Rejected Addresses Part 13

{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 a.s.sure 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 Oth.e.l.lo 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 l.u.s.tres 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 ma.s.sive 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 ant.i.thetical; 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, "Ma.s.s! 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 a.s.saulting 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 k.n.o.bb'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 "G.o.d 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 a.s.saulted 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 a.s.saulted." 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 bra.s.s 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 a.s.sault. "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.