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Ah! who can paint that first great awful night,
Big with a blessing or a blight,

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When the poor dramatist, all fume and fret,
Fuss, fidget, fancy, fever, funking, fright,
Ferment, fault-fearing, faintness more f's yet:
Flushed, frigid, flurried, flinching, fitful, flat,
Add famished, fuddled, and fatigued, to that;
Funeral, fate-foreboding sits in doubt,

Or rather doubt with hope, a wretched marriage,
To see his play upon the stage come out;
No stage to him! it is Thalia's carriage,
And he is sitting on the spikes behind it,
Striving to look as if he did n't mind it!

Witness how Beazley vents upon his hat
His nervousness, meanwhile his fate is dealt:
He kneads, moulds, pummels it, and sits it flat,
Squeezes and twists it up, until the felt,
That went a beaver in, comes out a rat!
Miss Mitford had mis-givings, and in fright,
Upon Rienzi's night,

Gnawed up one long kid glove, and all her bag,

Quite to a rag.

Knowles has confessed he trembled as for life,

Afraid of his own 66

Wife; ""

Poole told me that he felt a monstrous pail

Of water backing him, all down his spine,-
"The ice-brook's temper "-pleasant to the chine!
For fear that Simpson and his Co. should fail.
Did Lord Glengall not frame a mental prayer,
Wishing devoutly he was Lord knows where?
Nay, did not Jerrold, in enormous drouth,
While doubtful of Nell Gwynne's eventful luck,
Squeeze out and suck

More oranges with his one fevered mouth
Than Nelly had to hawk from north to south?
Yea, Buckstone, changing color like a mullet,
Refused, on an occasion, once, twice, thrice,
From his best friend, an ice,

Lest it should hiss in his own red-hot gullet.

Doth punning Peake not sit upon the points
Of his own jokes, and shake in all his joints,
During their trial?

'Tis past denial.

And does not Pocock, feeling, like a peacock,
All eyes upon him, turn to very meacock ?
And does not Planché, tremulous and blank,
Meanwhile his personages tread the boards,
Seem goaded by sharp swords,

And called upon himself to "walk the plank"?
As for the Dances, Charles and George to boot,
What have they more

Of ease and rest, for sole of either foot,

Than bear that capers on a hotted floor!

Thus pending

does not Mathews, at sad shift

For voice, croak like a frog in waters fenny?--
Serle seem upon the surly seas adrift?
And Kenny think he's going to Kilkenny?
Haynes Bayly feel Old ditto, with the note
Of Cotton in his ear, a mortal grapple

About his arms, and Adam's apple
Big as a fine Dutch codling in his throat?
Did Rodwell, on his chimney-piece, desire
Or not to take a jump into the fire?

Did Wade feel as composed as music can? And was not Bernard his own Nervous M: n!

Lastly, don't Farley, a bewildered elf,
Quake at the Pantomime he loves to cater,
And ere its changes ring transform himself?—
A frightful mug of human delf?
A spirit-bottle-empty of "the cratur"?
A leaden-platter ready for the shelf?
A thunderstruck dumb-waiter?

To clench the fact,

Myself, once guilty of one small rash act,
Committed at the Surrey,

Quite in a hurry,

Felt all this flurry,
Corporal worry,

And spiritual scurry,
Dram-devil-attic curry!
All going well,

From prompter's bell,
Until befell

A. hissing at some dull imperfect dunce

There's no denying

I felt in all four elements at once!

My head was swimming, while my arms were flying!
My legs for running—all the rest was frying!

Thrice welcome, then, for this peculiar use,
Thy pens so innocent of goose!

For this shall dramatists, when they make merry,
Discarding port and sherry,

Drink"Perry!"

Perry, whose fame, pennated, is let loose

To distant lands,

Perry, admitted on all hands,

Text, running, German, Roman,

For Patent Perryans approached by no man!

And when, ah me! far distant be the hour!
Pluto shall call thee to his gloomy bower,
Many shall be thy pensive mourners, many!
And Penury itself shall club its penny
To raise thy monument in lofty place,
Higher than York's or any son of War;
Whilst time all meaner effigies shall bury,
On due pentagonal base

Shall stand the Parian, Perryan, periwigged Perry,
Perched on the proudest peak of Penman Mawr!

NUMBER ONE.

VERSIFIED FROM THE PROSE OF A YOUNG LADY.

It's very hard! —and so it is, to live in such a row,-
And witness this that every miss but me has got a beau.—
For Love goes calling up and down, but here he seems to

shun;

I'm sure he has been asked enough to call at Number One!

I'm sick of all the double knocks that come to Number

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At Number Three, I often see a lover at the door;

And one in blue, at Number Two, calls daily like a dun,—
It's very hard they come so near, and not to Number One!

Miss Bell, I hear, has got a dear exactly to her mind,-
By sitting at the window-pane without a bit of blind;
But I go in the balcony, which she has never done,

Yet arts that thrive at Number Five don't take at Number

One!

'T is hard, with plenty in the street, and plenty passing by,There's nice young men at Number Ten, but only rather

shy;

And Mrs. Smith across the way has got a grown-up son, But, la! he hardly seems to know there is a Number One!

There's Mr. Wick at Number Nine, but he's intent on pelf, And though he's pious will not love his neighbor as himself.

At Number Seven there was a sale the goods had quite a run!

And here I've got my single lot on hand at Number One!

My mother often sits at work and talks of props and stays,
And what a comfort I shall be in her declining days: -
The
very maids about the house have set me down a nun,
The sweethearts all belong to them that call at Number One!
Once only, when the flue took fire, one Friday afternoon,
Young Mr. Long came kindly in and told me not to swoon:
Why can't he come again without the Phoenix and the Sun?
We cannot always have a flue on fire at Number One!

I am not old, I am not plain, nor awkward in my gait -
I am not crooked, like the bride that went from Number

Eight:

I'm sure white satin made her look as brown as any bun But even beauty has no chance, I think, at Number One!

At Number Six they say Miss Rose has slain a score of hearts,

And Cupid, for her sake, has been quite prodigal of darts. The imp they show with bended bow, I wish he had a gun ! But if he had, he'd never deign to shoot with Number One.

It's very hard, and so it is, to live in such a row! And here's a ballad-singer come to aggravate my woe; take away your foolish song and tones enough to stun There is "Nae luck about the house," I know, at Number

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One!

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