"Avert it, heaven, that thou, my Cibber, e'er Shouldst wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield Fair!"
Miss still continued pertinacious and positive.
This satirical sally put the imperial butcher upon his mettle; he bit his thumbs, scratched his carrotty poll, paused; and, thinking he had lighted on a loop-hole, grumbled out with stiff-necked profundity,
The _damsel_, however, was "down upon him" before he could articulate "Jack Robinson," with
This polished off the rough edges of his Majesty's misgivings, and the decollation of John the Baptist followed; but the good people, resolving to make their martyr some small amends, permitted his representative to receive absolution from a _portly priest_ who stood as a spectator at one corner of the stage; while the two soldiers who had decapitated him in effigy, with looks full of contrition, threw themselves into the confessional, and implored the ghostly father to assign them a stiff penance to expiate their guilt. Thus ended this tragedy of tragedies, which, with all due deference to Joe's veracity, we suspect to have had its origin in _Bartholomew Fair._
Joe Haynes shuffled off his comical coil on Friday, the 4th of April 1701. The Smithfield muses mourned his death in an elegy, * a rare broadside, with a black border, "printed for J. B. near the Strand, 1701."
* "An Elegy on the Death of Mr. Joseph Haines, the late Famous Actor in the King's Play-House," &c. &c.
"Lament, you beaus and players every one, The only champion of your cause is gone: The stars are surly, and the fates unkind, Joe Haines is dead, and left his Ass behind! Ah, cruel fate! our patience thus to try, Must Haines depart, while asses multiply? If nothing but a player down would go, There's choice enough besides great Haines the beau! In potent glasses, when the wine was clear, Thy very looks declared thy mind was there. Awful, majestic, on the stage at sight, To play (not work) was all thy chief delight: Instead of danger and of hateful bullets, Roast beef and goose, with harmless legs of pullets! Here lies the Famous Actor, Joseph Haines, Who, while alive, in playing took great pains, Performing all his acts with curious art, Till Death appear'd, and smote him with his dart."