Online text: INTERNET ARCHIVE - HATHI TRUST

Although it opens with a panegyric to David Garrick, the poem, written in heroic couplets and published anonymously, actually contains a violent attack on the most important actors and actresses of the Drury Lane Theatre. The text is partly inspired by Churchill's The Rosciad (see).

LATER EDITIONS:
Second edition "with corrections and additions": London, Printed for G. Kearsly, 1766, in-4, 47 pp.

In  1767 the text was published also in Dublin: Dublin, printed by J. Exshaw, in Dame-Street, 1767, in-8, 46 pp.

In 1767, Hugh also published what is ideally the second part of the poem, dealing with the actors of the Covent Garden Theatre. It is less violent and vulgar than the previous work: Thespis: or, A Critical Examination into the Merits of all the Principal Performers belonging to Covent-Garden Theatre. Book the Second. By Hugh Kelly, Author of the First, London, Printed for G. Kearsly, 1767 (see).