Miss Farren reciting—
“Sit still, there’s nothing in it,
We’ll undertake to drown you in a single minute.”
“O vain thought!” as Othello 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.”
[17] 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.
[20] 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.
[21] Bagshaw. At that time the publisher or Cobbett’s Register.
[22] 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.]