it out next summer, and requesting to see the author next day, in Soho-square. This was joyful news to O'Keefe, as William Lewis had told him that the above play was not worth twopence.

Next morning, O'Keefe was punctual to appointment, and posted to Soho-square, where, at the left-hand corner of Bateman's-buildings, he knocked at the door of a fine house, and was shown into the library, where was seated the Haymarket manager. He received the author kindly, laughed heartily at the whim of the piece, (Tony Lumpkin in Town,) and promised to produce it on his boards. O'Keefe then ventured to disclose his name.

Colman appreciating so eccentric and ready a writer as O'Keefe, gave him constant invitations to Soho-square and Richmond; and when Colman published his translation of Terence, he prefixed a motto from O'Keefe's Castle of Andalusia, the first line of Pedrillo's song-" A master I have, and I am his man.'

Soon after the failure of O'Keefe's opera of the Banditti, at Covent-garden, the author was at Colman's house, when Dr. Arnold remarked, that the opera had been cut too much. Colman said, "Ah! but who was the cutter ?" and looking at O'Keefe with a chuckle, added, “Not the Cutler of Colemanstreet" (the title of one of Cowley's plays.)

When O'Keefe produced the farce of Peeping Tom, in 1783, Edwin as the prying tailor was admirable; yet Colman declared to O'Keefe, that he had wrought the humour so high, that even Edwin, with all his tiptoe stretch, was unable to reach it. (Liston was the famous Peeping Tom of our day.)

COLMAN AND ERSKINE.

One of Colman's friends was Lord, then Mr. Erskine, whom, on meeting in the street, the manager often invited to dinner on that same day. Erskine was then young at the bar, flushed with success, and enthusiastic in his profession. After dinner, he would repeat his pleadings in each particular case; and when Colman observed that the arguments were unanswerable, By no means, my dear Sir," would Erskine say; "had I been counsel for A instead of B, you shall hear what I would have advanced on the other side." "Then," says Colman's son, 66 we did hear, and I wished him at the forum I

66

No two companions could have been worse coupled than Lord Erskine and my father, for the lawyer delighted in talking of himself and the bar, and the manager of himself and the theatre."

DR. GRAHAM'S "TEMPLE OF HEALTH."

In 1780, Colman wrote for the Haymarket Theatre, the extravaganza of the Genius of Nonsense, or, as the newspapers termed it, the "Nonsense of Genius," in which that notorious quack, Doctor Graham, was humorously satirized. The Doctor himself was in a stage-box the first night, and besides seeing his Temple of Health ridiculed, had the chagrin of being refused purchasing one of the bills delivered upon the stage as a burlesque of his own.

Now, Graham's "Temple" was gaudily fitted up on the Terrace in the Adelphi ; there he gave evening lectures upon electricity; there he exhibited his satin sofa on glass legs, and his Celestial Bed, which was to effect Heaven only knows what; his two porters, outside the door, in long tawdry greatcoats, and immense gold-laced cocked hats, distributed his puffs in handbills, while his Goddess of Health was dying of a sore-throat, by squalling songs at the top of his cold staircase. All these matters were introduced into the Genius of Nonsense. The quack, having heard of the satire, threatened Colman with an action for libel, and went to the theatre to collect evidence, for which purpose he demanded repeatedly from the stage-box a handbill from the representatives of his own porters-but was as often refused. Young Bannister was the speaking harlequin of the piece, which Colman insisted should be a portrait of the individual quack. To insure this, he visited the Temple of Health, and there saw the Doctor and his nonsensical solemnities, which Bannister burlesqued with excellent effect upon the Haymarket stage. His mere entrance upon the scene, as the Doctor was wont to present himself in his Temple, his grotesque mode of sliding round the room, the bobbing bows he shot off to the company, and other minutiæ, were so ridiculously accurate, that he surpassed his prototype in electrifying the public, and, according to George Colman the Younger, the whole house was in a roar of laughter. The threatened action fell to the ground.

Next season, Colman produced a burlesque upon the serious ballet of Medea and Jason, then acting on the opposite side of the way, at the Italian Opera-house; this satirical dumbshow made a hit, with Delpini, the popular clown of the day, at its head. Another attraction of the season was the Beggars' Opera Reversed, in which the men and women exchanged characters. It suited the taste of that day much better than our own; for this burlesque was tried at Covent-garden Theatre in 1829,-and failed.

A RIOT AT RICHMOND.

An em

In 1780, Richmond as well as London had its Riot, the scene of the former being close to Colman's villa. bankment was then making at Richmond for drawing barges, for the benefit of the City's trade. It encroached on the manager's garden; he cut away the piles; the City went to law with him and the town of Richmond, and cast them, and renewed the invasion. Colman then hired an Association, who stormed and levelled the new works, and knocked down two persons who opposed them, and half killed one. A committee of the City arrived in their barge, and seized twenty of the rioters, and held them imprisoned on board their floating King's Bench, under a guard of the military. Walpole tells the story to his correspondent, Mason, adding:

In a new farce of Colman's, called the Manager in Distress, I found t'other day the portrait of Cambridge, in the character of a newsmonger who lives about twelve miles from town. I wondered this was so specifically marked, but he dropped this morning that he had staved off the nuisance of the embankment on his side of the river, (for he lives directly opposite to Colman), by a clause in the Act of Parliament, and that offence, I suppose, dragged him on the stage; which is a little hard, as he had the same right to feel what Colman so much resents; and he is truly, I mean Cambridge, so benevolent and inoffensive a man, that his little foible does not deserve such treatment.-Walpole's Letters, vol. vii. p. 417.

Walpole gives a still more amusing account of the above affair, in a letter to Lady Ossory :

We have had a riot of our own at Richmond, where an embankment for barge horses being carried before Mr. Colman's (the manager's) garden by the City, he feeling himself, like

Agamemnon, a king of kings, behaved with equal hauteur, and levied a mob to destroy the works, which they did with hatchets, in open daylight. The City, three days after, sent a naval force, consisting of one barge with a committee on board, who seized thirteen of the rioters, and sent them to London, where they were bailed; but the barge remains encamped near the bridge, according to the precedent in London, &c.-lbid. p. 419.

Colman's villa, in the grounds of which this riot took place, was built some thirteen years before. Garrick writes to the manager, then at Paris, June 30, 1766, "Saunderson tells me they have laid the timbers of the first floor of your house at Richmond. It rises most magnificently to the Ferry passengers; you will be surprised to find yourself master of the chateau at your return. Don't lose the autumn for planting trees to screen you from the timberyard."

George Colman the Younger has left some interesting reminiscences of this place. During the many years his father enjoyed this retirement, he used frequently to quote in reference to it, from his favourite Terence:

Ex meo propinquo rure hoc capio commodi:

Neque agri, neque urbis odium me unquam percipit ;
Ubi satias cepit fieri, commuto locum.

I've this convenience from my neighb'ring villa;
I'm never tired of country or of town,

For, as disgust comes on, I change my place.

Translation by Colman the Elder.

In fact, Colman had a set of quotations as well as phrases and figures of his own, as most men have unconsciously, more or less, which he was in the habit of introducing as often as he could find occasion. In those days, Richmond was to London more like what Tusculum was to Rome, for it boasted in itself and its vicinities of the villas of various celebrated and classical men, mingled with those of the grandees. There were besides Colman at the foot of the hill, Sir Joshua Reynolds at the top; Owen Cambridge on the opposite bank of the river; Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, with Kate Clive's cottage at his elbow; and Garrick at Hampton.

Colman's villa occupies the spot where Queen Elizabeth's almshouses originally stood, in the lower road, under the Hill, and at a short distance westwards of Richmond bridge. It was afterwards the residence of Sir Drummond Smith, and of

the Countess of Kingston, and is now the residence of Samuel Paynter, Esq., who has considerably improved the mansion, and formed here a collection of valuable paintings and sculpture.

HORACE'S "ART OF POETRY."

In March, 1783, Colman published a new translation of, and commentary on, Horace's Art of Poetry, in which he produced a new system to explain this very difficult poem. In opposition to Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, Colman supposed that "one of the sons of Piso, undoubtedly the elder, had either written or meditated a poetical work, most probably a tragedy, and that he had, with the knowledge of the family, communicated his piece or intention to Horace. But Horace, either disapproving of the work, or doubting the poetical faculties of the elder Piso, or both, wished to dissuade him from all thought of publication. With this view he formed the design of writing this epistle, addressing it with a courtliness and delicacy perfectly agreeable to his acknowledged character, indifferently to the whole family, the father and his two sons-Epistola ad Pisones de Arte Poeticâ."

This hypothesis is supported with much learning, ingenuity, and modesty; and Colman received letters congratulatory on his success from Mr. Malone, Dr. Vincent, Horace Walpole, Dr. Thomas Warton, Dr. Joseph Warton, Bishop Shipley, Bishop Hinchliffe; and Tom Davies, the bookseller, who borrowed a copy from Cadell, and wished Colman would let him call it his own. But the most naïve commendation was that of Dr. Hurd, whose views Colman had opposed. He writes to Bishop Douglas, "Give my compliments to Colman, and thank him for the handsome manner in which he has treated me; and tell him I think he is right."

COLMAN SETTLES HIS SON IN THE LAW.

The elder George had decided on making the younger a barrister; and after visits to Scotland and Switzerland, the son returned to Soho-square, and found that his father had taken for him chambers in the Temple, and entered him as a student at Lincoln's Inn, where he afterwards kept a few terms by eating oysters. The chambers in King's Bench

*

* Upon this Mr. Peake notes, "The students of Lincoln's Inn keep term by dining, or pretending to dine, in the Hall during the term