Note 95 — CANTO III. MANIFESTO.
Reading edition
By Haygarth’s tale of lady Hoax.
It is not true, as some sagacious coffee-house politicians have asserted, that madame Hoax (or more correctly double Hoax) is the wife of a Chinese Mandarin, settled on the mountains of the Moon, in Abyssinia, for the purpose of ascertaining the influence of imagination in the cure of diseases. No, gentlemen, she is a baroness of true English breed, more sturdy than a Semiramis, a Penthesilea, or a Joan of Arc, and will prove, in our cause, a championess of pre-eminent prowess. Should your worships wish for further acquaintance with this lady, which in my opinion would be for your mutual advantage, you will take the trouble to inquire at my garret, No. 299, Dyot street, St Giles’s (having removed from my former place of residence, third floor, 327, Grub street, with a view of being nearer my friend, Sir Joseph, in Soho square) and her address shall be at your service.
I am now preparing a most awful tragedy for Drury lane theatre (Mr Sheridan’s approbation being already obtained) to be entitled and called, the Dreadful Downfal of Terrible Tractorizing Confounded Conjuration; in which I propose to introduce a new song, that I have no doubt will be so celebrated as to be the theme of every ballad-singer in the metropolis. I cannot forbear anticipating some small share of that applause, which I have reason to suppose will be piled on Dr Caustic, as soon as he is publicly known as the author of such an inimitable production, by obliging your worships with a part of the chorus to the song aforesaid.
Come now let us coax Haygarth and Dame Hoax, Like true hearts of oaks, To crack off their jokes, While dreading their strokes, Those sheep-hearted folks, The tractoring Perkinites, quiver; O may they with knocks, “And shivering shocks,” Pound their jackets and frocks, Till dead as horse-blocks, (O what a sad box!) They’re thrown into the docks, Or, just like dead cats, in the river!
This song is to be set to music by Mr Kelly in his very best style of pathos, sublimity, and crotchets, and to be delightfully demi-semi-quavered to the admiring audience by Mrs Billington. Then, if box, pit, and gallery, should not, una voce, Nick Bottom-like, cry, “Encore! Encore! Let her roar! Let her roar! Once more, once more! Let the squeak and the squall be swelled to a bawl, Dr Caustic will find the door! Find the door! And never go there any more”!!