e,
ascribed to Garrick, but on insufficient evidence:

Your bucks of the pit are miracles of learning,
Who point out faults to show their own discerning;
And critic-like bestriding martyred sense,
Proclaim their genius and vast consequence.

There were now critics by profession, who duly printed and published
their criticisms. The awful Churchill's favourite seat was in the
front row of the pit, next the orchestra. "In this place he thought he
could best discern the real workings of the passions in the actors, or
what they substituted instead of them," says poor Tom Davies, whose
dread of the critic was extreme. "During the run of 'Cymbeline,'" he
wrote apologetically to Garrick, his manager, "I had the misfortune to
disconcert you in one scene, for which I did immediately beg your
pardon; and did attribute it to my accidentally seeing Mr. Churchill
in the pit; with great truth, it rendered me confused and unmindful of
my business." Garrick had himself felt oppressed by the gloomy
presence of Churchill, and learnt to read discontent in the critic's
lowering brows. "My love to Churchill," he writes to Colman; "his
being sick of Richard was perceived about the house."

That Churchill was a critic of formidable aspect, the portrait he
limned of himself in his "Independence" amply demonstrates:

Vast were his bones, his muscles twisted strong,
His face was short, but broader than 'twas long;
His features though by nature they were large,
Contentment had contrived to overcharge
And bury meaning, save that we might spy
Sense low'ring on the pent-house of his eye;
His arms were two twin oaks, his legs so stout
That they might bear a mansion-house about;
Nor were they--look but at his body there--
Designed by fate a much less weight to bear.
O'er a brown cassock which had once been black,
Which hung in tatters on his brawny back,
A sight most strange and awkward to behold,
He threw a covering of blue and gold. &c. &c.

This was not the kind of man to be contemptuously regarded or
indiscreetly attacked. Foote ventured to designate him "the clumsy
curate of Clapham," but prudently suppressed a more elaborate lampoon
he had prepared. Murphy launched an ode more vehement than decent in
its terms. Churchill good-humouredly acknowledged the justice of the
satire; he had said, perhaps, all he cared to say to the detriment of
Murphy, and was content with