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Tristram. Coals, my lord, are brought all the way from Newcastle!

Act 1. Scene 2.

THE WEATHERCOCK:

A FARCE,

In Two Acts,

AM, Bl. 1799-12

BY JAT ALLINGHAM,

PRINTED FROM THE ACTING COPY, WITH REMARKS,
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL;

To which are added,

A DESCRIPTION OF THE COSTUME, CAST OF THE CHARACTERS,
ENTRANCES AND EXITS, RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE PER-
FORMERS ON THE STAGE, AND THE WHOLE OF THE STAGE

BUSINESS.

As now performed at the

THEATRES ROYAL, LONDON.

EMBELLISHED WITH A FINE WOOD-ENGRAVING,
By MR. BONNER, from a Drawing taken in the Theatre, by
MR. R. CRUIKSHANK.

LONDON:

JOHN CUMBERLAND, 19, LUDGATE HILL.

PRINTED BY G. H. DAVIDSON, IRELAND YARD, DOCTORS' COMMONS.

REMARKS.

The Weathercock.,

THE title of this farce is singularly appropriate. Tristram Fickle, the hero, is truly a weathercock-he turns at every wind, except a trade wind; being a young gentleman much too vivacious and well-bred, to throw away one thought upon commercial drudgery. He is, alternately, a pleader, a player, an apothecary, a soldier, a gardener, a quaker, and a beau-transformations as numerous as those which Dryden celebrates in the Duke of Buckingham; who—

"Was every thing by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."

though we must acknowledge that the transition from the Quaker to the buck is not unreasonable: indeed, the times give it proof; and, looking to the revolution that has lately taken place in the skirts and collars of the Society of Friends, we think the time not far distant, when the outward garb of sanctity will be repudiated altogether, and thee and thou be the only badge of distinction between Quakers and ordinary folk. If Tristram Fickle is puzzled in the choice of a profession, he is

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