"Of actors, Cooke was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural,—Kean the medium between the two. But Mrs. Siddons was worth them all put together."—Detached Thoughts.
[30] An epigram here followed, which, as founded on a scriptural allusion, I thought it better to omit.
[31] We had been invited by Lord R. to dine after the play,—an arrangement which, from its novelty, delighted Lord Byron exceedingly. The dinner, however, afterwards dwindled into a mere supper, and this change was long a subject of jocular resentment with him.
[32] I had begged of him to write something for me to set to music.
[33] Miss Foote's first appearance, which we witnessed together.
[34] In a few days after this, he sent me a long rhyming epistle full of jokes and pleasantries upon every thing and every one around him, of which the following are the only parts producible:—
'What say I?'—not a syllable further in prose;
I'm your man 'of all measures,' dear Tom,—so, here goes!
Here goes, for a swim on the stream of old Time,
On those buoyant supporters the bladders of rhyme.
If our weight breaks them down, and we sink in the flood,
We are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud,
Where the divers of bathos lie drown'd in a heap,
And S * * 's last paean has pillow'd his sleep;—
That 'felo de se' who, half drunk with his malmsey,
Walk'd out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea,
Singing 'Glory to God' in a spick-and-span stanza,
The like (since Tom Sternhold was choked) never man saw.
"The papers have told you, no doubt, of the fusses,
The fêtes, and the gapings to get at these Russes,—
Of his Majesty's suite, up from coachman to Hetman,—
And what dignity decks the flat face of the great man.
I saw him, last week, at two balls and a party,—
For a prince, his demeanour was rather too hearty.
You know, we are used to quite different graces,
* * * * *
The Czar's look, I own, was much brighter and brisker,
But then he is sadly deficient in whisker;
And wore but a starless blue coat, and in kersey-
mere breeches whisk'd round in a waltz with the J * *,
Who, lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted
With majesty's presence as those she invited."
[35] The Journal from which I have given extracts in the preceding pages.
[36] Mr. Wrangham.
[37] A satirical pamphlet, in which all the writers of the day were attacked.