Isaac Bickerstaffe

Isaac Bickerstaffe (26 September 1733 – 1812?) was an Irish playwright who arrived in London in 1755 and produced many successful comedies and opera librettos.

Quotes

"Young fellows will be young fellows".

• Hope! thou nurse of young desire.
  • Love in a Village (1762), Act i, scene 1.

• There was a jolly miller once,
  Lived on the river Dee;
  He worked and sung from morn till night:
  No lark more blithe than he.
  • Love in a Village (1762), Act i, scene 2.

• And this the burden of his song
  Forever used to be,—
  I care for nobody, no, not I,
  If no one cares for me.
  • Love in a Village (1762), Act i, scene 2. Compare: "If naebody care for me, I'll care for naebody", Robert Burns, I hae a Wife o' my Ain; "I envy none, no, no, not I, And no one envies me", Charles Mackay, The King and the Miller.

• Young fellows will be young fellows.
  • Love in a Village (1762), Act ii, scene 2.

• 'Tis a sure sign work goes on merrily, when folks sing at it.
  • The Maide of the Mill (1765), Act i, scene 1.

• By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
  • The Maide of the Mill (1765), Act i, scene 2.

• Fine feathers, they say, make fine birds.
  • The Padlock (1768).

• Ay, do despise me! I'm the prouder for it; I like to be despised.
  • The Hypocrite (1768), Act v, scene 1.

• Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
  But - why did you kick me downstairs?
  • An Expostulation (1789).

• Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king.
  • Reported in Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), p. 221.