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 playgoers.—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 Phœbus 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 the frequent damn,
And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, 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 playbill 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,
Culls 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 baulk,
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, 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 Mullins 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 hue,
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.
Up soars 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.
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 enclosed 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 not, 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.
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 Hypochon.
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 lachrymæ 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, "Hullo, what's that?"
'Twas a child of the Count's, in whose service lived Adelaide,
Soused in the river and squalled 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," quoth the Count, "in reward of your valour,
To show that my gratitude is not mere talk,
You shall eat a beefsteak which 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 grow 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 his sentimentalibus lachrymæ 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.
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;
Determin'd 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 followed 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 my 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.
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, Friar, Apothecary, Romeo, and Falstaff.—Punch descends, and addresses them in the following