Transcribed from the 1879 John Murray edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
[Picture: The authors of the Rejected Addresses]
REJECTED ADDRESSES:
OR,
THE NEW THEATRUM POETARUM
BY JAMES SMITH & HORACE SMITH.
* * * * *
“Fired that the House reject him! ’Sdeath, I’ll print it,
And shame the Fools!”
POPE.
* * * * *
* * * * *
_NEW EDITION_.
* * * * *
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1879
“I think the ‘Rejected Addresses’ by far the best thing of the kind
since ‘The Rolliad,’ and wish _you_ had published them. Tell the
author ‘I forgive him, were he twenty times over our satirist;’ and
think his imitations not at all inferior to the famous ones of
Hawkins Browne.”
LORD BYRON TO MR. MURRAY, _Oct._ 19, 1812.
“I like the volume of ‘Rejected Addresses’ better and better.”
LORD BYRON TO MR. MURRAY, _Oct._ 19, 1812.
“I take the ‘Rejected Addresses’ to be the very best imitations (and
often of difficult originals) that ever were made; and considering
their great extent and variety, to indicate a talent to which I do
not know where to look for a parallel. Some few of them descend to
the level of parodies; but by far the greater part are of a much
higher description.”
LORD JEFFREY (_in_ 1843), _Note in Essays_, iv. 470
ADVERTISEMENT
TO
THE TWENTY-SECOND EDITION.
JAMES SMITH and HORACE SMITH, authors of the _Rejected Addresses_; or,
_The New Theatrum Poetarum_, were the sons of Robert Smith, solicitor to
the Board of Ordnance. James was born at No. 36, Basinghall Street,
London, on the 10th of February, 1775; and Horace in the same house on
the 31st of December, 1779.
James was educated under the Rev. Mr. Burford at Chigwell in Essex;
articled to his father on leaving school, subsequently taken into
partnership with him, and eventually succeeded to his father’s business,
as well as his appointment of solicitor to the Ordnance. Horace received
the same education as his brother, became a member of the Stock Exchange
in London, acquired a fortune, and retired with his wife and family to
Brighton. James, who lived and died single, was the author of several
small copies of verses, since collected by his brother; and Horace was
the author of “Brambletye House,” a novel in three volumes, well received
at the time of its publication.
The work by which the brothers are best known, and by which they will
long continue to be remembered, is the _Rejected Addresses_. This
delightful volume—one of the luckiest hits in literature—appeared on the
re-opening of Drury Lane Theatre, in October, 1812; the idea, as Horace
relates, having been casualty started by the late Mr. Ward, secretary to
the theatre, exactly six weeks before the night when the opening Address
was to be spoken. The hint thus thrown out was eagerly adopted. The
brothers arranged what authors they should respectively imitate; and
James executed his portion in London, and Horace the remainder at
Cheltenham. James supplied the imitations of Wordsworth, Southey,
Coleridge, Crabbe, and Cobbett, and Nos. 14, 16, 18, 19, and 20. The
Byron was a joint effusion—James contributing the first stanza, and
Horace the remainder. The Fitzgerald, the Sir Walter Scott, &c., were by
Horace. The corrections which each supplied to the compositions of the
other seldom exceeded verbal alterations or the addition of a few lines.
The copyright, which had been originally offered to Mr. Murray for
20_l._, and refused without even looking at the MS., {0a} was purchased
by that gentleman in 1819, after the book had run through sixteen
editions, for 131_l._
James Smith died at his house, No. 27, Craven Street, Strand, on the 24th
December, 1839, in the 65th year of his age; and was buried in the vaults
of the church of St. Martin’s in the Fields. Horace died at Tunbridge
Wells, on the 12th of July, 1849, in the 70th year of his age, and was
buried in the churchyard of Trinity Church, Tunbridge Wells.
P. C.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
ON the 14th of August, 1812, the following advertisement appeared in most
of the daily papers:—
“_Rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre_.
“The Committee are desirous of promoting a free and fair competition
for an Address to be spoken upon the opening of the Theatre, which
will take place on the 10th of October next. They have, therefore,
thought fit to announce to the public, that they will be glad to
receive any such compositions, addressed to their Secretary, at the
Treasury-office, in Drury Lane, on or before the 10th of September,
sealed up, with a distinguishing word, number, or motto, on the
cover, corresponding with the inscription on a separate sealed paper,
containing the name of the author, which will not be opened unless
containing the name of the successful candidate.”
Upon the propriety of this plan men’s minds were, as they usually are
upon matters of moment, much divided. Some thought it a fair promise of
the future intention of the Committee to abolish that phalanx of authors
who usurp the stage, to the exclusion of a large assortment of dramatic
talent blushing unseen in the background; while others contended that the
scheme would prevent men of real eminence from descending into an
amphitheatre in which all Grub Street (that is to say, all London and
Westminster) would be arrayed against them. The event has proved both
parties to be in a degree right, and in a degree wrong. One hundred and
twelve _Addresses_ have been sent in, each sealed and signed, and
mottoed, “as per order,” some written by men of great, some by men of
little, and some by men of no talent.
Many of the public prints have censured the taste of the Committee, in
thus contracting for _Addresses_ as they would for nails—by the gross;
but it is surprising that none should have censured their _temerity_.
One hundred and eleven of the _Addresses_ must, of course, be
unsuccessful: to each of the authors, thus infallibly classed with the
_genus irritabile_, it would be very hard to deny six stanch friends, who
consider his the best of all possible _Addresses_, and whose tongues will
be as ready to laud him as to hiss his adversary. These, with the potent
aid of the bard himself, make seven foes per address; and thus will be
created seven hundred and seventy-seven implacable auditors, prepared to
condemn the strains of Apollo himself—a band of adversaries which no
prudent manager would think of exasperating.
But, leaving the Committee to encounter the responsibility they have
incurred, the public have at least to thank them for ascertaining and
establishing one point, which might otherwise have admitted of
controversy. When it is considered that many amateur writers have been
discouraged from becoming competitors, and that few, if any, of the
professional authors can afford to write for nothing, and, of course,
have not been candidates for the honorary prize at Drury Lane, we may
confidently pronounce that, as far as regards _number_, the present is
undoubtedly the Augustan age of English poetry. Whether or not this
distinction will be extended to the _quality_ of its productions, must be
decided at the tribunal of posterity; though the natural anxiety of our
authors on this score ought to be considerably diminished when they
reflect how few will, in all probability, be had up for judgment.
It is not necessary for the Editor to mention the manner in which he
became possessed of this “fair sample of the present state of poetry in
Great Britain.” It was his first intention to publish the whole; but a
little reflection convinced him that, by so doing, he might depress the
good, without elevating the bad. He has therefore culled what had the
appearance of flowers, from what possessed the reality of weeds, and is
extremely sorry that, in so doing, he has diminished his collection to
twenty-one. Those which he has rejected may possibly make their
appearance in a separate volume, or they may be admitted as volunteers in
the files of some of the newspapers; or, at all events, they are sure of
being received among the awkward squad of the Magazines. In general,
they bear a close resemblance to each other; thirty of them contain
extravagant compliments to the immortal Wellington and the indefatigable
Whitbread; and, as the last-mentioned gentleman is said to dislike praise
in the exact proportion in which he deserves it, these laudatory writers
have probably been only building a wall against which they might run
their own heads.
The Editor here begs leave to advance a few words in behalf of that
useful and much abused bird the Phoenix; and in so doing he is biassed by
no partiality, as he assures the reader he not only never saw one, but
(_mirabile dictu_!) never caged one, in a simile, in the whole course of
his life. Not less than sixty-nine of the competitors have invoked the
aid of this native of Arabia; but as, from their manner of using him
after they had caught him, he does not by any means appear to have been a
native of Arabia _Felix_, the Editor has left the proprietors to treat
with Mr. Polito, and refused to receive this _rara avis_, or black swan,
into the present collection. One exception occurs, in which the
admirable treatment of this feathered incombustible entitles the author
to great praise: that Address has been preserved, and in the ensuing
pages takes the lead, to which its dignity entitles it.
Perhaps the reason why several of the subjoined productions of the MUSÆ
LONDINENSES have failed of selection, may be discovered in their being
penned in a metre unusual upon occasions of this sort, and in their not
being written with that attention to stage effect, the want of which,
like want of manners in the concerns of life, is more prejudicial than a
deficiency of talent. There is an art of writing for the Theatre,
technically called _touch_ and _go_, which is indispensable when we
consider the small quantum of patience which so motley an assemblage as a
London audience can be expected to afford. All the contributors have
been very exact in sending their initials and mottoes. Those belonging
to the present collection have been carefully preserved, and each has
been affixed to its respective poem. The letters that accompanied the
Addresses having been honourably destroyed unopened, it is impossible to
state the real authors with any certainty; but the ingenious reader,
after comparing the initials with the motto, and both with the poem, may
form his own conclusions.
The Editor does not anticipate any disapprobation from thus giving
publicity to a small portion of the _Rejected Addresses_; for unless he
is widely mistaken in assigning the respective authors, the fame of each
individual is established on much too firm a basis to be shaken by so
trifling and evanescent a publication as the present:
— neque ego illi detrahere ausim
Hærentem capiti multâ cum laude coronam.
Of the numerous pieces already sent to the Committee for performance, he
has only availed himself of three vocal Travesties, which he has
selected, not for their merit, but simply for their brevity. Above one
hundred spectacles, melodramas, operas, and pantomimes have been
transmitted, besides the two first acts of one legitimate comedy. Some
of these evince considerable smartness of manual dialogue, and several
brilliant repartees of chairs, tables, and other inanimate wits; but the
authors seem to have forgotten that in the new Drury Lane the audience
can hear as well as see. Of late our theatres have been so constructed,
that John Bull has been compelled to have very long ears, or none at all;
to keep them dangling about his skull like discarded servants, while his
eyes were gazing at pieballs and elephants, or else to stretch them out
to an asinine length to catch the congenial sound of braying trumpets.
An auricular revolution is, we trust, about to take place; and as many
people have been much puzzled to define the meaning of the new era, of
which we have heard so much, we venture to pronounce that, as far as
regards Drury Lane Theatre, the new era means the reign of ears. If the
past affords any pledge for the future, we may confidently expect from
the Committee of that House every thing that can be accomplished by the
union of taste and assiduity.
[“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.
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,