What are the miracles they cannot do?'
Raymond, the stage-manager, accompanied by a constable, at this moment walked upon the stage, and handed away the juvenile dilettante performer.
The doctor's classical translation was thus noticed in one of the newspapers of the day, in the column of births:—'Yesterday, at his house in Queen Anne Street, Dr. Busby of a still-born Lucretius.'
[50] 'Winsor's patent gas'—at that time in its infancy. The first place illumined by it was the Carlton House side of Pall Mall; the second, Bishopsgate Street. The writer attended a lecture given by the inventor: the charge of admittance was three shillings, but, as the inventor was about to apply to parliament, members of both houses were admitted gratis. The writer and a fellow-jester assumed the parts of senators at a short notice. 'Members of parliament!' was their important ejaculation at the door of entrance. 'What places, gentlemen?' 'Old Sarum and Bridgewater.' 'Walk in, gentlemen.' Luckily, the real Simon Pures did not attend. This Pall Mall illumination was further noticed in Horace in London:—
'And Winsor lights, with flame of gas,
Home, to king's place, his mother.'
[51] 'Ticket-nights.' This phrase is probably unintelligible to the untheatrical portion of the community, which may now be said to be all the world except the actors. Ticket-nights are those whereon the inferior actors club for a benefit: each distributes as many tickets of admission as he is able among his friends. A motley assemblage is the consequence; and as each actor is encouraged by his own set, who are not in general play-going people, the applause comes (as Chesterfield says of Pope's attempts at wit) 'generally unseasonably and too often unsuccessfully.'
[52] Morning Post.
[53] The Rev. George Crabbe. The writer's first interview with this poet, who may be designated Pope in worsted stockings, took place at William Spencer's villa at Petersham, close to what that gentleman called his gold-fish pond, though it was scarcely three feet in diameter, throwing up a jet d'eau like a thread. The venerable bard, seizing both the hands of his satirist, exclaimed, with a good-humoured laugh: 'Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?' In the course of conversation, he expressed great astonishment at his popularity in London; adding, 'In my own village they think nothing of me.' The subject happening to be the inroads of Time upon Beauty, the writer quoted the following lines:—
'Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six,