Memoirs of His Own Life, Volume 2

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author, 1790 - Actors

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Page 199 - I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory ; But far beyond my depth ; my high-blown pride At length broke under me ; and now has left me, Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Page 39 - I should take it, for it cannot be But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall To make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave's offal.
Page 39 - Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murdered, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must like a whore unpack my heart with words, And fall a-cursing like a very drab, A scullion!
Page 153 - For he who fights and runs away May live to fight another day ; But he who is in battle slain Can never rise and fight again.
Page 199 - This is the state of man : To-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him : The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost; And, — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, And then he falls, as I do.
Page 23 - Gibber thought the new player " well enough," but Foote, with the malice that was natural to him, remarked, " Yes, the hound has something clever, but if his excellence was to be examined, he would not be found in any part equal to Colley Gibber's Sir John Brute, Lord Foppington, Sir Courtly Nice, or Justice Shallow.
Page 183 - A pleafant fellow. —Who were your parents ? Shift. I was produced, Sir, by a left-handed marriage, in the language of the news-papers, between an illuftrious lamp-lighter and an eminent itinerant cat and dog butcher. — Cat's meat, and dog's meat 1 dare fay, you have heard my mother, Sir.
Page 183 - Here, firrah, light me a-crofs the kennel. ——I hope your honour will remember poor Jack. You ragged rafcal, I have no halfpence I'll pay you the next time I fee you. But, lack-a-day, fir, that time I faw as feldom as his tradefmen.
Page 94 - O, what an infernal limb of an actress you'll make ! What ! not know the meaning of prentice ! Why prentice, ma'am, is the plural of prentices !" The complaints of this original to the Dublin stage-manager upon her daughter's wrongs, are equally comic. " Sir, you have not used my daughter well, 'pon my sould, and Barry has left her in ' Love's Last Shift
Page 28 - ... why will you take a liberty with these gentlemen the players, and without my consent ? you never consulted or told me you were to take off, as you call it ; hey, why now, I never take such liberties — indeed I once did it, but I gave up such dd impudence.

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