Silipo

To Signore Torre, on his Firework of Theseus in Hell

You, in working of fireworks, all wonders excel,
And one fit for the place of fireworker to Hell.
With your sons of the clergy¹ you'd send them away;
And shou'd Pluto, so grim, be but rouz'd up to flame,
In Hell, as at Marybone, you'd there fix your fame.
Undisturb'd in your fire by no Fountain's² soft vapour,
You'd make Hell all a-ablaze, and the devils all caper.

1. Torre engaged a hundred chimney-sweepers at his benefit, as children of the Cyclops, which had a droll effect.
2. Mrs. Fountain, of Marybone, school-mistress.

Torré's firework displays at Marylebone Gardens were highly popular, attracting both Dr. Johnson and Fanny Burney at different times. The text of the poem is taken from a cutting in a Marylebone Gardens scrapbook at Westminster City Archives. No source is given. 'September 1744' is written in ink alongside, but Torré did not exhibit at the Gardens until 1772. If the occasion of the poem was his farewell benefit (see note 1) the date would have been 1774.

'Mrs. Fountain' was probably a relative of the Rev. John Fountayne, and a teacher at his 'fashionable seminary for young gentlemen of rank and fortune.' She may also have been the lady said to have been kissed in Marylebone Gardens by Dick Turpin (see Nollekens and His Times in the John Thomas Smith entry).