Chapter III: Preface

TO EIGHTEENTH EDITION. {0b}

IN the present publishing era, when books are like the multitudinous waves of the advancing sea, some of which make no impression whatever upon the sand, while the superficial traces left by others are destined to be perpetually obliterated by their successors, almost as soon as they are found, the authors of the _Rejected Addresses_ may well feel flattered, after a lapse of twenty years, and the sale of seventeen large editions, in receiving an application to write a Preface to a new and more handsome impression. In diminution, however, of any overweening vanity which they might be disposed to indulge on this occasion, they cannot but admit the truth of the remark made by a particularly candid and good-natured friend, who kindly reminded them, that if their little work has hitherto floated upon the stream of time, while so many others of much greater weight and value have sunk to rise no more, it has been solely indebted for its buoyancy to that specific levity which enables feathers, straws, and similar trifles to defer their submersion until they have become thoroughly saturated with the waters of oblivion, when they quickly meet the fate which they had long before merited.

Our ingenuous and ingenious friend furthermore observed, that the demolition of Drury Lane Theatre by fire, its reconstruction under the auspices of the celebrated Mr. Whitbread, {0c} the reward offered by the Committee for an opening address, and the public recitation of a poem composed expressly for the occasion by Lord Byron, one of the most popular writers of the age, formed an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances which could not fail to insure the success of the _Rejected Addresses_, while it has subsequently served to fix them in the memory of the public, so far at least as a poor immortality of twenty years can be said to have effected that object. In fact, continued our impartial and affectionate monitor, your little work owes its present obscure existence entirely to the accidents that have surrounded and embalmed it,—even as flies, and other worthless insects, may long survive their natural date of extinction, if they chance to be preserved in amber, or any similar substance.

The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare—
But wonder how the devil they got there!—POPE.

With the natural affection of parents for the offspring of their own brains, we ventured to hint that some portion of our success might perhaps be attributable to the manner in which the different imitations were executed; but our worthy friend protested that his sincere regard for us, as well as for the cause of truth, compelled him to reject our claim, and to pronounce that, when once the idea had been conceived, all the rest followed as a matter of course, and might have been executed by any other hands not less felicitously than by our own.

Willingly leaving this matter to the decision of the public, since we cannot be umpires in our own cause, we proceed to detail such circumstances attending the writing and publication of our little work, as may literally meet the wishes of the present proprietor of the copyright, who has applied to us for a gossiping Preface. Were we disposed to be grave and didactic, which is as foreign to our mood as it was twenty years ago, we might draw the attention of the reader, in a fine sententious paragraph, to the trifles upon which the fate of empires, as well as a four-and-sixpenny volume of parodies, occasionally hangs in trembling balance. No sooner was the idea of our work conceived, than it was about to be abandoned in embryo, from the apprehension that we had no lime to mature and bring it forth, as it was indispensable that it should be written, printed, and published by the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, which would only allow us an interval of six weeks, and we had both of us other avocations that precluded us from the full command of even that limited period. Encouraged, however, by the conviction that the thought was a good one, and by the hope of making a lucky hit, we set to work _con amore_, our very hurry not improbably enabling us to strike out at a heat what we might have failed to produce so well, had we possessed time enough to hammer it into more careful and elaborate form.

Our first difficulty, that of selection, was by no means a light one. Some of our most eminent poets—such, for instance, as Rogers and Campbell—presented so much beauty, harmony, and proportion in their writings, both as to style and sentiment, that if we had attempted to caricature them, nobody would have recognised the likeness; and if we had endeavoured to give a servile copy of their manner, it would only have amounted, at best, to a tame and unamusing portrait, which it was not our object to present. Although fully aware that their names would, in the theatrical phrase, have conferred great strength upon our bill, we were reluctantly compelled to forego them, and to confine ourselves to writers whose style and habit of thought, being more marked and peculiar, was more capable of exaggeration and distortion. To avoid politics and personality, to imitate the turn of mind as well as the phraseology of our originals, and, at all events, to raise a harmless laugh, were our main objects; in the attainment of which united aims, we were sometimes hurried into extravagance, by attaching much more importance to the last than to the two first. In no instance were we thus betrayed into a greater injustice than in the case of Mr. Wordsworth—the touching sentiment, profound wisdom, and copious harmony of whose loftier writings we left unnoticed, in the desire of burlesquing them; while we pounced upon his popular ballads, and exerted ourselves to push their simplicity into puerility and silliness. With pride and pleasure do we now claim to be ranked among the most ardent admirers of this true poet; and if he himself could see the state of his works, which are ever at our right hand, he would, perhaps, receive the manifest evidences they exhibit of constant reference and delighted re-perusal, as some sort of _amende honorable_ for the unfairness of which we were guilty when we were less conversant with the higher inspirations of his muse. To Mr. Coleridge, and others of our originals, we must also do a tardy act of justice, by declaring that our burlesque of their peculiarities has never blinded us to those beauties and talents which are beyond the reach of all ridicule.

One of us {0d} had written a genuine Address for the occasion, which was sent to the Committee, and shared the fate it merited, in being rejected. To swell the bulk, or rather to diminish the tenuity of our little work, we added it to the Imitations; and prefixing the initials of S. T. P. for the purpose of puzzling the critics, were not a little amused, in the sequel, by the many guesses and conjectures into which we had ensnared some of our readers. We could even enjoy the mysticism, qualified as it was by the poor compliment, that our carefully written Address exhibited no “very prominent trait of absurdity,” when we saw it thus noticed in the _Edinburgh Review_ for November 1812:—“An Address by S. T. P. we can make nothing of; and professing our ignorance of the author designated by these letters, we can only add, that the Address, though a little affected, and not very full of meaning, has no very prominent trait of absurdity, that we can detect; and might have been adopted and spoken, so far as we can perceive, without any hazard of ridicule. In our simplicity we consider it as a very decent, mellifluous, occasional prologue; and do not understand how it has found its way into its present company.”

Urged forward by hurry, and trusting to chance, two very bad coadjutors in any enterprise, we at length congratulated ourselves on having completed our task in time to have it printed and published by the opening of the theatre. But alas! our difficulties, so far from being surmounted, seemed only to be beginning. Strangers to the arcana of the booksellers’ trade, and unacquainted with their almost invincible objection to single volumes of low price, especially when tendered by writers who have acquired no previous name, we little anticipated that they would refuse to publish our _Rejected Addresses_, even although we asked nothing for the copyright. Such, however, proved to be the case. Our manuscript was perused and returned to us by several of the most eminent publishers. {0e} Well do we remember betaking ourselves to one of the craft in Bond-street, whom we found in a back parlour, with his gouty leg propped upon a cushion, in spite of which warning he diluted his luncheon with frequent glasses of Madeira. “What have you already written?” was his first question—an interrogatory to which we had been subjected in almost every instance. “Nothing by which we can be known.” “Then I am afraid to undertake the publication.” We presumed timidly to suggest that every writer must have a beginning, and that to refuse to publish for him until he had acquired a name, was to imitate the sapient mother who cautioned her son against going into the water until he could swim. “An old joke—a regular Joe!” exclaimed our companion, tossing off another bumper. “Still older than Joe Miller,” was our reply; “for, if we mistake not, it is the very first anecdote in the facetiæ of Hierocles.” “Ha, sirs!” resumed the bibliopolist, “you are learned, are you? So, sob!—Well, leave your manuscript with me; I will look it over to-night, and give you an answer to-morrow.” Punctual as the clock we presented ourselves at his door on the following morning, when our papers were returned to us with the observation—“These trifles are really not deficient in smartness; they are well, vastly well, for beginners; but they will never do—never. They would not pay for advertising, and without it I should not sell fifty copies.”

This was discouraging enough. If the most experienced publishers feared to be out of pocket by the work, it was manifest, _à fortiori_, that its writers ran a risk of being still more heavy losers, should they undertake the publication on their own account. We had no objection to raise a laugh at the expense of others; but to do it at our own cost, uncertain as we were to what extent we might be involved, had never entered into our contemplation. In this dilemma, our _Addresses_, now in every sense rejected, might probably have never seen the light, had not some good angel whispered us to betake ourselves to Mr. John Miller, a dramatic publisher, then residing in Bow Street, Covent Garden. No sooner had this gentleman looked over our manuscript, than he immediately offered to take upon himself all the risk of publication, and to give us half the profits, _should there be any_; a liberal proposition, with which we gladly closed. So rapid and decided was its success, at which none were more unfeignedly astonished than its authors, that Mr. Miller advised us to collect some _Imitations of Horace_, which had appeared anonymously in the _Monthly Mirror_, {0f} offering to publish them upon the same terms. We did so accordingly; and as new editions of the _Rejected Addresses_ were called for in quick succession, we were shortly enabled to sell our half copyright in the two works to Mr. Miller for one thousand pounds! We have entered into this unimportant detail, not to gratify any vanity of our own, but to encourage such literary beginners as may be placed in similar circumstances; as well as to impress upon publishers the propriety of giving more consideration to the possible merit of the works submitted to them, than to the mere magic of a name.

To the credit of the _genus irritabile_ be it recorded, that not one of those whom we had parodied or burlesqued ever betrayed the least soreness on the occasion, or refused to join in the laugh that we had occasioned. With most of them we subsequently formed acquaintanceship; while some honoured us with an intimacy which still continues, where it has not been severed by the rude hand of Death. Alas! it is painful to reflect, that of the twelve writers whom we presumed to imitate, five are now no more; the list of the deceased being unhappily swelled by the most illustrious of all, the _clarum et venerabile nomen_ of Sir Walter Scott! From that distinguished writer, whose transcendent talents were only to be equalled by his virtues and his amiability, we received favours and notice, both public and private, which it will be difficult to forget, because we had not the smallest claim upon his kindness. “I certainly must have written this myself!” said that fine-tempered man to one of the authors, pointing to the description of the Fire, “although I forget upon what occasion.” Lydia White, {0g} a literary lady who was prone to feed the lions of the day, invited one of us to dinner; but, recollecting afterwards that William Spencer {0h} formed one of the party, wrote to the latter to put him off, telling him that a man was to be at her table whom he “would not like to meet.” “Pray, who is this whom I should not like to meet?” inquired the poet. “O!” answered the lady, “one of those men who have made that shameful attack upon you!” “The very man upon earth I should like to know!” rejoined the lively and careless bard. The two individuals accordingly met, and have continued fast friends ever since. Lord Byron, too, wrote thus to Mr. Murray from Italy—“Tell him I forgive him, were he twenty times over our satirist.”

It may not be amiss to notice, in this place, one criticism of a Leicestershire clergyman, which may be pronounced unique: “I do not see why they should have been rejected,” observed the matter-of-fact annotator; “I think some of them very good!” Upon the whole, few have been the instances, in the acrimonious history of literature, where a malicious pleasantry like the _Rejected Addresses_—which the parties ridiculed might well consider more annoying than a direct satire—instead of being met by querulous bitterness or petulant retaliation, has procured for its authors the acquaintance, or conciliated the good-will, of those whom they had the most audaciously burlesqued.

In commenting on a work, however trifling, which has survived the lapse of twenty years, an author may almost claim the privileged garrulity of age; yet even in a professedly gossiping Preface, we begin to fear that we are exceeding our commission, and abusing the patience of the reader. If we are doing so, we might urge extenuating circumstances, which will explain, though they may not excuse, our diffuseness. To one of us the totally unexpected success of this little work proved an important event, since it mainly decided him, some years afterwards, to embark in the literary career which the continued favour of that novel-reading world has rendered both pleasant and profitable to him. This is the first, as it will probably be the last, occasion upon which we shall ever intrude ourselves personally on the public notice; and we trust that our now doing so will stand excused by the reasons we have adduced.

LONDON, _March_, 1833

CONTENTS.

Page Written by
I. LOYAL EFFUSION. By W. T. F. 1 _Horace_.
II. THE BABY’S DEBUT. By W. W. 5 _James_.
III. AN ADDRESS WITHOUT A PHŒNIX. 10 _Horace_.
By S. T. P.
IV. CUI BONO? By Lord B. 12 _James and
Horace_.
V. HAMPSHIRE FARMER’S ADDRESS. 20 _James_.
By W. C.
VI. THE LIVING LUSTRES. By T. M. 25 _Horace_.
VII. THE REBUILDING. By R. S. 28 _James_.
VIII. DRURY’S DIRGE. By Laura 38 _Horace_.
Matilda.
IX. A TALE OF DRURY LANE. By W. 42 _Horace_.
S.
X. JOHNSON’S GHOST 51 _Horace_.
XI. THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. By 56 _Horace_.
the Hon. W. S.
XII. FIRE AND ALE. By M. G. L. 61 _Horace_.
XIII. PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS. By S. T. 65 _James_.
C.
XIV. DRURY LANE HUSTINGS. By a 69 _James_.
Pic-Nic Poet
XV. ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. By Dr. 72 _Horace_.
B.
XVI. THEATRICAL ALARM-BELL. By 81 _James_.
the Editor of the M. P.
XVII. THE THEATRE. By the Rev. G. 85 _James_.
C.
XVIII. MACBETH TRAVESTIE. By Momus 94 _James_.
Medlar
XIX. STRANGER TRAVESTIE. By Momus 96 _James_.
Medlar
XX. GEORGE BARNWELL TRAVESTIE. 98 _James_.
By Ditto
XXI. PUNCH’S APOTHEOSIS. By T. H. 102 _Horace_.

REJECTED ADDRESSES. {1}

I. LOYAL EFFUSION.

BY W. T. F.

[WILLIAM THOMAS FITZGERALD.]

[Mr. Fitzgerald died 9th July, 1829, aged 70.]

“Quicquid dicunt, lando: id rursum si negant,
Lando id quoque.” TERENCE.

Hail, glorious edifice, stupendous work!
God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!
Ye Muses! by whose aid I cried down Fox,
Grant me in Drury Lane a private box,
Where I may loll, cry Bravo! and profess
The boundless powers of England’s glorious press;
While Afric’s sons exclaim, from shore to shore,
“Quashee ma boo!”—the slave-trade is no more!
In fair Arabia (happy once, now stony,
Since ruined by that arch apostate Boney),
A Phoenix late was caught: the Arab host
Long ponder’d—part would boil it, part would roast,
But while they ponder, up the pot-lid flies,
Fledged, beak’d, and claw’d, alive they see him rise
To heaven, and caw defiance in the skies.
So Drury, first in roasting flames consumed,
Then by old renters to hot water doom’d,
By Wyatt’s {2} trowel patted, plump and sleek,
Soars without wings, and caws without a beak.
Gallia’s stern despot shall in vain advance
From Paris, the metropolis of France;
By this day month the monster shall not gain
A foot of land in Portugal or Spain.
See Wellington in Salamanca’s field
Forces his favourite general to yield,
Breaks through his lines, and leaves his boasted Marmont
Expiring on the plain without his arm on;
Madrid he enters at the cannon’s mouth,
And then the villages still further south.
Base Buonapartè, fill’d with deadly ire,
Sets, one by one, our playhouses on fire.
Some years ago he pounced with deadly glee on
The Opera House, then burnt down the Pantheon;
Nay, still unsated, in a coat of flames,
Next at Millbank he cross’d the river Thames;
Thy hatch, O Halfpenny! {3a} pass’d in a trice,
Boil’d some black pitch, and burnt down Astley’s twice;
Then buzzing on through ether with a vile hum,
Turn’d to the left hand, fronting the Asylum,
And burnt the Royal Circus in a hurry—
(’Twas call’d the Circus then, but now the Surrey).
Who burnt (confound his soul!) the houses twain
Of Covent Garden and of Drury Lane? {3b}
Who, while the British squadron lay off Cork,
(God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!)
With a foul earthquake ravaged the Caraccas,
And raised the price of dry goods and tobaccos?
Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise?
Who fills the butchers’ shops with large blue flies?
Who thought in flames St. James’s court to pinch? {4a}
Who burnt the wardrobe of poor Lady Finch?—
Why he, who, forging for this isle a yoke,
Reminds me of a line I lately spoke,
“The tree of freedom is the British oak.”
Bless every man possess’d of aught to give;
Long may Long Tylney Wellesley Long Pole live; {4b}
God bless the Army, bless their coats of scarlet,
God bless the Navy, bless the Princess Charlotte;
God bless the Guards, though worsted Gallia scoff;
God bless their pig-tails, though they’re now cut off;
And, oh! in Downing Street should Old Nick revel,
England’s prime minister, then bless the devil!

II. THE BABY’S DEBUT. {5a}

BY W. W.

[WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.]

Mr. Wordsworth died 23rd, April, 1850, in his 82nd year.

* * * * *

“Thy lisping prattle and thy mincing gait.
All thy false mimic fooleries I hate;
For thou art Folly’s counterfeit, and she
Who is right foolish hath the better plea;
Nature’s true Idiot I prefer to thee”

CUMBERLAND.

[_Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake_, _a girl eight years of age_, _who is drawn upon the stage in a child’s chaise by Samuel Hughes_, _her uncle’s porter_.]

MY brother Jack was nine in May, {5b}
And I was eight on New-year’s-day;
So in Kate Wilson’s shop
Papa (he’s my papa and Jack’s)
Bought me, last week, a doll of wax,
And brother Jack a top.

Jack’s in the pouts, and this it is,—
He thinks mine came to more than his;
So to my drawer he goes,
Takes out the doll, and, O, my stars!
He pokes her head between the bars,
And melts off half her nose!

Quite cross, a bit of string I beg,
And tie it to his peg-top’s peg,
And bang, with might and main,
Its head against the parlour-door:
Off flies the head, and hits the floor,
And breaks a window-pane.

This made him cry with rage and spite
Well, let him cry, it serves him right.
A pretty thing, forsooth!
If he’s to melt, all scalding hot,
Half my doll’s nose, and I am not
To draw his peg-top’s tooth!

Aunt Hannah heard the window break,
And cried, “O naughty Nancy Lake,
Thus to distress your aunt:
No Drury-Lane for you to-day!”
And while papa said, “Pooh, she may!”
Mamma said, “No, she sha’n’t!”

Well, after many a sad reproach,
They got into a hackney coach,
And trotted down the street.
I saw them go: one horse was blind,
The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet.

The chaise in which poor brother Bill
Used to be drawn to Pentonville,
Stood in the lumber-room:
I wiped the dust from off the top,
While Molly mopp’d it with a mop,
And brushed it with a broom.

My uncle’s porter, Samuel Hughes,
Came in at six to black the shoes,
(I always talk to Sam:)
So what does he, but takes, and drags
Me in the chaise along the flags,
And leaves me where I am.

My father’s walls are made of brick,
But not so tall, and not so thick
As these; and, goodness me!
My father’s beams are made of wood,
But never, never half so good
As those that now I see.

What a large floor! ’tis like a town!
The carpet, when they lay it down,
Won’t hide it, I’ll be bound;
And there’s a row of lamps!—my eye
How they do blaze! I wonder why
They keep them on the ground.

At first I caught hold of the wing,
And kept away; but Mr. Thing-
um bob, the prompter man,
Gave with his hand my chaise a shove,
And said, “Go on, my pretty love;
Speak to ’em, little Nan.

“You’ve only got to curtsey, whisp-
er, hold your chin up, laugh, and lisp,
And then you’re sure to take:
I’ve known the day when brats, not quite
Thirteen, got fifty pounds a night; {8}
Then why not Nancy Lake?”

But while I’m speaking, where’s papa?
And where’s my aunt? and where’s mamma?
Where’s Jack? O, there they sit!
They smile, they nod; I’ll go my ways,
And order round poor Billy’s chaise,
To join them in the pit.

And now, good gentlefolks, I go
To join mamma, and see the show;
So, bidding you adieu,
I curtsey, like a pretty miss,
And if you’ll blow to me a kiss,
I’ll blow a kiss to you.

[_Blows a kiss and exit_.

III. AN ADDRESS WITHOUT A PHŒNIX. {10a}

BY S. T. P. {10b}

“This was looked for at your hand, and this was balked.”

_What You Will_.

WHAT stately vision mocks my waking sense?
Hence, dear delusion, sweet enchantment, hence!
Ha! is it real?—can my doubts be vain?
It is, it is, and Drury lives again!
Around each grateful veteran attends,
Eager to rush and gratulate his friends,
Friends whose kind looks, retraced with proud delight,
Endear the past, and make the future bright:
Yes, generous patrons, your returning smile
Blesses our toils, and consecrates our pile.

When last we met, Fate’s unrelenting hand
Already grasped the devastating brand;
Slow crept the silent flame, ensnared its prize,
Then burst resistless to the astonished skies.
The glowing walls, disrobed of scenic pride,
In trembling conflict stemmed the burning tide,
Till crackling, blazing, rocking to its fall,
Down rushed the thundering roof, and buried all!

Where late the sister Muses sweetly sung,
And raptured thousands on their music hung,
Where Wit and Wisdom shone, by Beauty graced,
Sat lonely Silence, empress of the waste;
And still had reigned—but he, whose voice can raise
More magic wonders than Amphion’s lays,
Bade jarring bands with friendly zeal engage
To rear the prostrate glories of the stage.
Up leaped the Muses at the potent spell,
And Drury’s genius saw his temple swell;
Worthy, we hope, the British Drama’s cause,
Worthy of British arts, and _your_ applause.

Guided by you, our earnest aims presume
To renovate the Drama with the dome;
The scenes of Shakespeare and our bards of old
With due observance splendidly unfold,
Yet raise and foster with parental hand
The living talent of our native land.
O! may we still, to sense and nature true,
Delight the many, nor offend the few.
Though varying tastes our changeful Drama claim,
Still be its moral tendency the same,
To win by precept, by example warn,
To brand the front of Vice with pointed scorn,
And Virtue’s smiling brows with votive wreaths adorn.

IV. CUI BONO?

BY LORD B. {12a}

[LORD BYRON.]

[Lord Byron died 19th April, 1824, in his 37th year.]

I.

Sated with home, of wife, of children tired,
The restless soul is driven abroad to roam; {12b}
Sated abroad, all seen, yet nought admired,
The restless soul is driven to ramble home;
Sated with both, beneath new Drury’s dome
The fiend Ennui awhile consents to pine,
There growls, and curses, like a deadly Gnome,
Scorning to view fantastic Columbine,
Viewing with scorn and hate the nonsense of the Nine. {14}

II.

Ye reckless dopes, who hither wend your way
To gaze on puppets in a painted dome,
Pursuing pastimes glittering to betray,
Like falling stars in life’s eternal gloom,
What seek ye here? Joy’s evanescent bloom?
Woe’s me! the brightest wreaths she ever gave
Are but as flowers that decorate a tomb.
Man’s heart, the mournful urn o’er which they wave,
Is sacred to despair, its pedestal the grave.

III.

Has life so little store of real woes,
That here ye wend to taste fictitious grief?
Or is it that from truth such anguish flows,
Ye court the lying drama for relief?
Long shall ye find the pang, the respite brief:
Or if one tolerable page appears
In folly’s volume, ’tis the actor’s leaf,
Who dries his own by drawing others’ tears,
And, raising present mirth, makes glad his future years.

IV.

Albeit, how like Young Betty {15a} doth he flee!
Light as the mote that daunceth in the beam,
He liveth only in man’s present e’e;
His life a flash, his memory a dream,
Oblivious down he drops in Lethe’s stream.
Yet what are they, the learned and the great?
Awhile of longer wonderment the theme!
Who shall presume to prophesy _their_ date,
Where nought is certain, save the uncertainty of fate?

V.

This goodly pile, upheaved by Wyatt’s toil,
Perchance than Holland’s edifice {15b} more fleet,
Again red Lemnos’ artisan may spoil:
The fire-alarm and midnight drum may beat,
And all bestrewed ysmoking at your feet!
Start ye? perchance Death’s angel may be sent
Ere from the flaming temple ye retreat:
And ye who met, on revel idlesse bent,
May find, in pleasure’s fane, your grave and monument.

VI.

Your debts mount high—ye plunge in deeper waste;
The tradesman duns—no warning voice ye hear;
The plaintiff sues—to public shows ye haste;
The bailiff threats—ye feel no idle fear.
Who can arrest your prodigal career?
Who can keep down the levity of youth?
What sound can startle age’s stubborn ear?
Who can redeem from wretchedness and ruth
Men true to falsehood’s voice, false to the voice of truth?

VII.

To thee, blest saint! who doffed thy skin to make
The Smithfield rabble leap from theirs with joy,
We dedicate the pile—arise! awake!—
Knock down the Muses, wit and sense destroy
Clear our new stage from reason’s dull alloy,
Charm hobbling age, and tickle capering youth
With cleaver, marrow-bone, and Tunbridge toy!
While, vibrating in unbelieving tooth, {17}
Harps twang in Drury’s walls, and make her boards a booth.

VIII.

For what is Hamlet, but a hare in March?
And what is Brutus, but a croaking owl?
And what is Rolla? Cupid steeped in starch,
Orlando’s helmet in Augustin’s cowl.
Shakespeare, how true thine adage “fair is foul!”
To him whose soul is with fruition fraught,
The song of Braham is an Irish howl,
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is everything, and everything is nought.

IX.

Sons of Parnassus! whom I view above,
Not laurel-crown’d, but clad in rusty black;
Not spurring Pegasus through Tempè’s grove,
But pacing Grub-street on a jaded hack;
What reams of foolscap, while your brains ye rack,
Ye mar to make again! for sure, ere long,
Condemn’d to tread the bard’s time-sanction’d track,
Ye all shall join the bailiff-haunted throng,
And reproduce, in rags, the rags ye blot in song.

X.

So fares the follower in the Muses’ train;
He toils to starve, and only lives in death;
We slight him, till our patronage is vain,
Then round his skeleton a garland wreathe,
And o’er his bones an empty requiem breathe—
Oh! with what tragic horror would he start
(Could he be conjured from the grave beneath)
To find the stage again a Thespian cart,
And elephants and colts down trampling Shakespeare’s art!

XI.

Hence, pedant Nature! with thy Grecian rules!
Centaurs (not fabulous) those rules efface;
Back, sister Muses, to your native schools;
Here booted grooms usurp Apollo’s place,
Hoofs shame the boards that Garrick used to grace,
The play of limbs succeeds the play of wit,
Man yields the drama to the Hou’yn’m race,
His prompter spurs, his licenser the bit,
The stage a stable-yard, a jockey-club the pit.

XII.

Is it for these ye rear this proud abode?
Is it for these your superstition seeks
To build a temple worthy of a god,
To laud a monkey, or to worship leeks?
Then be the stage, to recompense your freaks,
A motley chaos, jumbling age and ranks,
Where Punch, the lignum-vitæ Roscius, squeaks,
And Wisdom weeps, and Folly plays his pranks,
And moody Madness laughs and hugs the chain he clanks.

V. HAMPSHIRE FARMER’S ADDRESS.

BY W. C.

[WILLIAM CORBETT.]

[Mr. Corbett died 18th June, 1835, aged 73.]

* * * * *

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE MANAGING COMMITTEE OF DRURY-LANE PLAYHOUSE.

SIR,

To the gewgaw fetters of _rhyme_ (invented by the monks to enslave the people) I have a rooted objection. I have therefore written an address for your Theatre in plain, homespun, yeoman’s prose; in the doing whereof I hope I am swayed by nothing but an _independent_ wish to open the eyes of this gulled people, to prevent a repetition of the dramatic _bamboozling_ they have hitherto laboured under. If you like what I have done, and mean to make use of it, I don’t want any such _aristocratic_ reward as a piece of plate with two griffins sprawling upon it, or a _dog_ and a _jackass_ fighting for a ha’p’worth of _gilt gingerbread_, or any such Bartholomew-fair nonsense. All I ask is that the door-keepers of your play-house may take all the _sets of my Register_ {20} now on hand, and _force_ every body who enters your doors to buy one, giving afterwards a debtor and creditor account of what they have received, _post-paid_, and in due course remitting me the money and unsold Registers, _carriage-paid_.

I am, &c.
W. C.

* * * * *

IN THE CHARACTER OF A HAMPSHIRE FARMER.

—“Rabidâ qui concitus irâ
Implevit pariter ternis latratibus auras,
Et sparsit virides spumis albentibus agrot.”—OVID.

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. In 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 play-house 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 {21} 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. 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 elbow-room 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 {22} 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, properly so called, for they ought to die, ay and be _damned_ to boot! The Covent Garden manager tried that, and a pretty business he made of it! When a man says _veluti in speculum_, he is called a man of letters. Very well, and is not a man who cries O. P. a man of letters too? You ran your O. P. against his _veluti in speculum_, and pray which beat? I prophesied that, though I never told any body. I take it for granted, that every intelligent man, woman, and child, to whom I address myself, has stood severally and respectively in Little Russell Street, and cast their, his, her, and its eyes on the outside of this building before they paid their money to view the inside. Look at the brick-work, _English Audience_! Look at the brick-work! All plain and smooth like a quakers’ meeting. None of your Egyptian pyramids, to entomb subscribers’ capitals. No overgrown colonnades of stone, {23a} like an alderman’s gouty legs in white cotton stockings, fit only to use as rammers for paving Tottenham Court Road. This house is neither after the model of a temple in Athens, no, nor a _temple_ in _Moorfields_, but it is built to act English plays in: and, provided you have good scenery, dresses, and decorations, I daresay you wouldn’t break your hearts if the outside were as plain as the pikestaff I used to carry when I was a sergeant. _Apropos_, as the French valets say, who cut their masters’ throats {23b}—_apropos_, a word about dresses. You must, many of you, have seen what I have read a description of, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons in Macbeth, with more gold and silver plastered on their doublets than would have kept an honest family in butchers’ meat and flannel from year’s end to year’s end! I am informed, (now mind, I do not vouch for the fact), but I am informed that all such extravagant idleness is to be done away with here. Lady Macbeth is to have a plain quilted petticoat, a cotton gown, and a _mob cap_ (as the court parasites call it;—it will be well for them if, one of these days, they don’t wear a mob cap—I mean a _white cap_, with a _mob_ to look at them); and Macbeth is to appear in an honest yeoman’s drab coat, and a pair of black calamanco breeches. Not _Sala_manca; no, nor _Talavera_ neither, my most Noble Marquess; but plain, honest, black calamanco stuff breeches. This is right; this is as it should be. _Most thinking people_, I have heard you much abused. There is not a compound in the language but is strung fifty in a rope, like onions, by the Morning Post, and hurled in your teeth. You are called the mob; and when they have made you out to be the mob, you are called the _scum_ of the people, and the _dregs_ of the people. I should like to know how you can be both. Take a basin of broth—not _cheap soup_, _Mr. Wilberforce_—not soup for the poor, at a penny a quart, as your mixture of horses’ legs, brick-dust, and old shoes, was denominated—but plain, wholesome, patriotic beef or mutton broth; take this, examine it, and you will find—mind, I don’t vouch for the fact, but I am told—you will find the dregs at the bottom, and the scum at the top. I will endeavour to explain this to you: England is a large _earthenware pipkin_; John Bull is the _beef_ thrown into it; taxes are the _hot water_ he boils in; rotten boroughs are the _fuel_ that blazes under this same pipkin; parliament is the _ladle_ that stirs the hodge-podge, and sometimes—. But, hold! I don’t wish to pay _Mr. Newman_ {24a} a second visit. I leave you better off than you have been this many a day: you have a good house over your head; you have beat the French in Spain; the harvest has turned out well; the comet keeps its distance; {24b} and red slippers are hawked about in Constantinople for next to nothing; and for all this, _again and again_ I tell you, you are indebted to _Mr. Whitbread_!!!

VI. THE LIVING LUSTRES.

BY T. M. {25}

[THOMAS MOORE.]

[Mr. Moore died 26th February, 1852, in his 73rd year.]

* * * * *

“Jam te juvaverit
Viros relinquere,
Doctæque conjugis
Sinu quiescere.”

SIR T. MORE.

* * * * *

I.

O WHY should our dull retrospective addresses
Fall damp as wet blankets on Drury Lane fire?
Away with blue devils, away with distresses,
And give the gay spirit to sparkling desire!

II.

Let artists decide on the beauties of Drury,
The richest to me is when woman is there;
The question of houses I leave to the jury;
The fairest to me is the house of the fair.

III.

When woman’s soft smile all our senses bewilders,
And gilds, while it carves, her dear form on the heart,
What need has New Drury of carvers and gilders?
With Nature so bounteous, why call upon Art?

IV.

How well would our actors attend to their duties,
Our house save in oil, and our authors in wit,
In lieu of you lamps, if a row of young beauties
Glanced light from their eyes between us and the pit?

V.

The apples that grew on the fruit-tree of knowledge
By woman were pluck’d, and she still wears the prize,
To tempt us in theatre, senate, or college—
I mean the love-apples that bloom in the eyes.

VI.

There too is the lash which, all statutes controlling,
Still governs the slaves that are made by the fair;
For man is the pupil, who, while her eye’s rolling,
Is lifted to rapture, or sunk in despair.

VII.

Bloom, Theatre, bloom, in the roseate blushes
Of beauty illumed by a love-breathing smile!
And flourish, ye pillars, {26} as green as the rushes
That pillow the nymphs of the Emerald Isle!

VIII.

For dear is the Emerald Isle of the ocean,
Whose daughters are fair as the foam of the wave,
Whose sons, unaccustom’d to rebel commotion,
Tho’ joyous, are sober—tho’ peaceful, are brave.

IX.

The shamrock their olive, swore foe to a quarrel,
Protects from the thunder and lightning of rows;
Their sprig of shillelagh is nothing but laurel,
Which flourishes rapidly over their brows.

X.

O! soon shall they burst the tyrannical shackles
Which each panting bosom indignantly names,
Until not one goose at the capital cackles
Against the grand question of Catholic claims.

XI.

And then shall each Paddy, who once on the Liffey
Perchance held the helm of some mackerel-hoy,
Hold the helm of the state, and dispense in a jiffy
More fishes than ever he caught when a boy.

XII.

And those who now quit their hods, shovels, and barrows
In crowds to the bar of some ale-house to flock,
When bred to _our_ bar shall be Gibbses and Garrows,
Assume the silk gown, and discard the smock-frock.

XIII.

For Erin surpasses the daughters of Neptune,
As Dian outshines each encircling star;
And the spheres of the heavens could never have kept tune
Till set to the music of Erin-go-bragh!

VII. THE REBUILDING.

BY R. S. {28a}

[ROBERT SOUTHEY.]

[Mr. Southey died March 13, 1843, in his 69th year.]

—“Per audaces nova dithyrambos
Verba devolvit numerisque fertur
Lege solutis.”

HORAT.

* * * * *

[_Spoken by a Glendoveer_.]