THE BURIAL OF PANTOMIME.
Stanzas of 1846-7.
NOT a laugh was heard, not a topical joke,
As its corpse to oblivion we hurried,
Not a paper a word in its favour spoke
On the pantomime going to be buried.
We buried it after the Boxing night,
The folks from our galleries turning,
For we knew that it scarcely would pay for the light
Of the star in the last act burning.
No useless play-bill put forth a puff,
How splendid the public had found it.
But it lay like a piece that had been call'd "Stuff,"
With a very wet blanket round it.
Stoutly and long all the audience hiss'd,
When they found neither sense nor reason;
But we steadfastly dwelt on the points we had miss'd
And we bitterly thought of next season.
We thought, when we felt it was really dead,
As we pass'd old Covent Garden,
That Opera and Ballet would take up its place,
And we not be worth half a farden.
Loudly old gentlemen still will prate,
As they always do, of past actors;
But we know that poor Mathews' and Howell's fate
Was as bad as a malefactors.
Slowly and sadly we laid it down,
For we knew that we couldn't make bad well,
And we felt that the prestige was vanish'd at last,
But we drank to the health of poor Bradwell.
The Man in the Moon, Volume 1.