Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/244

234 in the boxes for any enſuing night. The managers were therefore obliged to discontinue it.

This uſage Mr. Dennis highly reſented; and in his dedication to the duke of Newcaſtle, then lord chamberlain, he makes a formal complaint againſt the managers. To this play Mr. Colley Cibber took the pains to write an epilogue, which Mrs. Oldfield ſpoke with univerſal applauſe, and for which poor peeviſh, jealous Dennis, abuſed them both.

Mr. Dennis happened once to go to the play, when a tragedy was acted, in which the machinery of thunder was introduced, a new artificial method of producing which he had formerly communicated to the managers. Incenſed by this circumſtance, he cried out in a tranſport of reſentment, ‘That is my thunder by G—d; the villains will play my thunder, but not my plays.’ This gave an alarm to the pit, which he ſoon explained. He was much ſubject to theſe kind of whimſical tranſports, and ſuffered the fervor of his imagination often to ſubdue the power of his reaſon; an inſtance of which we ſhall now relate.

After he was worn out with age and poverty, he reſided within the verge of the court, to prevent danger from his creditors. One Saturday night he happened to ſaunter to a public houſe, which he diſcovered in a ſhort time was out of the verge. He was ſitting in an open drinking room, and a man of a ſuſpicious appearance happened to come in. There was ſomething about the man which denoted to Mr. Dennis that he was a Bailiff: this ſtruck him with a panic; he was afraid his liberty was now at an end; he ſat in the utmoſt ſolicitude, but durſt not offer to ſtir, leſt he ſhould be ſeized upon. After an hour or two had paſſed in this painful anxiety, at laſt the clock ſtruck twelve, when Mr. Dennis, in an ,