II.

With Drurys for sartin we'll never have done, We've built up another, and yet there's but one; The old one was best, yet I'd say, if I durst, The new one is better—the last is the first. Tol de rol, &c.

III.

These pillars are call'd by a Frenchified word, A something that's jumbled of antique and verd; The boxes may show us some verdant antiques, Some old harridans who beplaster their cheeks. Tol de rol, &c.

IV.

Only look how high Tragedy, Comedy, stick, Lest their rivals, the horses, should give them a kick! If you will not descend when our authors beseech ye, You'll stop there for life, for I'm sure they can't reach ye. Tol de rol, &c.

V.

Each one shilling god within reach of a nod is, And plain are the charms of each gallery goddess - You, Brandy-fac'd Moll, don't be looking askew, When I talk'd of a goddess I didn't mean you. Tol de rol, &c.

VI.

Our stage is so prettily fashion'd for viewing, The whole house can see what the whole house is doing: 'Tis just like the Hustings, we kick up a bother; But saying is one thing, and doing's another. Tol de rol, &c.

VII.

We've many new houses, and some of them rum ones, But the newest of all is the new House of Commons; 'Tis a rickety sort of a bantling, I'm told, It will die of old age when it's seven years old. Tol de rol, &c.

VIII.

As I don't know on whom the election will fall, I move in return for returning them all; But for fear Mr. Speaker my meaning should miss, The house that I wish 'em to sit in is this. Tol de rol, &c

IX.

Let us cheer our great Commoner, but for whose aid We all should have gone with short commons to bed; And since he has saved all the fat from the fire, I move that the house be call'd Whitbread's Entire. {64} Tol de rol, &c.



ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS—TRANSLATED BY DR. B. {76b} {99}



Lege, Dick, Lege!—JOSEPH ANDREWS.

To be recited by the Translator's Son.

Away, fond dupes! who, smit with sacred lore, Mosaic dreams in Genesis explore, Doat with Copernicus, or darkling stray With Newton, Ptolemy, or Tycho Brahe! To you I sing not, for I sing of truth, Primeval systems, and creation's youth; Such as of old, with magic wisdom fraught, Inspired LUCRETIUS to the Latians taught.

I sing how casual bricks, in airy climb, Encounter'd casual cow-hair, casual lime; How rafters, borne through wondering clouds elate, Kiss'd in their slope blue elemental slate, Clasp'd solid beams in chance-directed fury, And gave to birth our renovated Drury.

Thee, son of Jove! whose sceptre was confess'd, Where fair AEolia springs from Tethys' breast; Thence on Olympus, 'mid celestials placed, GOD OF THE WINDS, and Ether's boundless waste - Thee I invoke! Oh PUFF my bold design, Prompt the bright thought, and swell th' harmonious line Uphold my pinions, and my verse inspire With Winsor's {65} patent gas, or wind of fire, In whose pure blaze thy embryo form enroll'd, The dark enlightens, and enchafes the cold.

But, while I court thy gifts, be mine to shun The deprecated prize Ulysses won; Who, sailing homeward from thy breezy shore, The prison'd winds in skins of parchment bore. Speeds the fleet bark till o'er the billowy green The azure heights of Ithaca are seen; But while with favouring gales her way she wins, His curious comrades ope the mystic skins; When, lo! the rescued winds, with boisterous sweep, Roar to the clouds and lash the rocking deep; Heaves the smote vessel in the howling blast, Splits the stretch'd sail, and cracks the tottering mast. Launch'd on a plank, the buoyant hero rides Where ebon Afric stems the sable tides, While his duck'd comrades o'er the ocean fly, And sleep not in the whole skins they untie.

So, when to raise the wind some lawyer tries, Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes; On speeds the smiling suit—"Pleas of our Lord The King" shine sable on the wide record; Nods the prunella'd bar, attorneys smile, And syren jurors flatter to beguile; Till stript—nonsuited—he is doom'd to toss In legal shipwreck and redeemless loss! Lucky if, like Ulysses, he can keep His head above the waters of the deep.

AEolian monarch! Emperor of Puffs! We modern sailors dread not thy rebuffs; See to thy golden shore promiscuous come Quacks for the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb; Fools are their bankers—a prolific line, And every mortal malady's a mine. Each sly Sangrado, with his poisonous pill, Flies to the printer's devil with his bill, Whose Midas touch can gild his ass's ears, And load a knave with folly's rich arrears. And lo! a second miracle is thine, For sloe-juice water stands transformed to wine. Where Day and Martin's patent blacking roll'd, Burst from the vase Pactolian streams of gold; Laugh the sly wizards, glorying in their stealth, Quit the black art, and loll in lazy wealth. See Britain's Algerines, the lottery fry, Win annual tribute by the annual lie! Aided by thee—but whither do I stray? - Court, city, borough, own thy sovereign sway; An age of puffs an age of gold succeeds, And windy bubbles are the spawn it breeds.

If such thy power, O hear the Muse's prayer! Swell thy loud lungs and wave thy wings of air; Spread, viewless giant, all thy arms of mist Like windmill-sails to bring the poet grist; As erst thy roaring son, with eddying gale, Whirl'd Orithyia from her native vale - So, while Lucretian wonders I rehearse, Augusta's sons shall patronise my verse.

I sing of ATOMS, whose creative brain, With eddying impulse, built new Drury Lane; Not to the labours of subservient man, To no young Wyatt appertains the plan - We mortals stalk, like horses in a mill, Impassive media of atomic will; Ye stare! then Truth's broad talisman discern - 'Tis demonstration speaks—attend, and learn!

From floating elements in chaos hurl'd, Self-form'd of atoms, sprang the infant world: No great FIRST CAUSE inspired the happy plot, But all was matter—and no matter what. Atoms, attracted by some law occult, Settling in spheres, the globe was the result; Pure child of CHANCE, which still directs the ball, As rotatory atoms rise or fall. In ether launch'd, the peopled bubble floats, A mass of particles and confluent motes, So nicely poised, that if one atom flings Its weight away, aloft the planet springs, And wings its course through realms of boundless space. Outstripping comets in eccentric race Add but one atom more, it sinks outright Down to the realms of Tartarus and night. What waters melt or scorching fires consume, In different forms their being re-assume: Hence can no change arise, except in name, For weight and substance ever are the same.

Thus with the flames that from old Drury rise Its elements primeval sought the skies; There pendulous to wait the happy hour When new attractions should restore their power: So, in this procreant theatre elate, Echoes unborn their future life await; Here embryo sounds in ether lie conceal'd, Like words in northern atmosphere congeal'd. Here many a foetus laugh and half encore Clings to the roof, or creeps along the floor; By puffs concipient some in ether flit, And soar in bravos from the thundering pit; Some forth on ticket-nights {66} from tradesmen break, To mar the actor they design to make; While some this mortal life abortive miss, Crush'd by a groan, or strangled by a hiss. So, when "Dog's-meat" re-echoes through the streets, Rush sympathetic dogs from their retreats, Beam with bright blaze their supplicating eyes, Sink their hind-legs, ascend their joyful cries; Each, wild with hope, and maddening to prevail, Points the pleased ear, and wags the expectant tail.

Ye fallen bricks! in Drury's fire calcined, Since doom'd to slumber, couch'd upon the wind, Sweet was the hour, when, tempted by your freaks, Congenial trowels smooth'd your yellow cheeks. Float dulcet serenades upon the ear, Bends every atom from its ruddy sphere, Twinkles each eye, and, peeping from its veil, Marks in the adverse crowd its destined male. The oblong beauties clap their hands of grit, And brick-dust titterings on the breezes flit; Then down they rush in amatory race, Their dusty bridegrooms eager to embrace. Some choose old lovers, some decide for new, But each, when fix'd, is to her station true. Thus various bricks are made, as tastes invite - The red, the grey, the dingy, or the white.

Perhaps some half-baked rover, frank and free, To alien beauty bends the lawless knee, But of unhallow'd fascinations sick, Soon quite his Cyprian for his married brick; The Dido atom calls and scolds in vain, No crisp AEneas soothes the widow's pain.

So in Cheapside, what time Aurora peeps, A mingled noise of dustmen, milk, and sweeps Falls on the housemaid's ear: amazed she stands, Then opes the door with cinder-sabled hands, And "Matches" calls. The dustman, bubbled flat, Thinks 'tis for him and doffs his fan-tail'd hat; The milkman, whom her second cries assail, With sudden sink unyokes the clinking pail; Now louder grown, by turns she screams and weeps - Alas! her screaming only brings the sweeps. Sweeps but put out—she wants to raise a flame, And calls for matches, but 'tis still the same. Atoms and housemaids! mark the moral true - If once ye go astray, no MATCH for you!

As atoms in one mass united mix, So bricks attraction feel for kindred bricks; Some in the cellar view, perchance, on high, Fair chimney chums on beds of mortar lie; Enamour'd of the sympathetic clod, Leaps the red bridegroom to the labourer's hod: And up the ladder bears the workman, taught To think he bears the bricks—mistaken thought! A proof behold! if near the top they find The nymphs or broken-corner'd or unkind, Back to the base, "resulting with a bound," {67} They bear their bleeding carriers to the ground!

So legends tell along the lofty hill Paced the twin heroes, gallant Jack and Jill; On trudged the Gemini to reach the rail That shields the well's top from the expectant pail, When, ah! Jack falls; and, rolling in the rear, Jill feels the attraction of his kindred sphere; Head over heels begins his toppling track, Throws sympathetic somersets with Jack, And at the mountain's base bobs plump against him, whack!

Ye living atoms, who unconscious sit, Jumbled by chance in gallery, box, and pit, For you no Peter opes the fabled door, No churlish Charon plies the shadowy oar; Breathe but a space, and Boreas' casual sweep Shall bear your scatter'd corses o'er the deep, To gorge the greedy elements, and mix With water, marl, and clay, and stones, and sticks; While, charged with fancied souls, sticks, stones, and clay Shall take your seats, and hiss or clap the play.

O happy age! when convert Christians read No sacred writings but the Pagan creed - O happy age! when, spurning Newton's dreams, Our poets' sons recite Lucretian themes, Abjure the idle systems of their youth, And turn again to atoms and to truth; - O happier still! when England's dauntless dames, Awed by no chaste alarms, no latent shames, The bard's fourth book unblushingly peruse, And learn the rampant lessons of the stews!

All hail, Lucretius! renovated sage! Unfold the modest mystics of thy page; Return no more to thy sepulchral shelf, But live, kind bard—that I may live myself!



THEATRICAL ALARM-BELL—BY THE EDITOR OF THE M. P. {68} {99}



"Bounce, Jupiter, bounce!"—O'HARA.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

As it is now the universally-admitted, and indeed pretty-generally- suspected, aim of Mr. Whitbread and the infamous, bloodthirsty, and, in fact, illiberal faction to which he belongs, to burn to the ground this free and happy Protestant city, and establish himself in St. James's Palace, his fellow committeemen have thought it their duty to watch the principles of a theatre built under his auspices. The information they have received from an undoubted authority— particularly from an old fruit-woman who has turned king's evidence, and whose name, for obvious reasons, we forbear to mention, though we have had it some weeks in our possession—has induced them to introduce various reforms—not such reforms as the vile faction clamour for, meaning thereby revolution, but such reforms as are necessary to preserve the glorious constitution of the only free, happy, and prosperous country now left upon the face of the earth. From the valuable and authentic source above alluded to, we have learnt that a sanguinary plot has been formed by some United Irishmen, combined with a gang of Luddites, and a special committee sent over by the Pope at the instigation of the beastly Corsican fiend, for destroying all the loyal part of the audience on the anniversary of that deeply-to-be-abhorred-and-highly-to-be-blamed stratagem, the Gunpowder Plot, which falls this year on Thursday the fifth of November. The whole is under the direction of a delegated committee of O. P.'s whose treasonable exploits at Covent Garden you all recollect, and all of whom would have been hung from the chandeliers at that time, but for the mistaken lenity of Government. At a given signal, a well-known O. P. was to cry out from the gallery, "Nosey! Music!" whereupon all the O. P.'s were to produce from their inside pockets a long pair of shears, edged with felt, to prevent their making any noise, manufactured expressly by a wretch at Birmingham, one of Mr. Brougham's evidences, and now in custody. With these they were to cut off the heads of all the loyal N. P.'s in the house, without distinction of sex or age. At the signal, similarly given, of "Throw him over!" which it now appears always alluded to the overthrow of our never-sufficiently-enough-to-be- deeply-and-universally-to-be-venerated constitution, all the heads of the N. P.'s were to be thrown at the fiddlers, to prevent their appearing in evidence, or perhaps as a false and illiberal insinuation that they have no heads of their own. All that we know of the further designs of these incendiaries is, that they are by-a- great-deal-too-much-too-horrible-to-be-mentioned.

The Manager has acted with his usual promptitude on this trying occasion. He has contracted for 300 tons of gun powder, which are at this moment placed in a small barrel under the pit; and a descendant of Guy Faux, assisted by Col. Congreve, has undertaken to blow up the house, when necessary, in so novel and ingenious a manner, that every O. P. shall be annihilated, while not a whisker of the N. P.'s shall be singed. This strikingly displays the advantages of loyalty and attachment to government. Several other hints have been taken from the theatrical regulations of the not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account- to-be-universally-execrated monster Bonaparte. A park of artillery, provided with chain-shot, is to be stationed on the stage, and play upon the audience, in case of any indication of misplaced applause or popular discontent (which accounts for the large space between the curtain and the lamps); and the public will participate our satisfaction in learning that the indecorous custom of standing up with the hat on is to be abolished, as the Bow-street officers are provided with daggers, and have orders to stab all such persons to the heart, and send their bodies to Surgeons' Hall. Gentlemen who cough are only to be slightly wounded. Fruit-women bawling "Bill of the Play!" are to be forthwith shot, for which purpose soldiers will be stationed in the slips, and ball-cartridge is to be served out with the lemonade. If any of the spectators happen to sneeze or spit, they are to be transported for life; and any person who is so tall as to prevent another seeing, is to be dragged out and sent on board the tender, or, by an instrument to be taken out of the pocket of Procrustes, to be forthwith cut shorter, either at the head or foot, according as his own convenience may dictate.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, have the committee, through my medium, set forth the not-in-a-hurry-to-be-paralleled plan they have adopted for preserving order and decorum within the walls of their magnificent edifice. Nor have they, while attentive to their own concerns, by any means overlooked those of the cities of London and Westminster. Finding on enumeration that they have, with a with-two- hands-and-one-tongue-to be-applauded liberality, contracted for more gunpowder than they want, they have parted with the surplus to the mattock-carrying and hustings-hammering high-bailiff of Westminster, who has, with his own shovel, dug a large hole in the front of the parish-church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, that, upon the least symptom of ill-breeding in the mob at the general election, the whole of the market may be blown into the air. This, ladies and gentlemen, may at first make provisions RISE, but we pledge the credit of our theatre that they will soon FALL again, and people be supplied, as usual, with vegetables, in the in-general-strewed-with-cabbage- stalks-but-on-Saturday-night-lighted-up-with-lamps market of Covent Garden.

I should expatiate more largely on the other advantages of the glorious constitution of these by-the-whole-of-Europe-envied realms, but I am called away to take an account of the ladies and other artificial flowers at a fashionable rout, of which a full and particular account will hereafter appear. For the present, my fashionable intelligence is scanty, on account of the opening of Drury Lane; and the ladies and gentlemen who honour me will not be surprised to find nothing under my usual head!!



THE THEATRE—BY THE REV. G. C. {68a} {99}



"Nil intentatum nostri liquere poetae, Nec minimum meruere decus, veetigia Graeca Ausi deserere, et celebrare domestica facta." HOR.

A PREFACE OF APOLOGIES.

If the following poem should be fortunate enough to be selected for the opening address, a few words of explanation may be deemed necessary, on my part, to avert invidious misrepresentation. The animadversion I have thought it right to make on the noise created by tuning the orchestra will, I hope, give no lasting remorse to any of the gentlemen employed in the band. It is to be desired that they would keep their instruments ready tuned, and strike off at once. This would be an accommodation to many well-meaning persons who frequent the theatre, who, not being blest with the ear of St. Cecilia, mistake the tuning for the overture, and think the latter concluded before it is begun.

- "One fiddle will Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still,"

was originally written "one hautboy will;" but, having providentially been informed, when this poem was on the point of being sent off, that there is but one hautboy in the band, I averted the storm of popular and manageria indignation from the head of its blower: as it now stands, "one fiddle" among many, the faulty individual will, I hope, escape detection. The story of the flying play-bill is calculated to expose a practice much too common, of pinning play- bills to the cushions insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all, if these lines save one play-bill only front the fate I have recorded, I shall not deem my labour ill employed. The concluding episode of Patrick Jennings glances at the boorish fashion of wearing the hat in the one-shilling gallery. Had Jennings thrust his between his feet at the commencement of the play, he might have leaned forward with impunity, and the catastrophe I relate would not have occurred. The line of handkerchiefs formed to enable him to recover his loss, is purposely so crossed in texture and materials as to mislead the reader in respect to the real owner of any one of them: for, in the statistical view of life and manners which I occasionally present, my clerical profession has taught me how extremely improper it would be, by any allusion, however slight, to give any uneasiness, however trivial, to any individual, however foolish or wicked.

G. C. {68b}



THE THEATRE



Interior of a Theatre described.—Pit gradually fills.—The Check- taker.—Pit full.—The Orchestra tuned.—One fiddle rather dilatory.- -Is reproved—and repents.—Evolutions of a Playbill.—Its final Settlement on the Spikes.—The Gods taken to task—and why.—Motley Group of Play-goers.—Holywell Street, St. Pancras.—Emanuel Jennings binds his Son apprentice—not in London—and why.—Episode of the Hat.

'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six, Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks, Touch'd by the lamplighter's Promethean art, Start into light, and make the lighter start; To see red Phoebus through the gallery-pane Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane; While gradual parties fill our widen'd pit, And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit.

At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease, Distant or near, they settle where they please; But when the multitude contracts the span, And seats are rare, they settle where they can.

Now the full benches to late-comers doom No room for standing, miscall'd STANDING-ROOM.

Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks, And bawling "Pit full!" gives the check he takes; Yet onward still the gathering numbers cram, Contending crowders shout rise frequent damn, And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, and jam.

See to their desks Apollo's sons repair - Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair In unison their various tones to tune, Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon; In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute, Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, Winds the French horn, and twangs the tingling harp; Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Attunes to order the chaotic din. Now all seems hush'd—but no, one fiddle will Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still. Foil'd in his crash, the leader of the clan Reproves with frowns the dilatory man: Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow, Nods a new signal, and away they go.

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; Till, sinking gradual, with repeated twirl, It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl, Who from his powder'd pate the intruder strikes, And, for mere malice, sticks it on the spikes.

Say, why these Babel strains from Babel tongues? Who's that calls "Silence!" with such leathern lungs? He who, in quest of quiet, "Silence!" hoots, Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes.

What various swains our motley walls contain! - Fashion from Moorfields, honour from Chick Lane; Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort, Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court; From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain, Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane; The lottery-cormorant, the auction-shark, The full-price master, and the half-price clerk; Boys who long linger at the gallery-door, With pence twice five—they want but twopence more, Till some Samaritan the twopence spares, And sends them jumping up the gallery-stairs.

Critics we boast who ne'er their malice balk, But talk their minds—we wish they'd mind their talk; Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live - Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give; Jews from St. Mary Axe, {69} for jobs so wary, That for old clothes they'd even axe St. Mary; And bucks with pockets empty as their pate, Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait; Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse With tippling tipstaves in a lock-up house.

Yet here, as elsewhere, Chance can joy bestow, Where scowling Fortune seem'd to threaten woe.

John Richard William Alexander Dwyer Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire; But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues, Emanuel Jennings polish'd Stubbs's shoes. Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy Up as a corn-cutter—a safe employ; In Holywell Street, St. Pancras, he was bred (At number twenty-seven, it is said), Facing the pump, and near the Granby's Head: 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-hair'd youth, Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth.

Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe, The Muse shall tell an accident she saw.

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat, But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat Down from the gallery the beaver flew, And spurn'd the one to settle in the two. 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, And gain his hat again at half-past eight? Now, while his fears anticipate a thief, John Mullens whispers, " Take my handkerchief." "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, Where Spitalfields with real India vies. Like Iris' bow down darts the painted clue, Starr'd, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue, Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new. George Green below, with palpitating hand, Loops the last 'kerchief to the beaver's band - Uproars the prize! The youth, with joy unfeign'd, Regain'd the felt, and felt what he regain'd; While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat Made a low bow, and touch'd the ransom'd hat.



TO THE MANAGING COMMITTEE OF THE NEW DRURY LANE THEATRE. {70}



GENTLEMEN,

Happening to be wool-gathering at the foot of Mount Parnassus, I was suddenly seized with a violent travestie in the head. The first symptoms I felt were several triple rhymes floating about my brain, accompanied by a singing in my throat, which quickly communicated itself to the ears of everybody about me, and made me a burthen to my friends and a torment to Doctor Apollo; three of whose favourite servants—that is to say, Macbeth, his butcher; Mrs. Haller, his cook; and George Barnwell, his book-keeper—I waylaid in one of my fits of insanity, and mauled after a very frightful fashion. In this woeful crisis, I accidentally heard of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, which cures every disorder incident to Grub Street. I send you inclosed a more detailed specimen of my case: if you could mould it into the shape of an address, to be said or sung on the first night of your performance, I have no doubt that I should feel the immediate effects of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, of which they tell me one hiss is a dose.

I am, &c.,

MOMUS MEDLAR.

CASE, No. I.—MACBETH.

[Enter MACBETH in a red nightcap. PAGE following with a torch.]

Go, boy, and thy good mistress tell (She knows that my purpose is cruel), I'd thank her to tingle her bell As soon as she's heated my gruel. Go, get thee to bed and repose - To sit up so late is a scandal; But ere you have ta'en off your clothes, Be sure that you put out that candle. Ri fol de rol tol de rol lol

My stars, in the air here's a knife! I'm sure it cannot be a hum; I'll catch at the handle, add's life! And then I shall not cut my thumb. I've got him!—no, at him again! Come, come, I'm not fond of these jokes; This must be some blade of the brain - Those witches are given to hoax.

I've one in my pocket, I know, My wife left on purpose behind her; She bought this of Teddy-high-ho, The poor Caledonian grinder. I see thee again! o'er thy middle Large drops of red blood now are spill'd, Just as much as to say, diddle diddle, Good Duncan, pray come and be kill'd.

It leads to his chamber, I swear; I tremble and quake every joint - No dog at the scent of a hare Ever yet made a cleverer point. Ah, no! 'twas a dagger of straw - Give me blinkers, to save me from starting; The knife that I thought that I saw Was nought but my eye, Betty Martin.

Now o'er this terrestrial hive A life paralytic is spread; For while the one half is alive, The other is sleepy and dead. King Duncan, in grand majesty, Has got my state-bed for a snooze; I've lent him my slippers, so I May certainly stand in his shoes.

Blow softly, ye murmuring gales! Ye feet, rouse no echo in walking! For though a dead man tells no tales, Dead walls are much given to talking. This knife shall be in at the death - I'll stick him, then off safely get! Cries the world, this could not be Macbeth. For he'd ne'er stick at anything yet.

Hark, hark! 'tis the signal, by goles! It sounds like a funeral knell; O, hear it hot, Duncan! it tolls To call thee to heaven or hell. Or if you to heaven won't fly, But rather prefer Pluto's ether, Only wait a few years till I die, And we'll go to the devil together. Ri fol de rol, &c.

CASE, No. II.—THE STRANGER. {71}

Who has e'er been at Drury must needs know the Stranger A wailing old Methodist, gloomy and wan, A husband suspicious—his wife acted Ranger, She took to her heels, and left poor Hypocon. Her martial gallant swore that truth was a libel, That marriage was thraldom, elopement no sin; Quoth she, I remember the words of my Bible - My spouse is a Stranger, and I'll take him in. With my sentimentalibus lachrymae roar 'em, And pathos and bathos delightful to see; And chop and change ribs, a-la-mode Germanorum, And high diddle ho diddle, pop tweedle dee.

To keep up her dignity no longer rich enough, Where was her plate?—why, 'twas laid on the shelf; Her land fuller's earth, and her great riches kitchen-stuff - Dressing the dinner instead of herself. No longer permitted in diamonds to sparkle, Now plain Mrs. Haller, of servants the dread, With a heart full of grief, and a pan full of charcoal, She lighted the company up to their bed.

Incensed at her flight, her poor Hubby in dudgeon Roam'd after his rib in a gig and a pout, Till, tired with his journey, the peevish curmudgeon Sat down and blubber'd just like a church-spout. One day, on a bench as dejected and sad he laid, Hearing a squash, he cried, Damn it, what's that? 'Twas a child of the count's, in whose service lived Adelaide, Soused in the river, and squall'd like a cat.

Having drawn his young excellence up to the bank, it Appear'd that himself was all dripping, I swear; No wonder he soon became dry as a blanket, Exposed as he was to the count's SON and HEIR. Dear Sir, quoths the count, in reward of your valour, To show that my gratitude is not mere talk, You shall eat a beefsteak with my cook, Mrs. Haller, Cut from the rump with her own knife and fork.

Behold, now the count gave the Stranger a dinner, With gunpowder-tea, which you know brings a ball, And, thin as he was, that he might not glow thinner, He made of the Stranger no stranger at all. At dinner fair Adelaide brought up a chicken - A bird that she never had met with before; But, seeing him, scream'd, and was carried off kicking, And he bang'd his nob 'gainst the opposite door.

To finish my tale without roundaboutation, Young master and missee besieged their papa; They sung a quartetto in grand blubberation - The Stranger cried Oh! Mrs. Haller cried Ah! Though pathos and sentiment largely are dealt in, I have no good moral to give in exchange; For though she, as a cook, might be given to melting, The Stranger's behaviour was certainly strange, With this sentimentalibus lachrymae roar 'em, And pathos and bathos delightful to see, And chop and change ribs, a-la-mode Germanorum, And high diddle ho diddle, pop tweedle dee.

CASE, No. III.—GEORGE BARNWELL. {72}

George Barnwell stood at the shop-door, A customer hoping to find, sir; His apron was hanging before, But the tail of his coat was behind, sir. A lady, so painted and smart, Cried, Sir, I've exhausted my stock o' late; I've got nothing left but a groat - Could you give me four penn'orth of chocolate? Rum ti, &c.

Her face was rouged up to the eyes, Which made her look prouder and prouder; His hair stood on end with surprise, And hers with pomatum and powder. The business was soon understood; The lady, who wish'd to be more rich, Cries, Sweet sir, my name is Milwood, And I lodge at the Gunner's in Shoreditch. Rum ti, &c.

Now nightly he stole out, good lack! And into her lodging would pop, sir; And often forgot to come back, Leaving master to shut up the shop, sir. Her beauty his wits did bereave - Determined to be quite the crack O, He lounged at the Adam and Eve, And call'd for his gin and tobacco. Rum ti, &c.

And now—for the truth must be told, Though none of a 'prentice should speak ill - He stole from the till all the gold, And ate the lump-sugar and treacle. In vain did his master exclaim, Dear George, don't engage with that dragon; She'll lead you to sorrow and shame, And leave you the devil a rag on. Your rum ti, &c.

In vain he entreats and implores The weak and incurable ninny, So kicks him at last out of doors, And Georgy soon spends his last guinea. His uncle, whose generous purse Had often relieved him, as I know, Now finding him grow worse and worse, Refused to come down with the rhino. Rum ti, &c.

Cried Milwood, whose cruel heart's core Was so flinty that nothing could shock it, If ye mean to come here any more, Pray come with more cash in your pocket: Make Nunky surrender his dibs, Rub his pate with a pair of lead towels, Or stick a knife into his ribs - I'll warrant he'll then show some bowels. Rum ti, &c.

A pistol he got from his love - 'Twas loaded with powder and bullet; He trudged off to Camberwell Grove, But wanted the courage to pull it. There's Nunky as fat as a hog, While I am as lean as a lizard; Here's at you, you stingy old dog! - And he whips a long knife in his gizzard. Rum ti, &c.

All you who attend to my song, A terrible end of the farce shall see, If you join the inquisitive throng That follow'd poor George to the Marshalsea. If Milwood were here, dash my wigs, Quoth he, I would pummel and lam her well; Had I stuck to my prunes and figs, I ne'er had stuck Nunky at Camberwell. Rum ti, &c.

Their bodies were never cut down; For granny relates with amazement, A witch bore 'em over the town, And hung them on Thorowgood's casement, The neighbours, I've heard the folks say, The miracle noisily brag on; And the shop is, to this very day, The sign of the George and the Dragon, Rum ti, &c.



PUNCH'S APOTHEOSIS—BY T. H. {73} {99}



"Rhymes the rudders are of verses, With which, like ships, they steer their courses." HUDIBRAS.

Scene draws, and discovers PUNCH on a throne, surrounded by LEAR, LADY MACBETH, MACBETH, OTHELLO, GEORGE BARNWELL, HAMLET, GHOST, MACHEATH, JULIET, FRAIR, APOTHECARY, ROMEO, and FALSTAFF.—PUNCH descends and addresses them in the following

RECITATIVE.

As manager of horses Mr. Merryman is, So I with you am master of the ceremonies - These grand rejoicings. Let me see, how name ye 'em? - Oh, in Greek lingo 'tis E-pi-thalamium. October's tenth it is: toss up each hat to-day, And celebrate with shouts our opening Saturday!

On this great night 'tis settled by our manager, That we, to please great Johnny Bull, should plan a jeer, Dance a bang-up theatrical cotillion, And put on tuneful Pegasus a pillion; That every soul, whether or not a cough he has, May kick like Harlequin, and sing like Orpheus. So come, ye pupils of Sir John Gallini, {74} Spin up a tetotum like Angiolini: {75} That John and Mrs. Bull, from ale and tea-houses, May shout huzza for Punch's Apotheosis!

They dance and sing.

AIR, "Sure such a day."—TOM THUMB.

LEAR.

Dance, Regan! dance, with Cordelia and Goneril - Down the middle, up again, poussette, and cross; Stop, Cordelia! do not tread upon her heel, Regan feeds on coltsfoot, and kicks like a horse. See, she twists her mutton fists like Molyneux or Beelzebub, And t'other's clack, who pats her back, is louder far than hell's hubbub. They tweak my nose, and round it goes—I fear they'll break the ridge of it, Or leave it all just like Vauxhall, with only half the bridge of it. {76}

OMNES.

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza! huzza!

LADY MACBETH.

I kill'd the king; my husband is a heavy dunce; He left the grooms unmassacred, then massacred the stud. One loves long gloves; for mittens, like king's evidence, Let truth with the fingers out, and won't hide blood.

MACBETH.

When spoonys on two knees implore the aid of sorcery, To suit their wicked purposes they quickly put the laws awry; With Adam I in wife may vie, for none could tell the use of her, Except to cheapen golden pippins hawk'd about by Lucifer.

OMNES.

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza! huzza!

OTHELLO.

Wife, come to life, forgive what your black lover did, Spit the feathers from your mouth, and munch roast beef; Iago he may go and be toss'd in the coverlet That smother'd you, because you pawn'd my handkerchief.

GEORGE BARNWELL.

Why, neger, so eager about your rib immaculate? Milwood shows for hanging us they've got an ugly knack o' late; If on beauty 'stead of duty but one peeper bent he sees, Satan waits with Dolly baits to hook in us apprentices.

OMNES.

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza! huzza!

HAMLET.

I'm Hamlet in camlet; my ap and peri-helia The moon can fix, which lunatics makes sharp or flat. I stuck by ill luck, enamour'd of Ophelia, Old Polony like a sausage, and exclaim'd, "Rat, rat!"

GHOST.

Let Gertrude sup the poison'd cup—no more I'll be an actor in Such sorry food, but drink home-brew'd of Whitbread's manufacturing.

MACHEATH.

I'll Polly it, and folly it, and dance it quite the dandy O; But as for tunes, I have but one, and that is Drops of Brandy O.

OMNES.

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza! huzza!

JULIET.

I'm Juliet Capulet, who took a dose of hellebore - A hell-of-a-bore I found it to put on a pall.

FRIAR.

And I am the friar, who so corpulent a belly bore.

APOTHECARY.

And that is why poor skinny I have none at all.

ROMEO.

I'm the resurrection-man, of buried bodies amorous.

FALSTAFF.

I'm fagg'd to death, and out of breath, and am for quiet clamorous; For though my paunch is round and stanch, I ne'er begin to feel it ere I Feel that I have no stomach left for entertainment military.

OMNES.

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza! huzza!

[Exeunt dancing.



Footnotes:

{0} "We have no conjectures to offer as to the anonymous author of this amusing little volume. He who is such a master of disguises may easily be supposed to have been successful in concealing himself, and, with the power of assuming so many styles, is not likely to be detected by his own. We should guess, however, that he had not written a great deal in his own character—that his natural style was neither very lofty nor very grave—and that he rather indulges a partiality for puns and verbal pleasantries. We marvel why he has shut out Campbell and Rogers from his theatre of living poets, and confidently expect to have our curiosity, in this and in all other particulars, very speedily gratified, when the applause of the country shall induce him to take off his mask."

LORD JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review for Nov. 1812.

{1} 12mo., 1833. The first published by Mr. Murray. The "Preface" was written by Horace Smith; the "Notes" to the Poems by James Smith.

{2} Samuel Whitbread, M.P. He died by his own hand in 1815.

{3} This was Horatio, the writer of the present Preface. The envelope which enclosed his Address to the Committee was sold with two volumes of the original Addresses at Mr. Winston's sale, Dec. 14, 1849, and was inscribed inside "Horatio Smith, 36, Basinghall Street."

{4} The passage, as originally written, continued thus: "and among others, so difficult is it to form a correct judgment in catering to the public taste, by the very bibliopolist who has now, after an interval of twenty [ONLY seven] years, purchased the copyright from a brother bookseller, and ventured upon the present edition." To this, on the proof-sheet, the late Mr. Murray appended the following note:- "I never saw or even had the MS. in my possession; but knowing that Mr. Smith was brother-in-law to Mr. Cadell, I took it for granted that the MS. had been previously offered to him and declined." Mr. H. Smith consequently drew his pen through the passage.

{5} Between 1807 and 1810. The Monthly Mirror was edited by Edward Du Bois, author of "My Pocket-Book," and by Thomas Hill; the original Paul Pry; and the Hull of Mr. Theodore Hook's novel of "Gilbert Gurney."

{6} Miss Lydia White, celebrated for her lively wit and for her blue-stocking parties, unrivalled, it is said, in "the soft realm of BLUE May Fair." She died in 1827, and is mentioned in the diaries of Scott and Byron.

{7} See note on "The Beautiful Incendiary," p. 56.

{7a} "The first piece, under the name of the loyal Mr. Fitzgerald, though as good we suppose as the original, is not very interesting. Whether it be very like Mr. Fitzgerald or not, however, it must be allowed that the vulgarity, servility, and gross absurdity of the newspaper scribblers is well rendered."—JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

WILLIAM THOMAS FITZGERALD.—The annotator's first personal knowledge of this gentleman was at Harry Greville's Pic-Nic Theatre, in Tottenham-street, where he personated Zanga in a wig too small for his head. The second time of seeing him was at the table of old Lord Dudley, who familiarly called him Fitz, but forgot to name him in his will. The Viscount's son (recently deceased), however, liberally supplied the omission by a donation of five thousand pounds. The third and last time of encountering him was at an anniversary dinner of the Literary Fund, at the Freemasons' Tavern. Both parties, as two of the stewards, met their brethren in a small room about half an hour before dinner. The lampooner, out of delicacy, kept aloof from the poet. The latter, however, made up to him, when the following dialogue took place:

Fitzgerald (with good humour). "Mr.—, I mean to recite after dinner."

Mr. -. "Do you?"

Fitzgerald. "Yes: you'll have more of 'God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!'"

The whole of this imitation, after a lapse of twenty years, appears to the Authors too personal and sarcastic; but they may shelter themselves under a very broad mantle:

"Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawl His creaking couplets in a tavern-hall."—Byron.

Fitzgerald actually sent in an address to the Committee on the 31st of August, 1812. It was published among the other Genuine Rejected Addresses, in one volume, in that year. The following is an extract:-

"The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near, Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear."

What a pity that, like Sterne's recording angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver's remedy?

{8} Mr. B. Wyatt, architect of Drury Lane Theatre, son of James Wyatt, architect of the Pantheon.

{9} In plain English, the Halfpenny hatch, then a footway through fields; but now, as the same bards sing elsewhere -

"St. George's Fields are fields no more, The trowel supersedes the plough; Swamps huge and inundate of yore, Are changed to civic villas now."

{10} Covent Garden Theatre was burnt down 20th September, 1808; Drury Lane Theatre (as before stated) 24th February, 1809.

{11} The east end of St. James's Palace was destroyed by fire, 21 Jan., 1809. The wardrobe of Lady Charlotte Finch (alluded to in the next line) was burnt in the fire.

{12} Honourable William Wellesley Pole, now (1854) Earl of Mornington, married, 14th March, 1812, Catherine, daughter and heir of Sir James Tylney Long, Bart; upon which occasion he assumed the additional names of Tylney and Long.

{13} "The author does not, in this instance, attempt to copy any of the higher attributes of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry; but has succeeded perfectly in the imitation of his mawkish affectations of childish simplicity and nursery stammering. We hope it will make him ashamed of his Alice Fell, and the greater part of his last volumes—of which it is by no means a parody, but a very fair, and indeed we think a flattering, imitation."—JEFFERY, Edinburgh Review.

{14} Jack and Nancy, as it was afterwards remarked to the Authors, are here made to come into the world at periods not sufficiently remote. The writers were then bachelors. One of them [James], unfortunately, still continues so, as he has thus recorded in his niece's album:

"Should I seek Hymen's tie, As a poet I die - Ye Benedicks, mourn my distresses! For what little fame Is annexed to my name Is derived from Rejected Addresses."

The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations: they sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by Bishop or Braham, introduced in Love in a Village.

{15} This alludes to the Young Betty mania. The writer was in the stage-box at the height of this young gentleman's popularity. One of the other occupants offered, in a loud voice, to prove that Young Betty did not understand Shakespeare. "Silence!" was the cry; but he still proceeded. "Turn him out!" was the next ejaculation. He still vociferated. "He does not understand Shakespeare;" and was consequently shouldered into the lobby. "I'll prove it to you," said the critic to the doorkeeper. "Prove what, sir?" "That he does not understand Shakespeare." This was Moliere's housemaid with a vengeance.

Young Betty may now [1833] be seen walking about town—a portly personage, aged about forty—clad in a furred and frogged surtout; probably muttering to himself (as he has been at college), "O mihi praeteritos!" &c. [He is still alive, 1854. Master Betty, or the "Young Roscius," was born in 1791, and made his first appearance on a London stage as Achmet in "Barbarossa," at Covent Garden Theatre, on the lst of December, 1804. He was, therefore, "not quite thirteen." He lasted two seasons.]

{16} A "Phoenix" was perhaps excusable. The first theatre in Drury Lane was called "The Cock-pit or Phoenix Theatre." Whitbread himself wrote an address, it is said, for the occasion; like the others, it had of course a Phoenix. "But Whitbread," said Sheridan, "made more of the bird than any of them; he entered into particulars, and described its wings, beak, tail, &c.; in short, it was a POULTERER'S description of a Phoenix."

{17} For an account of this anonymous gentleman, see Preface, xiii.

{18} "The author has succeeded better in copying the melody and misanthropic sentiments of Childe Harold, than the nervous and impetuous diction in which his noble biographer has embodied them. The attempt, however, indicates very considerable power; and the flow of the verse and the construction of the poetical period are imitated with no ordinary skill."—JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{19} This would seem to show that poet and prophet are synonymous, the noble bard having afterwards returned to England, and again quitted it, under domestic circumstances painfully notorious. His good-humoured forgiveness of the Authors has already been alluded to in the Preface. Nothing of this illustrious poet, however trivial, can be otherwise than interesting. "We know him well." At Mr. Murray's dinner-table the annotator met him and Sir John Malcolm. Lord Byron talked of intending to travel in Persia. "What must I do when I set off?" said he to Sir John. "Cut off your buttons!" "My buttons! what, these metal ones!" "Yes; the Persians are in the main very honest fellows; but if you go thus bedizened, you will infallibly be murdered for your buttons!" At a dinner at Monk Lewis's chambers in the Albany, Lord Byron expressed to the writer his determination not to go there again, adding, "I never will dine with a middle-aged man who fills up his table with young ensigns, and has looking-glass panels to his book-cases." Lord Byron, when one of the Drury-lane Committee of Management, challenged the writer to sing alternately (like the swains in Virgil) the praises of Mrs. Mardyn, the actress, who, by-the-bye, was hissed off the stage for an imputed intimacy of which she was quite innocent.

The contest ran as fellows:

"Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre, Pour forth your amorous ditty, But first profound, in duly bound, Applaud the new Committee; Their scenic art from Thespis' cart All jaded nags discarding, To London drove this queen of love, Enchanting Mrs. Mardyn.

Though tides of love around her rove, I fear she'll choose Pactolus - In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge. So I must e'en swim solus. 'Out, out, alas!' ill-fated gas, That shin'st round Covent Garden, Thy ray how flat, compared with that From eye of Mrs. Mardyn!"

And so on. The reader has, no doubt, already discovered "which is the justice, and which is the thief."

Lord Byron at that time wore a very narrow cravat of white sarsnet, with the shirt-collar falling over it; a black coat and waist-coat, and very broad white trousers to hide his lame foot—these were of Russia duck in the morning, and jean in the evening. His watch-chain had a number of small gold seals appended to it, and was looped up to a button of his waistcoat. His face was void of colour; he wore no whiskers. His eyes were grey, fringed with long black lashes; and his air was imposing, but rather supercilious. He under-valued David Hume; denying his claim to genius on account of his bulk, and calling him, from the Heroic Epistle,

"The fattest hog in Epicurus' sly.'

One of this extraordinary man's allegations was, that "fat is an oily dropsy." To stave off its visitation, he frequently chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. "Pass your hand down my side," said his Lordship to the writer; "can you count my ribs?" "Every one of them." "I am delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady -; 'Ah, Lord Byron,' said she, 'how fat you grow!' But you know Lady — is fond of saying spiteful timings!" Let this gossip be summed up with the words of Lord Chesterfield, in his character of Bolingbroke: "Upon the whole, on a survey of this extraordinary character, what can we say, but 'Alas, poor human nature!'"

His favourite Pope's description of man is applicable to Byron individually:

"Chaos of thought and passion all confused, Still by himself abused or disabused; Created part to rise and part to fall, Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled - The glory, jest, and riddle of the world."

The writer never heard him allude to his deformed foot except upon one occasion, when, entering the green-room of Drury-lane, he found Lord Byron alone, the younger Byrne and Miss Smith the dancer having just left him, after an angry conference about a pas suel. "Had you been here a minute sooner," said Lord B., "you would have heard a question about dancing referred to me:- me! (looking mournfully downward) whom fate from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step."

{20} The first stanza (see Preface) was written by James Smith; the remainder by Horace.

{21} See Note, p. 8. ({15})

{22} "Holland's edifice." The late theatre was built by Holland the architect. The writer visited it on the night of its opening [April 21, 1794]. The performances were Macbeth and the Virgin Unmasked. Between the play and the farce, an excellent epilogue, written by George Colman, was excellently spoken by Miss Farren. It referred to the iron curtain which was, in the event of fire, to be let down between the stage and the audience, and which accordingly descended, by way of experiment, leaving Miss Farren between the lamps and the curtain. The fair speaker informed the audience, that should the fire break out on the stage (where it usually originates), it would thus be kept from the spectators; adding, with great solemnity -

"No! we assure our generous benefactors 'Twill only burn the scenery and the actors!"

A tank of water was afterwards exhibited, in the course of the epilogue, in which a wherry was rowed by a real live man, the band playing -

"And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman?"

Miss Farren reciting -

"Sit still, there's nothing in it, We'll undertake to drown you in a single minute."

"O vain thought!" as Othello says. Notwithstanding the boast in the epilogue -

"Blow, wind—come, rack, in ages yet unborn, Our castle's strength shall laugh a siege to scorn" -

the theatre fell a victim to the flames within fifteen years from the prognostic! These preparations against fire always presuppose presence of mind and promptness in those who are to put them into action. They remind one of the dialogue, in Morton's Speed the Plough, between Sir Able Handy and his son Bob:

"Bob. Zounds, the castle's on fire! Sir A. Yes. Bob. Where's your patent liquid for extinguishing fire? Sir A. It is not mixed. Bob. Then where's your patent fire-escape? Sir A. It is not fixed. Bob. You are never at a loss? Sir A. Never. Bob. Then what do you mean to do? Sir A. I don't know."

{23} A rather obscure mode of expression for JEWS'-harp; which some etymologists allege, by the way, to be a corruption of JAWS'-harp. No connection, therefore, with King David.

{24} The Weekly Register, which he kept up without the failure of a single week from its first publication till his death—a period of above thirty-three years.

{25} Bagshaw. At that time the publisher or Cobbett's Register.

{26} The old Lyceum Theatre, pulled down by Mr. Arnold. That since destroyed by fire [16th Feb., 1830] was erected on its site. [The Drury Lane Company performed at the Lyceum till the house was rebuilt.]

{27} The present colonnade in Little Russell Street formed no part of the original design, and was erected only a few years back.

{28} An allusion to a murder then recently committed on Barnes Terrace. [The murder (22nd July, 1812) of the Count and Countess D'Antraigues (distantly related to the Bourbons), by a servant out of livery of the name of Laurence—an Italian or Piedmontese, who made away with himself immediately after.]

{29} At that time keeper of Newgate. The present superintendent (1833) is styled Governor!

{30} A portentous one that made its appearance in the year 1811; in the midst of the war,

"with fear of change Perplexing nations."

{31} "The Living Lustres appears to us a very fair imitation of the fantastic verses which that ingenious person, Mr. Moore, indites when he is merely gallant, and, resisting the lures of voluptuousness, is not enough in earnest to be tender." —JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{32} This alludes to two massive pillars of verd antique which then flanked the proscenium, but which have since been removed. Their colour reminds the bard of the Emerald Isle, and this causes him (more suo) to fly off at a tangent, and Hibernicise the rest of the poem.

{33} "The Rebuilding is in the name of Mr. Southey, and is one of the best in the collection. It is in the style of the Kehama of that multifarious author, and is supposed to be spoken in the character of one of his Glendoveers. The imitation of the diction and measure, we think, is nearly almost perfect; and the descriptions as good as the original. It opens with an account of the burning of the old theatre, formed upon the pattern of the Funeral of Arvalan."— JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{34} For the Glendoveer, and the rest of the dramatis persona of this imitation, the reader is referred to the "Curse of Kehama."

{35} "Midnight, and yet no eye Through all the Imperial City closed in sleep." SOUTHEY.

{36} This couplet was introduced by the Authors by way of bravado, in answer to one who alleged that the English language contained no rhyme to chimney.

{37} Apollo. A gigantic wooden figure of this deity was erected on the roof. The writer (horrescit referens!) is old enough to recollect the time when it was first placed there. Old Bishop, then one of the masters of Merchant Tailors' School, wrote an epigram upon the occasion, which, referring to the aforesaid figure, concluded thus:

"Above he fills up Shakespeare's place. And Shakespeare fills up his below."

Very antithetical; but quaere as to the meaning? The writer, like Pluto, "long puzzled his brain" to find it out, till he was immersed "in a lower deep" by hearing Madame de Stael say, at the table of the late Lord Dillon, "Buonaparte is not a man, but a system." Inquiry was made in the course of the evening of Sir James Mackintosh as to what the lady meant? He answered, "Mass! I cannot tell." Madame de Stael repeats this apophthegm in her work on Germany. It is probably understood THERE.

{38} O. P. This personage, who is alleged to have growled like a bull-dog, requires rather a lengthened note, for the edification of the rising generation. The "horns, rattles, drums," with which he is accompanied, are no inventions of the poet. The new Covent Garden Theatre opened on the 18th Sept., 1809, when a cry of "Old Prices" (afterwards diminished to O. P.) burst out from every part of the house. This continued and increased in violence till the 23rd, when rattles, drums, whistles, and cat-calls having completely drowned the voices of the actors, Mr. Kemble, the stage-manager, came forward and said that a committee of gentlemen had undertaken to examine the finances of the concern, and that until they were prepared with their report the theatre would continue closed. "Name them!" was shouted from all sides. The names were declared, viz., Sir Charles Price, the Solicitor-General, the Recorder of London, the Governor of the Bank, and Mr. Angerstein. "All shareholders!" bawled a wag from the gallery. In a few days the theatre re-opened: the public paid no attention to the report of the referees, and the tumult was renewed for several weeks with even increased violence. The proprietors now sent in hired bruisers, to MILL the refractory into subjection. This irritated most of their former friends, and, amongst the root, the annotator, who accordingly wrote the song of "Heigh-ho, says Kemble," which was caught up by the ballad-singers, and sung under Mr. Kemble's house-windows in Great Russell-street. A dinner was given at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand, to celebrate the victory obtained by W. Clifford in his action against Brandon the box-keeper, for assaulting him for wearing the letters O. P. in his hat. At this dinner Mr. Kemble attended, and matters were compromised by allowing the advanced price (seven shillings) to the boxes. The writer remembers a former riot of a similar sort at the same theatre (in the year 1792), when the price to the boxes was raised from five shillings to six. That tumult, however, only lasted three nights.

{39} "From the knobb'd bludgeon to the taper switch." This image is not the creation of the poets: it sprang from reality. The Authors happened to be at the Royal Circus when "God save the King" was called for, accompanied by a cry of "Stand up!" and "Hats off!" An inebriated naval lieutenant, perceiving a gentleman in an adjoining box slow to obey the call, struck his hat off with his stick, exclaiming, "Take off your hat, sir!" The other thus assaulted proved to be, unluckily for the lieutenant, Lord Camelford, the celebrated bruiser and duellist. A set-to in the lobby was the consequence, where his lordship quickly proved victorious. "The devil is not so black as he is painted," said one of the Authors to the other; "let us call upon Lord Camelford, and tell him that we were witnesses of his being first assaulted." The visit was paid on the ensuing morning at Lord Camelford's lodgings, in Bond-street. Over the fire place in the drawing-room were ornaments strongly expressive of the pugnacity of the peer. A long thick bludgeon lay horizontally supported by two brass hooks. Above this was placed parallel one of lesser dimensions, until a pyramid of weapons gradually arose, tapering to a horsewhip:

"Thus all below was strength, and all above was grace."

Lord Camelford received his visitants with great civility, and thanked them warmly for the call; adding, that their evidence would be material, it being his intention to indict the lieutenant for an assault. "All I can say in return is this," exclaimed the peer with great cordiality, "if ever I see you engaged in a row, upon my soul I'll stand by you." The Authors expressed themselves thankful for so potent an ally, and departed. In about a fortnight afterwards [March 7, 1804] Lord Camelford was shot in a duel with Mr. Best.

{40} Veeshnoo. The late Mr. Whitbread.

{41} Levy. An insolvent Israelite who [18th January, 1810] threw himself from the top of the Monument a short time before. An inhabitant of Monument-yard informed the writer that he happened to be standing at his door talking to a neighbour, and looking up at the top of the pillar, exclaimed, "Why, here's the flag coming down." "Flag!" answered the other, "it's a man." The words were hardly uttered when the suicide fell within ten feet of the speakers.

{42} "'Drury's Dirge,' by Laura Matilda, is not of the first quality. The verses, to be sure, are very smooth, and very nonsensical—as was intended; but they are not so good as Swift's celebrated Song by a Person of Quality; and are so exactly in the same measure, and on the same plan, that it is impossible to avoid making the comparison.—JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{43} The Authors, as in gallantry bound, wish this lady to continue anonymous.

{44} From the parody of Walter Scott we know not what to select—it is all good. The effect of the fire on the town, and the description of a fireman in his official apparel, may be quoted as amusing specimens of the MISAPPLICATION of the style and metre of Mr. Scott's admirable romances.—Quarterly Review.

"'A Tale of Drury,' by Walter Scott, is, upon the whole, admirably executed; though the introduction is rather tame. The burning is described with the mighty minstrel's characteristic love of localities . . . The catastrophe is described with a spirit not unworthy of the name so venturously assumed by the describer."— JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

"Thus he went on, stringing one extravagance upon another, in the style his books of chivalry had taught him, and imitating, as neat as he could, their very phrase."—DON QUIXOTE. {44a}

{44a} Sir Walter Scott informed the annotator, that at one time he intended to print his collected works, and had pitched upon this identical quotation as a motto;—a proof that sometimes great wits jump with little ones.

{45} Alluding to the then great distance between the picture-frame, in which the green curtain was set, and the band. For a justification of this, see below—"DR. JOHNSON."

{46} The old name for London:

For poets you can never want 'em Spread through Augusta Trinobantum—SWIFT.

Thomson in his "Seasons" calls it "huge Augusta."

{47} Old Bedlam, at that time, stood "close by London Wall." It was built after the model of the Tuileries, which is said to have given the French king great offence. In front of it Moorfields extended, with broad gravel walks crossing each other at right angles. These the writer well recollects; and Rivaz, an underwriter at Lloyd's, his told him that he remembered when the merchants of London would parade these walks on a summer evening with their wives and daughters. But now, as a punning brother bard sings, -

"Moorfields are fields no more."

{48} A narrow passage immediately adjoining Drury Lane Theatre, and so called from the vineyard attached to Covent or Convent Garden.

{49} The Hand-in-Hand Insurance Office was one of the very first insurance offices established in London. To make the engineer of the office thus early in the race is a piece of historical accuracy intended it is said, on the part of the writer.

{50} Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on! Were the last words of Marmion.

{51} Whitbread's shears. An economical experiment of that gentleman. The present portico, towards Brydges-street, was afterwards erected under the lesseeship of Elliston, whose portrait in the Exhibition was thus noticed in the Examiner "Portrait of the great Lessee, in his favourite character of Mr. Elliston."

{52} "Samuel Johnson is not so good: the measure and solemnity of his sentences, in all the limited variety of their structure, are indeed imitated with singular skill; but the diction is caricatured in a vulgar and unpleasing degree. To make Johnson call a doer 'a ligneous barricado,' and its knocker and bell its 'frappant and tintinnabulant appendages,' is neither just nor humorous; and we are surprised that a writer who has given such extraordinary proofs of his talent for finer ridicule and fairer imitation, should have stooped to a vein of pleasantry so low, and so long ago exhausted; especially as, in other passages of the same piece, he has shown how well qualified he was both to catch and to render the true characteristics of his original. The beginning, for example, we think excellent."—JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{53} The celebrated Lord Chesterfield, whose Letters to his Son, according to Dr. Johnson, inculcate "the manners of a dancing-master and the morals of a—," &c.

{54} Lord Mayor of the theatric sky. This alludes to Leigh Hunt, who, in The Examiner, at this time kept the actors in hot water. Dr. Johnson's argument is, like many of his other arguments, specious, but untenable; that which it defends has since been abandoned as impracticable. Mr. Whitbread contended that the actor was like a portrait in a picture, and accordingly placed the green curtain in a gilded frame remote from the foot-lights; alleging that no performer should mar the illusion by stepping out of the frame. Dowton was the first actor who, like Manfred's ancestor in the Castle of Otranto, took the liberty of abandoning the canon. "Don't tell me of frames and pictures," ejaculated the testy comedian; "if I can't be heard by the audience in the frame, I'll walk out of it!" The proscenium has since been new-modelled, and the actors thereby brought nearer to the audience.

{55} "'The Beautiful Incendiary,' by the Honourable W. Spencer, is also an imitation of great merit. The flashy, fashionable, artificial style of this writer, with his confident and extravagant compliments, can scarcely be said to be parodied in such lines."— JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{56} Sobriety, &c. The good-humour of the poet upon occasion of this parody has been noticed in the Preface. "It's all very well for once," said he afterwards, in comic confidence, at his villa at Petersham, "but don't do it again. I had been almost forgotten when you revived me; and now all the newspapers and reviews ring with this fashionable, trashy author.'" The sand and "filings of glass," mentioned in the last stanza, are referable to the well-known verses of the poet apologising to a lady for having paid an unconscionably long morning visit; and where, alluding to Time, he says -

"All his sands are diamond sparks, That glitter as they pass."

Few men in society have more "gladdened life" than this poet. He now [1833] resides in Paris, and may thence make the grand tour without an interpreter—speaking, as he does, French, Italian, and German, as fluently as English.

{56} 10th of October, 1812, the day of opening.

{57} Congreve's plug. The late Sir William Congreve had made a model of Drury Lane Theatre, to which was affixed an engine that, in event of fire, was made to play from the stage into every box in the house. The writer, accompanied by Theodore Hook, went to see the model at Sir William's house in Cecil-street. "Now I'll duck Whitbread!" said Hook, seizing the water-pipe whilst he spoke, and sending a torrent of water into the brewer's box.

{58} See Byron, afterwards, its Don Juan:-

"For flesh is grass, which Time mows down to hay."

But as Johnson says of Dryden, "His known wealth was so great, he might borrow without any impeachment of his credit."

{58a} "'Fire and Ale,' by M. G. Lewis, exhibits not only a faithful copy of the spirited, loose, and flowing versification of that singular author, but a very just representation of that mixture of extravagance and jocularity which has impressed most of his writings with the character of a sort of farcical horror."—JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS, commonly called MONK Lewis, from his once popular romance of that name, was a good-hearted man, and, like too many of that fraternity, a disagreeable one—verbose, disputatious and paradoxical. His Monk and Castle Spectre elevated him into fame; and he continued to write ghost-stories till, following as he did in the wake of Mrs. Radcliffe, he quite overstocked the market. Lewis visited his estates in Jamaica, and came back perfectly negro-bitten. He promulgated a new code of laws in the island, for the government of his sable subjects: one may serve for a specimen: "Any slave who commits murder shall have his heed shaved, and be confined three days and nights in a dark room." Upon occasion of printing these parodies, Monk Lewis said to Lady H[olland], "Many of them are very fair, but mine is not at all like; they have made me write burlesque, which I never do" "You don't know your own talent," answered the lady.

Lewis aptly described himself, as to externals, in the verses affixed to his Monk, as having

"A graceless form and dwarfish stature"

He had, moreover, large grey eyes, thick features, and an inexpressive countenance. In talking, he had a disagreeable habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his tight eye-lid. He affected, in conversation, a sort of dandified, drawling tone: young Harlowe, the artist, did the same. A foreigner who had but slight knowledge of the English language might have concluded, from their cadences, that they were little better than fools—"just a born goose," as Terry the actor used to say. Lewis died on his passage homeward from Jamaica, owing to a dose of James's powders injudiciously administered by "his own mere motion." He wrote various plays, with various success, he had admirable notions of dramatic construction, but the goodness of his scenes and incidents was marred by the badness of his dialogue.

{59} Mr. Coleridge will not, we fear, be as much entertained as we were with his 'Playhouse Musings,' which begin with characteristic pathos and simplicity, and put us much in mind of the affecting story of old Poulter's mare."—Quarterly Review.

"'Playhouse Musings,' by Mr. Coleridge, a piece which is unquestionably Lakish, though we cannot say that we recognise in it any of the peculiar traits of that powerful and misdirected genius whose name it has borrowed. We rather think, however, that the tuneful brotherhood will consider it as a respectable eclogue."— JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{60} "He of Blackfriars' Road," viz. the late Rev. Rowland Hill, who is said to have preached a sermon congratulating his congregation on the catastrophe. [See before:-

Meux's new brewhouse shows the light, Rowland Hill's Chapel, and the height Where Patent Shot they sell.]

{61} "Oh, Mr. Whitbread!" Sir William Grant, then Master of the Rolls, repeated this passage aloud at a Lord Mayor's dinner, to the no small astonishment of the writer, who happened to sit within ear- shot.

{62} "Padmanaba," viz., in a pantomime called Harlequin in Padmanaba. This elephant [Chunee], some years afterwards, was exhibited over Exeter 'Change, where, the reader will remember, it was found necessary [March, 1826] to destroy the poor animal by discharges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the pantomime above mentioned, Johnson, the machinist of the rival house, exclaimed, "I should be very sorry if I could not make a better elephant than that!" Johnson was right: we go to the theatre to be pleased with the skill of the imitator, and not to look at the reality.

{63} "'A New Halfpenny Ballad,' by a Pic-Nic Poet, is a good imitation of what was not worth imitating—that tremendous mixture of vulgarity, nonsense, impudence, and miserable puns, which, under the name of humorous songs, rouses our polite audiences to a far higher pitch of rapture than Garrick or Siddons ever was able to inspire."— JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{64} Mr. Whitbread—it need hardly be added for the present generation of Londoners—was a celebrated brewer. Fifty years hence, and the allusion in the text may require a note which, perhaps even now (1854), is scarcely out of place.

{65} "Winsor's patent gas"—at that time in its infancy. The first place illumined by it was [Jan. 28, 1807] the Carlton-house side of Pall Mall; the second, Bishopsgate Street. The writer attended a lecture given by the inventor: the charge of admittance was three shillings, but, as the inventor was about to apply to parliament, members of both houses were admitted gratis. The writer and a fellow-jester assumed the parts of senators at a short notice. "Members of parliament!" was their important ejaculation at the door of entrance. "What places, gentlemen?" "Old Sarum and Bridgewater." "Walk in, gentlemen." Luckily, the real Simon Pures did not attend. This Pall Mall illumination was further noticed in Horace in London:-

"And Winsor lights, with flame of gas. Home, to King's Place, his mother.

{66} "Ticket-nights." This phrase is probably unintelligible to the untheatrical portion of the community, which may now be said to be all the world except the actors. Ticket-nights are those whereon the inferior actors club for a benefit: each distributes as many tickets of admission as he is able among his friends. A motley assemblage is the consequence; and as each actor is encouraged by his own set, who are not in general play-going people, the applause comes (as Chesterfield says of Pope's attempts at wit) "generally unseasonably, and too often unsuccessfully."

{67} Originally:- "Back to the BOTTOM LEAPING WITH A BOUND," altered 1833.

{68} "This journal was, at the period in question, rather remarkable for the use of the figure called by the rhetoricians catachresis. The Bard of Avon may be quoted in justification of its adoption, when he writes of taking arms against a sea, and seeking a bubble in the mouth of a cannon. The Morning Post, in the year 1812, congratulated its readers upon having stripped off Cobbett's mask and discovered his cloven foot; adding, that it was high time to give the hydra-head of Faction a rap on the knuckles!"

{68a} The Rev. George Crabbe.—The writer's first interview with this poet, who may be designated Pope in worsted stockings, took place at William Spencer's villa at Petersham, close to what that gentleman called his gold-fish pond, though it was scarcely three feet in diameter, throwing up a jet d'eau like a thread. The venerable bard, seizing both the hands of his satirist exclaimed with a good-humoured laugh, "Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?" In the course of conversation, he expressed great astonishment at his popularity in London; adding, "In my own village they think nothing of me." The subject happening to be the inroads of time upon beauty, the writer quoted the following lines:-

"Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six, When Time began to play his usual tricks: My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight, Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white; Gradual each day I liked my horses less, My dinner more—I learnt to play at chess."

"That's very good!" cried the bard;—"whose to it?" "Your own." "Indeed! hah! well, I had quite forgotten it." Was this affectation, or was it not? In sooth, he seemed to push simplicity to puerility. This imitation contained in manuscript the following lines, after describing certain Sunday newspaper critics who were supposed to be present at a new play, and who were rather heated in their politics:-

"Hard is the task who edits—thankless job! - A Sunday journal for the factious mob With bitter paragraph and caustic jest, He gives to turbulence the day of rest; Condemn'd, this week, rash rancour to instil, Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will: Alike undone or if he praise or rail (For this affects his safety, that his sale), He sinks at last, in luckless limbo set, If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt."

They were, however, never printed; being, on reflection, considered too serious for the occasion.

It is not a little extraordinary that Crabbe, who could write with such rigour, should descend to such lines as the following:-

"Something bad happen'd wrong about a bill Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill, So, to amend it, I was told to go And seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co."

Surely "Emanuel Jennings," compared with the above, rises to sublimity.

["'The Theatre,' by the Rev. G. Crabbe, we rather think, is the best piece in the collection. It is an exquisite and most masterly imitation, not only of the peculiar style, but of the taste, temper, and manner of description of that most original author; and can hardly be said to be in any respect a caricature of that style or manner—except in the excessive profusion of puns and verbal jingles- -which, though undoubtedly to be ranked among his characteristics, are never so thick sown in his original works as in this admirable imitation. It does not aim, of course, at any shadow of his pathos or moral sublimity, but seems to us to be a singularly faithful copy of his passages of mere description,"—JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.]

{68b} You were more feeling than I was, when you read the excellent parodies of the young men who wrote the "Rejected Addresses." There is a little ill-nature—and I take the liberty of adding, undeserved ill-nature—in their prefatory address; but in their versification they have done me admirably. They are extraordinary men; but it is easier to imitate style than to furnish matter.—CRABBE (Works, 1 vol. Ed., p. 81).

{69} A street and parish in Lime Street Ward, London—chiefly inhabited by Jews.

{70} "We come next to three ludicrous parodies—of the story of The Stranger, of George Barnwell, and of the dagger-scene in Macbeth, under the signature of Momus Medlar. They are as good, we think, as that sort of thing can be, and remind us of the happier efforts of Colman, whose less successful fooleries are professedly copied in the last piece in the volume."—JEFFREY, Edinburgh Renew.

{71} A translation from Kotzebue by Thompson, and first acted at Drury Lane, 24th March, 1798. Mrs. Siddons was famous in the part of Mrs. Haller.

{72} See Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. iii.; and Lillo's tragedy, "The London Merchant; or, the History of George Barnwell." 8vo. 1731.

{73} Theodore Hook, at that time a very young man, and the companion of the annotator in many wild frolics. The cleverness of his subsequent prose compositions has cast his early stage songs into oblivion. This parody was, in the second edition, transferred from Colman to Hook.

{74} Then Director of the Opera House.

{75} At that time the chief dancer at this establishment.

{76} Vauxhall Bridge then, like the Thames Tunnel at present [1833], stood suspended in the middle of that river.

{76b} Dr. Busby gave living recitations of his translation of Lucretius, with tea and bread-and-butter. He sent in a real Address to the Drury Lane committee, which was really rejected. The present imitation professes to be recited by the translator's son. The poet here, again, was a prophet. A few evenings after the opening of the Theatre Dr. Busby sat with his son in one of the stage-boxes. The latter to the astonishment of the audience, at the end of the play, stepped from the box upon the stage, with his father's real rejected address in his hand, and began to recite it as follows:-

"When energising objects men pursue, What are the prodigies they cannot do?"

Raymond, the stage-manager, accompanied by a constable, at this moment walked upon the stage, and handed away the juvenile dilettante performer.

The Doctor's classical translation was thus noticed in one of the newspapers of the day, in the column of births:- "Yesterday, at his house in Queen Anne-street, Dr. Busby of a still-born Lucretius." [Bushy's Monologue was parodied by Lord Byron: see Byron's works, p. 553.]

"In one single point the parodist has failed—there is a certain Dr. Busby, whose supposed address is a translation called 'Architectural Atoms, intended to be recited by the translator's son.' Unluckily, however, for the wag who had prepared this fun, the genuine serious absurdity of Dr. Busby and his son has cast all his humour into the shade. The Doctor from the boxes, and the son from the stage, have actually endeavoured, it seems, to recite addresses, which they call MONOLOGUES and UNALOGUES; and which, for extravagant folly, tumid meanness, and vulgar affectation, set all the powers of parody at utter defiance."—Quarterly Review.

"Of 'Architectural Atoms,' translated by Dr. Busby, we can say very little more than that they appear to us to be far more capable of combining into good poetry than the few lines we were able to read of the learned Doctor's genuine address in the newspapers. They might pass, indeed, for a very tolerable imitation of Darwin."—JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{99} Gutenberg note: in the edition transcribed each address gives the author's initials and immediately follows with the real name and date of death. This rather spoils the "anonymous" character of each address. Therefore in this transcription that information comes here. The parodied writer of each piece is:

Loyal Effusion—William Thomas Fitzgerald. Mr. Fitzgerald died 9th July, 1829, aged 70. The Baby's Debut—William Wordsworth. Mr. Wordsworth died 23rd, April, 1850, in his 82nd year. Cui Bono?— Lord Byron. Lord Byron died 19th April, 1824, in his 37th year. Hampshire Farmer's Address— William Corbett. Mr. Corbett died 18th June, 1835, aged 73. The Living Lustres—Thomas Moore. Mr. Moore died 26th February, 1852, in his 73rd year. The Rebuilding—Robert Southey. Mr. Southey died March 13, 1843, in his 69th year. A Tale Of Drury Lane—Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter Scott died 21st September, 1832, in his 62nd year. The Beautiful Incendiary—The Honourable William Robert Spencer. Mr. Spencer died at Paris in October, 1834, aged 65. Fire and Ale—Matthew Gregory Lewis. Mr. Lewis died 14th May, 1818, in his 43rd year. Playhouse Musings—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Mr. Coleridge died 25th July, 1814, in his 62nd year. Architectural Atoms—Dr. Thomas Busby, Mus. Doc. Theatrical Alarm-Bell—the editor of the Morning Post. The Theatre—The Rev. George Crabbe. Mr. Crabbe died 3rd February, 1832, in his 78th year. Punch's Apotheosis—Theodore Hook. Mr. Hook died 24th August, 1841, in his 53rd year.

THE END