10 HORACE SMITH (1779-1849) REJECTED ADDRESSES: DR JOHNSON'S GHOST DOCTOR'S GHOST loquitur. THAT which was organised by the moral ability of one has been executed by the physical efforts of many, and DRURY LANE THEATRE is now complete. Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet been destined to glow beneath the brush of the varnisher, or vibrate to the hammer of the carpenter, little is thought by the public, and little need be said by the committee. Truth, however, is not to be sacrificed for the accommodation of either; and he who should pronounce that our edifice has received its final embellishment would be disseminating falsehood without incurring favour, and risking the disgrace of detection without participating the advantage of success. Professions lavishly effused and parsimoniously verified are alike inconsistent with the precepts of innate rectitude and the practice of external policy: let it not then be con20 jectured that because we are unassuming, we are imbecile; that forbearance is any indication of despondency, or humility of demerit. He that is the most assured of success will make the fewest appeals to favour; and where nothing is claimed that is undue, nothing that is due will be withheld. A swelling opening is too often succeeded by an insignificant conclusion. Parturient mountains have ere now produced muscipular abortions; and the auditor who compares incipient grandeur with final vulgarity is reminded of the pious hawkers of Constantinople, who solemnly perambulate her streets, exclaiming, In the name of the Prophet-figs!' 30 40 [Of many who think themselves wise, and of some who are thought wise by others, the exertions are directed to the revival of mouldering and obscure dramas; to endeavours to exalt that which is now rare only because it was always worthless, and whose deterioration, while it condemned it to living obscurity, by a strange obliquity of moral perception constitutes its title to posthumous renown. To embody the flying colours of folly, to arrest evanescence, to give to bubbles the globular consistency as well as form, to exhibit on the stage the piebald denizen of the stable, and the halfreasoning parent of combs, to display the brisk locomotion of Columbine, or the tortuous attitudinizing of Punch;-these are the occupa 50 tions of others, whose ambition, limited to the applause of unintellectual fatuity, is too innocuous for the application of satire, and too humble for the incitement of jealousy.] Our refectory will be found to contain every species of fruit, from the cooling nectarine and luscious peach to the puny pippin and the noxious nut. There Indolence may repose, and Inebriety revel; and the spruce apprentice, rushing in at second account, may there chatter 60 with impunity; debarred, by a barrier of brick and mortar, from marring that scenic interest in others, which nature and education have disqualified him from comprehending himself. Permanent stage-doors we have none. That which is permanent cannot be removed, for, if removed, it soon ceases to be permanent. What stationary absurdity can vie with that ligneous barricado, which, decorated with frappant and tintinnabulant appendages, now serves as the entrance of the lowly cottage, and now as the exit of a lady's bed-chamber; at one time insinuating plastic Harlequin into a butcher's shop, and, at another, yawning, as a flood-gate, to precipitate the Cyprians of St Giles's into the embraces of Macheath? To elude this glaring absurdity, to give to each respective mansion the door which the carpenter would doubtless have given, we vary our portal with the varying scene, passing from deal to mahogany, and from mahogany to oak, as the opposite claims of cottage, palace, or castle may appear to require. Amid the general hum of gratulation which flatters us in front, it is fit that some regard should be paid to the murmurs of despondence that assail us in the rear. They, as I have elsewhere expressed it, who live to please,' should not have their own pleasures entirely t overlooked. The children of Thespis are general in their censures of the architect, in having placed the locality of exit at such a distance from the oily irradiators which now dazzle the eyes of him who addresses you. I am, cries the Queen of Terrors, robbed of my fair proportions. When the king-killing Thane hints to the breathless auditory the murders he means to perpetrate, in the castle of Macduff, 'ere his purpose cool'; so vast is the interval 10 he has to travel before he can escape from the stage, that his purpose has even time to freeze. Time forcibly reminds me that all things which have a limit must be brought to a conclusion. Let me, ere that conclusion arrives, recall to your recollection, that the pillars which rise on either side of me, blooming in virid antiquity, like two massy evergreens, had yet slumbered in their native quarry but for the ardent exertions of the individual who called them into life: to his never-slumbering talents you are indebted for whatever pleasure this haunt of the Muses is calculated to afford. If, in defiance of chaotic malevolence, the destroyer of the temple of Diana yet survives in the name of Herostratus, surely we may confidently predict that the rebuilder of the temple of Apollo will stand recorded to distant posterity in that of-SAMUEL WHITBREAD. 110 THE FIRE AT DRURY LANE REJECTED ADDRESSES: SIR WALTER SCOTT THE summoned firemen woke at call, Then jacket thick, of red or blue, The engines thundered through the street, And one, the leader of the band, The Eagle, where the new; Now With these came Rumford, Bumford, Cole, Crump from St Giles's Pound: Whitford and Mitford joined the train, Huggins and Muggins from Chick Lane, And Clutterbuck, who got a sprain Before the plug was found. Hobson and Jobson did not sleep, But, ah! no trophy could they reap, For both were in the Donjon Keep Of Bridewell's gloomy mound! E'en Higginbottom now was posed, Nor notice give at all. For fear the roof should fall. 50 When, lo! amid the wreck upreared Gradual a moving head appeared, And Eagle firemen knew 'Twas Joseph Muggins, name revered, The foreman of their crew. Loud shouted all in signs of woe, 'A Muggins to the rescue, ho!' And poured the hissing tide. He tottered, sunk, and died! His brother chief to save; Served but to share his grave! 'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams, Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke, Where Muggins broke before; 70 80 90 But sulphury stench and boiling drench, Destroying sight, o'erwhelmed him quite; He sunk to rise no more. Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved, His whizzing water-pipe he waved; 'Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps! You, Clutterbuck, come stir your stumps; What are they feared on? fools, 'od rot 'em!' IO 20 30 JAMES SMITH THE THEATRE REJECTED ADDRESSES: GEORGE CRABBE 'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six, See to their desks Apollo's sons repair- In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Winds the French horn, and twangs the tingling harp; Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Now all seems hushed-but no, one fiddle will Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still. Perchance, while pit and gallery cry 'Hats off!' And awed consumption checks his chided cough, Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love Drops, reft of pin, her play-bill from above; Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap, Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap; But, wiser far than he, combustion fears, And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers: Yet here, as elsewhere, Chance can joy bestow, Where scowling Fortune seemed to threaten woe. John Richard William Alexander Dwyer In Holywell Street, St Pancras, he was bred He would have bound him to some shop in town, But with a premium he could not come down. Pat was the urchin's name—a red-haired youth, Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth. Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe, Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat, How shall he act? Pay at the gallery-door Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four? Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait, "Thank you,' cries Pat; but one won't make a line.' 'Take mine,' cried Wilson; and cried Stokes, 'Take mine.' A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties, Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new. Regained the felt, and felt what he regained; 90 100 W. C. (WILLIAM COBBETT), farmer -'rabida qui concitus ira REJECTED ADDRESSES implevit pariter ternis latratibus auras, et sparsit virides spumis albentibus aequor.'-OVID. In MOST THINKING PEOPLE, WHEN persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, your servant.' If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and brute beast enough, to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in a breath. the first place you are not Ladies and Gentlemen, but I hope something better, that is to say, honest men and women; and in the next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so much gentlemen, I am not, nor ever will be, your humble servant. You see me here, most thinking people, by mere chance. I have not been within the doors of a playhouse before for these ten years; nor, till that abominable custom of taking money at the doors is discontinued, will I ever sanction a theatre with my presence. The stage-door is the only gate of freedom in the whole edifice, and through that I made my way from Bagshaw's in Brydges Street, to accost you. Look about you. Are you not all comfortable? Nay, never slink, mun; speak out, if you are dissatisfied, and tell me so before I leave town, * 30 You are now (thanks to Mr Whitbread) got into a large, comfortable house. Not into a gimcrack palace; not into a Solomon's temple; not into a frost-work of Brobdignag filigree; but into a plain, honest, homely, industrious, wholesome, brown brick playhouse. You have been struggling for independence and elbowroom these three years; and who gave it you? Who helped you out of Lilliput? Who routed you from a rat-hole five inches by four, to perch you in a palace? Again and again I answer, Mr Whitbread. You might have sweltered in that place with the Greek name till doomsday, and neither Lord Castlereagh, Mr Canning, no, nor the Marquess Wellesley, would have turned a trowel to help you out! Remember that. Never forget that. Read it to your children, and to your children's children! And now, most thinking people, cast your eyes over my head to what the builder (I beg his pardon, the architect) calls the proscenium. No motto, no slang, no Popish Latin, to keep the people in the dark. No veluti in speculum. Nothing in the dead languages.... The Covent Garden manager tried that, and a 50 pretty business he made of it! When a man *The old Lyceum Theatre. 40 |