Permanent stage-doors we have none. That which is permanent cannot be removed, for if removed it soon ceases to be permanent. What stationary absurdity can vie with that ligneous barricado, which, decorated with frappant and tintinabulant appendages, now serves, as the entrance of the lowly cottage, and now as the exit of a lady's bed-chamber; at one time insinuating plastic Harlequin into a butcher's shop, and at another, yawning as the flood-gate to precipitate the Cyprians of St. Giles's into the embraces of Macheath. To elude this glaring absurdity, to give to each respective mansion the door which the carpenter would doubtless have given, we vary our portal with the varying scene, passing from deal to mahogany, and from mahogany to oak, as the opposite claims of cottage, palace, or castle may appear to require.
Amid the general hum of gratulation which flatters us in front, it is fit that some regard should be paid to the murmurs of despondence that assail us in the rear. They, as I have elsewhere expressed it, "who live to please," should not have their own pleasures entirely overlooked. The children of Thespis are general in their censures of the architect in having placed the locality of exit at such a distance from the oily irradiators which now dazzle the eyes of him who addresses you. I am, cries the Queen of Terrors, robbed of my fair proportions. When the king-killing Thane hints to the breathless auditory the murders he means to perpetrate in the castle of Macduff "ere his purpose cool," so vast is the interval he has to travel before he can escape from the stage, that his purpose has even time to freeze. Your condition, cries the Muse of Smiles, is hard, but it is cygnet's down in comparison with mine. The peerless peer of capers and congees has laid it down as a rule, that the best good thing uttered by the morning visitor should conduct him rapidly to the doorway, last impressions vieing in durability with first. But when on this boarded elongation it falls to my lot to say a good thing, to ejaculate "keep moving," or to chaunt "hic hoc horum genetivo," many are the moments that must elapse ere I can hide myself from public vision in the recesses of O.P. or P.S.
To objections like these, captiously urged and querulously maintained, it is time that equity should conclusively reply. Deviation from scenic propriety has only to vituperate itself for the consequences it generates. Let the actor consider the line of exit as that line beyond which he should not soar in quest of spurious applause: let him reflect that in proportion as he advances to the lamps, he recedes from nature; that the truncheon of Hotspur acquires no additional charm from encountering the cheek of beauty in the stage-box, and that the bravura of Mandane may produce effect, although the throat of her who warbles it should not overhang the orchestra. The Jove of the modern critical Olympus, Lord Mayor of the theatric sky, has, ex cathedrâ, asserted that a natural actor looks upon the audience part of the theatre as the third side of the chamber he inhabits. Surely of the third wall thus fancifully erected, our actors should by ridicule or reason be withheld from knocking their heads against the stucco.
Time forcibly reminds me that all things which have a limit must be brought to a conclusion. Let me, ere that conclusion arrives, recall to your recollection that the pillars which rise on either side of me, blooming in varied antiquity, like two massy evergreens, had yet slumbered in their native quarry, but for the ardent exertions of the individual who called them into life: to his never-slumbering talents you are indebted for whatever pleasure this haunt of the Muses is calculated to afford. If, in defiance of chaotic malevolence, the destroyer of the temple of Diana yet survives in the name of Erostratus, surely we may confidently predict, that the rebuilder of the temple of Apollo will stand recorded to distant posterity in that of—Samuel Whitbread.
THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY.
By the Hon. W. S.
Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.—Virgil.
Scene draws, and discovers a Lady asleep on a couch. Enter Philander.