[23a] The present colonnade in Little Russell Street formed no part of the original design, and was erected only a few years back.
[23b] 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.]
[24a] At that time keeper of Newgate. The present superintendent (1833) is styled Governor!
[24b] A portentous one that made its appearance in the year 1811; in the midst of the war,
“with fear of change
Perplexing nations.”
[25] “The Living Lustres 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.
[26] This alludes to two massive 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.
[28a] “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.
[28b] For the Glendoveer, and the rest of the dramatis persona of this imitation, the reader is referred to the “Curse of Kehama.”
[28c] “Midnight, and yet no eye
Through all the Imperial City closed in sleep.”