cooling nectarine and luscious peach to the puny pippin and the noxious
nut. There Indolence may repose, and Inebriety revel; and the spruce
apprentice, rushing in at second account, may there chatter with
impunity; debarred, by a barrier of brick and mortar, from marring that
scenic interest in others, which nature and education have disqualified
him from comprehending himself.
Permanent stage-doors we have none. That which is permanent cannot be
removed, for, if removed, it soon ceases to be permanent. What
stationary absurdity can vie with that ligneous barricado, which,
decorated with frappant and tintinnabulant appendages, now serves as the
entrance of the lowly cottage, and now as the exit of a lady’s
bed-chamber; at one time insinuating plastic Harlequin into a butcher’s
shop, and, at another, yawning, as a flood-gate, to precipitate the
Cyprians of St. Giles’s into the embraces of Macheath? To elude this
glaring absurdity, to give to each respective mansion the door which the
carpenter would doubtless have given, we vary our portal with the varying
scene, passing from deal to mahogany, and from mahogany to oak, as the
opposite claims of cottage, palace, or castle may appear to require.
Amid the general hum of gratulation which flatters us in front, it is fit
that some regard should be paid to the murmurs of despondence that assail
us in the rear. They, as I have elsewhere expressed it, “who live to
please,” should not have their own pleasures entirely overlooked. The
children of Thespis are general in their censures of the architect, its
having placed the locality of exit at such a distance from the oily
irradiators which now dazzle the eyes of him who addresses you. I am,
cries the Queen of Terrors, robbed of my fair proportions. When the
king-killing Thane hints to the breathless auditory the murders he means
to perpetrate, in the castle of Macduff, “ere his purpose cool;” so vast
is the interval he has to travel before he can escape from the stage,
that his purpose has even time to freeze. Your condition, cries the Muse
of Smiles, is hard, but it is cygnet’s down in comparison with mine. The
peerless peer of capers and congees {54a} has laid it down as a rule,
that the best good thing uttered by the morning visitor should conduct
him rapidly to the doorway, last impressions vying in durability with
first. But when, on this boarded elongation, it falls to my lot to say a
good thing, to ejaculate “keep moving,” or to chant “_hic hoc horum
genitivo_,” many are the moments that must elapse ere I can hide myself
from public vision in the recesses of O. P. or P. S.
To objections like these, captiously urged and querulously maintained, it
is time that equity should conclusively reply. Deviation from scenic
propriety has only to vituperate itself for the consequences it
generates. Let the actor consider the line of exit as that line beyond
which he should not soar in quest of spurious applause: let him reflect,
that in proportion as he advances to the lamps, he recedes from nature;
that the truncheon of Hotspur acquires no additional charm from
encountering the cheek of beauty in the stage-box; and that the bravura
of Mandane may produce effect, although the throat of her who warbles it
should not overhang the orchestra. The Jove of the modern critical
Olympus, Lord Mayor of the theatric sky, {54b} has, _ex cathedrâ_,
asserted that a natural actor looks upon the audience part of the theatre
as the third side of the chamber he inhabits. Surely, of the third wall
thus fancifully erected, our actors should, by ridicule or reason, be
withheld from knocking their heads against the stucco.
Time forcibly reminds me that all things which have a limit must be
brought to a conclusion. Let me, ere that conclusion arrives, recall to
your recollection, that the pillars which rise on either side of me,
blooming in virid antiquity, like two massy evergreens, had yet slumbered
in their native quarry but for the ardent exertions of the individual who
called them into life: to his never-slumbering talents you are indebted
for whatever pleasure this haunt of the Muses is calculated to afford.
If, in defiance of chaotic malevolence, the destroyer of the temple of
Diana yet survives in the name of Erostratus, surely we may confidently
predict that the rebuilder of the temple of Apollo will stand recorded to
distant posterity in that of—SAMUEL WHITBREAD.
XI.
THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. {56a}
BY THE HON. W. S.
[THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER.]
[Mr. Spencer died at Paris in October, 1834, aged 65.]
* * * * *
Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida sylvas.—VIRGIL.
* * * * *
_Scene draws_, _and discovers a Lady asleep on a couch_.
_Enter_ PHILANDER.
PHILANDER.
I.
SOBRIETY, cease to be sober, {56b}
Cease, Labour, to dig and to delve;
All hail to this tenth of October,
One thousand eight hundred and twelve! {57}
Ha! whom do my peepers remark?
’Tis Hebe with Jupiter’s jug;
O no, ’tis the pride of the Park,
Fair Lady Elizabeth Mugg.
II.
Why, beautiful nymph, do you close
The curtain that fringes your eye?
Why veil in the clouds of repose
The sun that should brighten our sky?
Perhaps jealous Venus has oiled
Your hair with some opiate drug,
Not choosing her charms should be foiled
By Lady Elizabeth Mugg.
III.
But ah! why awaken the blaze
Those bright burning-glasses contain,
Whose lens with concentrated rays
Proved fatal to old Drury Lane?
’Twas all accidental, they cry,—
Away with the flimsy humbug!
’Twas fired by a flash from the eye
Of Lady Elizabeth Mugg.
IV.
Thy glance can in us raise a flame,
Then why should old Drury be free?
Our doom and its doom are the same,
Both subject to beauty’s decree.
No candles the workmen consumed
When deep in the ruins they dug;
Thy flash still their progress illumed,
Sweet Lady Elizabeth Mugg.
V.
Thy face a rich fire-place displays:
The mantel-piece marble—thy brows;
Thine eyes are the bright beaming blaze;
Thy bib, which no trespass allows,
The fender’s tall barrier marks;
Thy tippet’s the fire-quelling rug,
Which serves to extinguish the sparks
Of Lady Elizabeth Mugg.
VI.
The Countess a lily appears,
Whose tresses the pearl-drops emboss;
The Marchioness, blooming in years,
A rose-bud enveloped in moss;
But thou art the sweet passion-flower,
For who would not slavery hug,
To pass but one exquisite hour
In the arms of Elizabeth Mugg?
VII.
When at Court, or some Dowager’s rout,
Her diamond aigrette meets our view,
She looks like a glow-worm dressed out,
Or tulips bespangled with dew.
Her two lips denied to man’s suit
Are shared with her favourite Pug;
What lord would not change with the brute,
To live with Elizabeth Mugg?
VIII.
Could the stage be a large vis-à-vis,
Reserved for the polished and great,
Where each happy lover might see
The nymph he adores tête-à-tête;
No longer I’d gaze on the ground,
And the load of despondency lug,
For I’d book myself all the year round
To ride with the sweet Lady Mugg.
IX.
Yes, she in herself is a host,
And if she were here all alone,
Our house might nocturnally boast
A bumper of fashion and ton.
Again should it burst in a blaze,
In vain would they ply Congreve’s plug, {59}
For nought could extinguish the rays
From the glance of divine Lady Mugg.
X.
O could I as Harlequin frisk,
And thou be my Columbine fair,
My wand should with one magic whisk
Transport us to Hanover Square:
St. George’s should lend us its shrine,
The parson his shoulders might shrug,
But a licence should force him to join
My hand in the hand of my Mugg.
XI.
Court-plaster the weapons should tip,
By Cupid shot down from above,
Which, cut into spots for thy lip,
Should still barb the arrows of love.
The God who from others flies quick,
With us should be slow as a slug;
As close as a leech he should stick
To me and Elizabeth Mugg.
XII.
For Time would, with us, ’stead of sand,
Put filings of steel in his glass,
To dry up the blots of his hand,
And spangle life’s page as they pass.
Since all flesh is grass ere ’tis hay, {60}
O may I in clover live snug,
And when old Time mows me away,
Be stacked with defunct Lady Mugg!
XII.
FIRE AND ALE.
BY M. G. L. {61}
[MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS.]
[Mr. Lewis died 14th May, 1818, in his 43rd year.]
* * * * *
Omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum.—VIRGIL.
MY palate is parched with Pierian thirst,
Away to Parnassus I’m beckoned;
List, warriors and dames, while my lay is rehearsed,
I sing of the singe of Miss Drury the first,
And the birth of Miss Drury the second.
The Fire King, one day, rather amorous felt;
He mounted his hot copper filly;
His breeches and boots were of tin, and the belt
Was made of cast iron, for fear it should melt
With the heat of the copper colt’s belly.
Sure never was skin half so scalding as his!
When an infant ’twas equally horrid;
For the water, when he was baptized, gave a fizz,
And bubbled and simmer’d and started off, whizz!
As soon as it sprinkled his forehead.
O! then there was glitter and fire in each eye,
For two living coals were the symbols;
His teeth were calcined, and his tongue was so dry,
It rattled against them, as though you should try
To play the piano in thimbles.
From his nostrils a lava sulphureous flows,
Which scorches wherever it lingers;
A snivelling fellow he’s call’d by his foes,
For he can’t raise his paw up to blow his red nose
For fear it should blister his fingers.
His wig is of flames curling over his head,
Well powder’d with white smoking ashes;
He drinks gunpowder tea, melted sugar of lead,
Cream of tartar, and dines on hot spice gingerbread,
Which black from the oven he gnashes.
Each fire-nymph his kiss from her countenance shields,
’Twould soon set her cheekbone a frying;
He spit in the Tenter-Ground near Spital-fields,
And the hole that it burnt, and the chalk that it yields
Make a capital lime-kiln for drying.
When he open’d his mouth, out there issued a blast,
(Nota bene, I do not mean swearing,)
But the noise that it made, and the heat that it cast,
I’ve heard it from those who have seen it, surpass’d
A shot manufactory flaring.
He blazed, and he blazed, as be gallop’d to snatch
His bride, little dreaming of danger;
His whip was a torch, and his spur was a match,
And over the horse’s left eye was a patch,
To keep it from burning the manger.
And who is the housemaid he means to enthral
In his cinder-producing alliance?
Tis Drury-Lane Playhouse, so wide and so tall,
Who, like other combustible ladies, must fall,
If she cannot set sparks at defiance.
On his warming-pan kneepan he clattering roll’d,
And the housemaid his hand would have taken,
But his hand, like his passion, was too hot to hold,
And she soon let it go, but her new ring of gold
All melted, like butter or bacon!
Oh! then she look’d sour, and indeed well she might,
For Vinegar Yard was before her;
But, spite of her shrieks, the ignipotent knight,
Enrobing the maid in a flame of gas light,
To the skies in a sky-rocket bore her.
Look! look! ’tis the Ale King, so stately and starch,
Whose votaries scorn to be sober;
He pops from his vat, like a cedar or larch;
Brown-stout is his doublet, he hops in his march,
And froths at the mouth in October.
His spear is a spigot, his shield is a bung;
He taps where the housemaid no more is,
When lo! at his magical bidding, upsprung
A second Miss Drury, tall, tidy, and young,
And sported _in loco sororis_.
Back, lurid in air, for a second regale,
The Cinder King, hot with desire,
To Brydges Street hied; but the Monarch of Ale,
With uplifted spigot and faucet, and pail,
Thus chided the Monarch of Fire:
“Vile tyrant, beware of the ferment I brew;
I rule the roast here, dash the wig o’ me!
If, spite of your marriage with Old Drury, you
Come here with your tinderbox, courting the New
I’ll have you indicted for bigamy!”
XIII.
PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS.
BY S. T. C. {65}
[SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.]
[Mr. Coleridge died 25th July, 1814, in his 62nd year.]
* * * * *
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris; neque si male cesserat, usquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene.
HOR.
MY pensive Public, wherefore look you sad?
I had a grandmother, she kept a donkey
To carry to the mart her crockery ware,
And when that donkey look’d me in the face,
His face was sad! and you are sad, my Public!
Joy should be yours: this tenth day of October
Again assembles us in Drury Lane.
Long wept my eye to see the timber planks
That hid our ruins; many a day I cried,
Ah me! I fear they never will rebuild it!
Till on one eve, one joyful Monday eve,
As along Charles Street I prepared to walk,
Just at the corner, by the pastrycook’s,
I heard a trowel tick against a brick.
I look’d me up, and straight a parapet
Uprose at least seven inches o’er the planks.
Joy to thee, Drury! to myself I said:
He of Blackfriars’ Road, {66} who hymned thy downfall
In loud Hosannahs, and who prophesied
That flames, like those from prostrate Solyma,
Would scorch the hand that ventured to rebuild thee,
Has proved a lying prophet. From that hour,
As leisure offer’d, close to Mr. Spring’s
Box-office door, I’ve stood and eyed the builders.
They had a plan to render less their labours;
Workmen in olden times would mount a ladder
With hodded heads, but these stretch’d forth a pole
From the wall’s pinnacle, they plac’d a pulley
Athwart the pole, a rope athwart the pulley;
To this a basket dangled; mortar and bricks
Thus freighted, swung securely to the top,
And in the empty basket workmen twain
Precipitate, unhurt, accosted earth.
Oh! ’twas a goodly sound, to hear the people
Who watch’d the work, express their various thoughts!
While some believed it never would be finish’d,
Some, on the contrary, believed it would.
I’ve heard our front that faces Drury Lane
Much criticised; they say ’tis vulgar brick-work,
A mimic manufactory of floor-cloth.
One of the morning papers wish’d that front
Cemented like the front in Brydges Street;
As it now looks, they call it Wyatt’s Mermaid,
A handsome woman with a fish’s tail.
White is the steeple of St. Bride’s in Fleet Street;
The Albion (as its name denotes) is white;
Morgan and Saunders’ shop for chairs and tables
Gleams like a snow-ball in the setting sun;
White is Whitehall. But not St. Bride’s in Fleet Street,
The spotless Albion, Morgan, no, nor Saunders,
Nor white Whitehall, is white as Drury’s face.
Oh, Mr. Whitbread! {67} fie upon you, sir!
I think you should have built a colonnade;
When tender Beauty, looking for her coach,
Protrudes her gloveless hand, perceives the shower
And draws the tippet closer round her throat,
Perchance her coach stands half a dozen off,
And, ere she mounts the step, the oozing mud
Soaks through her pale kid slipper. On the morrow
She coughs at breakfast, and her gruff papa
Cries, “There you go! this comes of playhouses!”
To build no portico is penny wise:
Heaven grant it prove not in the end pound foolish!
Hail to thee, Drury! Queen of Theatres!
What is the Regency in Tottenham Street,
The Royal Amphitheatre of Arts,
Astley’s, Olympic, or the Sans Pareil,
Compared with thee? Yet when I view thee push’d
Back from the narrow street that christened thee,
I know not why they call thee Drury Lane.
Amid the freaks that modern fashion sanctions,
It grieves me much to see live animals
Brought on the stage. Grimaldi has his rabbit,
Laurent his cat, and Bradbury his pig;
Fie on such tricks! Johnson, the machinist
Of former Drury, imitated life
Quite to the life. The Elephant its Blue Beard,
Stuff’d by his hand, wound round his lithe proboscis,
As spruce as he who roar’d in Padmanaba. {68}
Nought born on earth should die. On hackney stands
I reverence the coachman who cries “Gee,”
And spares the lash. When I behold a spider
Prey on a fly, a magpie on a worm,
Or view a butcher with horn-handled knife
Slaughter a tender lamb as dead as mutton,
Indeed, indeed, I’m very, very sick!
[Exit hastily.
XIV.
DRURY-LANE HUSTINGS.
A New Halfpenny Ballad.
BY A PIC-NIC POET. {69}
* * * * *
This is the very age of promise: To promise is most courtly and
fashionable. Performance is a kind of will or testament, which
argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.—TIMON OF
ATHENS.
[_To be sung by_ MR. JOHNSON _in the character of_ LOONEY M’TWOLTER.]
I.
Mr. Jack, your address, says the Prompter to me,
So I gave him my card—No, that a’nt it, says he;
’Tis your public address. Oh! says I, never fear,
If address you are bother’d for, only look here.
[_Puts on hat affectedly_.
Tol de rol lol, &c.
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. {71}
Tol de rol, &c.
XV.
ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS.
TRANSLATED BY DR. B. {72}
[DR. THOMAS BUSBY, MUS. DOC.]
* * * * *
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 Æolia 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 {74} 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.
Æolian 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 {77} 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.