LIFE IN IRELAND 237 



also, with venomous power. Williams, an excellent 

 actor in vulgar characters, such as Yorkshiremen and 

 sailors, is most unmercifully handled : 



Next Williams comes, the rude and rough, 

 With face most whimsically gruff ; 

 Apeing the careless sons of ocean, 

 He scorns each fine and easy motion : 

 Tight to his sides his elbows pins. 

 And dabbles with his hands like fins. 

 His turns are swings, his step a jump, 

 His feelings fits, his touch a thump ; 

 And violent in all his parts, 

 He speaks by fits — and moves by starts. 



These censures were in a great measure deserved; 

 but the 'great first cause' ought to have been attacked, 

 for he alone could remedy the evil : nevertheless, this 

 breaking did good, and from that time the Crow Street 

 Fabric tottered, and finally fell to the earth, 



Like Lucifer, never to hope again. 



Upon this, Hawkins Street arose, and in point of 

 interior accommodation far superior to the one it had 

 crowed over. 



Our party took possession of a stage box, and the 

 curtain drew up : the new performer executed admir- 

 ably, and never sure was there more merriment excited 

 by the appearance of Hamlet, since the day he was 

 first produced from the brain of our immortal Bard — 

 He nmrdered every sentence, and crucified every word : 

 loudly he roared — 'Angels and ministers of grace 

 defend us,' — ' And defend our ears,' roared a gallery 

 wag, ' you will ^be speechless before the end of the 



