We remember meeting with one, after the first night of a new comedy, at a popular café, where the clever young wits of the day mostly congregate to lay down the law for England upon fashion, literature, cigars, royalty, casinos, metaphysics, ballet-girls, and morality.
He attracted our notice first by speaking very loudly, and calling out, in a voice as voluminous as the late lamented Mr. Toole's, "Waiter, another bottle of ginger-beer!" It was not so much the order, as the martial tone in which it was conveyed, that first awakened our curiosity. We expected, at least, to see a giant. We turned round and only found a pigmy. It was our wonder how so big a voice could find a residence in so small a body. But if the voice was immense, what were the sentiments that we afterwards heard emanate from the same lips!
The poor author, whose piece but two minutes ago had been announced amidst the greatest applause "for every night until further notice," was declared to be "an impudent nobody." Every one of his brilliant jokes was stolen; all his points, only points gained by cribbage. The young gentleman before us traced the pedigree of every epigram, gave the descent of each witticism, proved the birth of the plot, and established beyond a doubt the parentage of each separate scene. "A comedy, sir! It's no more a comedy than Joe Miller's a comedy. Dramatise a Jest Book—give it a proverb for a title, and you will have a better comedy than that. I tell you what it is, sir,—Jones must be smashed!"
He had no sooner come to this decision than there sounded and resounded a tremendous echo of long-repeated "hip-hip-hurrahs!" We inquired whence they came. It was a supper-party upstairs commemorating the glorious triumph of the evening. Poor Jones! he little thought that moment, when probably he was returning thanks for his health, and was full of joy, champagne, and the happy intoxication of success, that the decree had just been irrevocably passed that "he must be smashed!"
The conversation travelled on. Our unknown friend next criticised the actors. One was "a stick," another a "pump;" the gentlemen were "muffs;" the ladies something that may be conceived, but cannot be printed. The unhappy manager even did not escape. "He had never seen a piece worse put upon the stage. It would disgrace a penny theatre. By Heavens! he would show him up—such a humbug must be smashed!"
We looked with awe upon this wholesale "smasher." We trembled lest we should be the next victim, and involuntarily curled ourselves up in the dark corner of the box to avoid his destructive notice.
A stranger who came in happened to lay upon the table a series of engravings, which had just been published, and were selling, it was reported, most extensively. "Excuse me, sir," he said, taking up one of them; "I hope you've not been buying this rubbish? It is nothing but a rank imitation of Hogarth—without any of his talent, execution, or purpose. It is satire diluted to the weakest gin and water. The fellow who has put his name to it deserves to be smashed, and I have a good mind to do it."
"In mercy, I hope, you will change your mind, sir," said the stranger, rising and taking off his hat; "or at all events, that you will stop till I have had my supper. You wouldn't smash a poor 'fellow' with an empty stomach, surely?" and he held out his hand with smiling good-humour to his intended "smasher."
The laugh went against the latter, and seemingly it did not sweeten much the fine cordial spirit through which he viewed men and things.