Prints: PM0435

Richard Yates

Engraving

Yates, Richard

Launce : The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Bonner, Thomas [ Copy after ]

Height: 28.3cm
Width: 18.4cm

Cropped within plate

"MR. YEATES in the Character of LAUNCE in the TWO GENTLEMEN of VERONA with his Dog-Crab." (title above); “Act II. Scene III. / Laun. Nay ‘twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of ye Launces have this very fault: I have receiv’d my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Protheus to the Imperial’s court. I think Crab my dog be the sourest-natur’d dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father waiting, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, & all our house in a great perplexity; yet did not this cruel hearted cur shed one tear! he is a stone, a very pebble-stone, & has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would wept to have seen our parting; why, my Grandam having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay I’ll show you the manner of it: this shoe is my father; no this left shoe is my father; no no, this left shoe is my Mother; nay that cannot be so neither; yes it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole; this shoe with the hole in it is my Mother; and this my Father; avengeance on’t, there ‘tis: now Sir, this staff is my sister; for look you, she is as white as a lilly, & as small as a wand; this hat is Nan our maid; I am the dog; no, the dog is himself; and I am the dog: oh, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so so; now come I to my father; father, your blessing; now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping; now should I kiss my father; well he weeps on: now come I to my mother; oh that she could speak now like an ould woman! well I kiss her; why there ‘tis; here’s my mother’s breath up & down: now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes: now the dog all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.” (text below); "Tho. Bonner advivum delint." (b.l.); "Hen. Roberts sculpt." (b.r.); "Publish'd as the Act directs by C. G. DYER. Antient & Modern Print Warehouse 7, Compton Street Soho." (b.c.)

Collected by John Dillon, the librarian of a Dr Simmons, up to the year 1838; at some point they enter the library of Sir Charles Ibbetson Bart, by whom presented to the Garrick Club, 1854

Gift 121 [Theatrical Prints]
1861 Library Catalogue [Portraits, A Collection of, with notices from contemporary prints (7 volumes)]

Henry Roberts [the engraver] published the plate without the text in 1763

The page of the folio is accomapnied by a printed text.