix of a song.
"Song by JUPITER.
"You dogs, I'm Jupiter Imperial, King, Emperor, and Pope aetherial, Master of th' Ordnance of the sky.--
"_Sim._ Z----ds, where's the ordnance? Have you forgot the pistol? (to the Orchestra.)
"_Orchestra._ (to some one behind the scenes.) Tom, are not you prepared?
"_Tom._ (from behind the scenes.) Yes, Sir, but I flash'd in the pan a little out of time, and had I staid to prime, I should have shot a bar too late.
"_Sim._ Oh then, Jupiter, begin the song again.--We must not lose our ordnance.
"You dogs, I'm Jupiter Imperial, King, Emperor, and Pope aetherial, Master of th' Ordnance of the sky; &c. &c. [Here a pistol or cracker is fired from behind the scenes.]
"_Sim._ This hint I took from Handel.--Well, how do you think we go on?
"_O'Cul._ With vast spirit,--the plot begins to thicken.
"_Sim._ Thicken! aye,--'twill be as thick as the calf of your leg presently. Well, now for the real, original, patentee Amphitryon. What, ho, Amphitryon! Amphitryon!--'tis Simile calls.--Why, where the devil is he?
"Enter SERVANT.
"_Monop._ Tom, where is Amphitryon?
"_Sim._ Zounds, he's not arrested too, is he?
"_Serv._ No, Sir, but there was but one black eye in the house, and he is waiting to get it from Jupiter.
"_Sim._ To get a black eye from Jupiter,--oh, this will never do. Why, when they meet, they ought to match like two beef-eaters."
According to their original plan for the conclusion of this farce, all things were at last to be compromised between Jupiter and Juno; Amphitryon was to be comforted in the birth of so mighty a son; Ixion, for his presumption, instead of being fixed to a torturing wheel, was to have been fixed to a vagrant monotroche, as knife-grinder, and a grand chorus of deities (intermixed with "knives, scissors, pen-knives to grind," set to music as nearly as possible to the natural cry,) would have concluded the whole.
That habit of dilatoriness, which is too often attendant upon genius, and which is for ever making it, like the pistol in the scene just quoted, "shoot a bar too late," was, through life, remarkable in the character of Mr. Sheridan,--and we have here an early instance of its influence over him. Though it was in August, 1770, that he received the sketch of this piece from his friend, and though they both looked forward most sanguinely to its success, as likely to realize many a dream of fame and profit, it was not till the month of May in the subsequent year, as appears by a letter from Mr. Ker to Sheridan, that the probability of the arrival of the manuscript was announced to Mr. Foote. "I have dispatched a card, as from H. H., at Owen's Coffee-house, to Mr. Foote, to inform him that he may expect to see your dramatic piece about the 25th instant."
Their hopes and fears in this theatrical speculation are very naturally and livelily expressed throughout Halhed's letters, sometimes with a degree of humorous pathos, which is interesting as characteristic of both the writers:--"the thoughts," he says, "of 200l. shared between