Oh! since your fiat stamps the Drama's laws, This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, The Drama's homage by her herald paid, Receive our welcome too, whose every tone Springs from our hearts, and fain, would win your own. The curtain rises may our stage unfold. Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old! Britons our judges, Nature for our guide, Still may we please · long, long may you preside. 1 When Richard roars in Bosworth for a horse, The past reproach let present scenes refute, Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute." "Is Whitbread," said Lord Byron, "determined to castrate all my cavalry lines? I do implore, for my own gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds—'a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me.'"] ["Soon after the 'Rejected Addresses' scene in 1812, I met Sheridan. In the course of dinner, he said, Lord Byron, did you know that amongst the writers of addresses was Whitbread himself?' I answered by an inquiry of what sort of an address he had made. "Of that,' replied Sheridan, I remember little, except that there was a phanix în it.'-A phoenix!! Well, how did he describe it?'Like a poulterer, answered Sheridan: it was green, and yellow, and red, and blue; he did not let us off for a single feather.". - Byron Letters, 1821.] PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS ! BY DR. PLAGIARY. Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master P. at the opening of the next new theatre. Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of quotation thus" "WHEN energising objects men pursue," Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who. "A modest monologue you here survey," Hiss'd from the theatre the "other day," ; As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" verse, And gave his son "the rubbish " to rehearse. "Yet at the thing you'd never be amazed," Knew you the rumpus which the author raised "Nor even here your smiles would be represt," Knew you these lines the badness of the best, "Flame! fire! and flame!" (words borrowed from Lucretius,) "Dread metaphors which open wounds" like issues! "And sleeping pangs awake-and- but away" (Confound me if I know what next to say). "Lo Hope reviving re-expands her wings," And Master G- recites what Doctor Busby sings! "If mighty things with small we may compare,' (Translated from the grammar for the fair!) Dramatic "spirit drives a conquering car," And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of "tar." [Among the addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee was one by Dr. Busby, entitled "A Monologue," of which the above is a parody. It began as follows: "When energising objects men pursue, Shot from the ruins of the other day, &c."] "This spirit Wellington has shown in Spain," To furnish melodrames for Drury Lane. "Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story," And George and I will dramatise it for ye. "In arts and sciences our isle hath shone "Thee we invoke, your sister arts implore With "smiles," and "lyres," and "pencils," and much more. These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain "Three who have stolen their witching airs from Cupid" (You all know what I mean, unless you 're stupid): "Harmonious throng" that I have kept in petto, Now to produce in a "divine sestetto"!! "While Poesy," with these delightful doxies, "Sustains her part " in all the "upper" boxes! "Thus lifted gloriously, you'll soar along," Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song; "Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, and play" (For this last line George had a holiday). "Old Drury never, never soar'd so high," So says the manager, and so say I. "But hold, you say, this self-complacent boast; Is this the poem which the public lost? "True true that lowers at once our mounting pride; " But lo! the papers print what you deride. "'Tis ours to look on you - you hold the prize," "A double blessing your rewards impart I wish I had them, then, with all my heart. "Our twofold feeling owns its twofold cause," Why son and I both beg for your applause. "When in your fostering beams you bid us live," My next subscription list shall say how much you give! October, 1812. VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER HOUSE AT HALES-OWEN.1 WHEN Dryden's fool, "unknowing what he sought," His hours in whistling spent, " for want of thought," 2 This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense Supplied, and amply too, by innocence; Did modern swains, possess'd of Cymon's powers, When vice and folly mark them as they pass. The filth they leave still points out where they crawl. 2 See Cymon and Iphigenia. 1 In Warwickshire. REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE! T REMEMBER thee! remember thee! Till Lethe quench life's burning stream Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not. TIME! on whose arbitrary wing Hail thou! who on my birth bestow'd 2737 Those boons to all that know thee known; For now I bear the weight aloneon 1["The sequel of a temporary liaison, formed by Lord Byron during his gay but brief career in London, occasioned the composition of this Impromptu. On the cessation of the connection, the fair one, actuated by jealousy, called one morning at her quondam lover's apartments, His Lordship was from home; but finding Vathek on the table, the lady wrote in the first page of the volume the words Remember me ! Byron immediately wrote under the ominous warning these two stanzas." Medwin.] |