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The Works of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Works of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan Author:Richard Brinsley Sheridan General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1873 Original Publisher: Bickers and son Subjects: Drama / General Drama / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / Drama Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy... more » the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: PROLOGUE. SPOKEN BY MR. KINO. What various transformations we remark, From east Whitechapel, to the west Hyde Park! Men, women, children, houses, signs, and fashions, State, stage, trade, taste, the humours, and the passions; Th' Exchange, 'Change Alley, wheresoe'er you're ranging, Court, city, country, all are changed or changing: The streets, some time ago, were paved with stones, Which, aided by a hackney-coach, half broke your bones. The purest lovers then indulged no bliss; They run great hazard if they stole a kiss. One chaste salute -- the damsel cried -- 0 fie! As they approach'd -- slap went the coach awry -- Poor Sylvia got a bump, and Damon a black eye. But now weak nerves in hackney-coaches roam, And the cramm'd glutton snores, unjolted, home: Of former times, that polish'd thing, a beau, Is metamorphosed now, from top to toe; Then the full flaxen wig, spread o'er the shoulders, Conceal'd the shallow head from the beholders! But now the whole's reversed -- each fop appears, Cropp'd, and trimm'd up, exposing head and ears: The buckle then its modest limits knew, Now, like the ocean, dreadful to the view, Hath broke its bounds, and swallows up the shoe; The wearer's foot, like his once fine estate, Is almost lost, th' encumbrance is so great. Ladies may smile -- are they not in the plot? The bounds of nature have not they forgot ? Were they design'd to be, when put together, Made up, like shuttlecocks, ...« less