The English Spy Part 62

The other he's from Vinsor down, And though a great gun in that town, Has lately been quite basted brown, And gone off--out of time.{8}

7 The spotted ball now, worse in its woe-causing than the apple of Ida, is disgorged from a splendidly gilded fish.

What a pity it is that the eternal vociforators of "red wins, black loses," et vice versa, could not be turned into Jonahs, and their odd fish into a whale, and let all be cast into the troubled waters (without a three days' redemption) they brew for others!

8 "There never were such times." X Xs, in the ring, and failures in the Fives Court, overcome us now without our special wonder; for boxers are become betters to extents that would make the fathers of the P.R. bless themselves and bolt. Cannon and Ward were, however, both on the right side, and the nods with which they honoured their old acquaintance were certainly improvements upon the style of the academy for manners in Saint Martin's Street.

~276~~

Look, here's a bevy; who but they!

Just come to make the poor Tykes pay The charge of post-horses and chay, That brought them to some tune;

Lo! Piccadilly Goodered laughs, As when some novice, reeling, quaffs His gooseberry wine in tipsy draughts, At his so pure saloon.{9}

Good gracious, too! (oh, what a trade Can oyster sales at night be made!) Here swallowing wine, like lemonade, Sits Mrs. H's man{10}!

And by the Loves and Graces all, By Vestris' trunks, Maria's shawl, There trots the nun herself, so tall, A flirting of a fan,

And blus.h.i.+ng like the "red, red rose,"

With paly eyes and a princely nose, And laced in Nora Crinas clothes, (Cool, like a cuc.u.mber,)

With beaver black, with veil so green, And huntress boots 'neath skirt quite clean, She looks Diana's self--_a quean_, In habit trimm'd with fur.

And Mr. Wigelsworth he flew,{11} And Miss and Mistress W.

To bow and court'sy to the new Arrival at their Boy;

9 "Lightly tread, 'tis hallow'd ground." I dare not go on; you have been before me, Bernard: (vide vol. i. p. 295, of Spy). But really it will be worth while for us to look in on Goodered some fine morning, say three, a.m., when he gets his print of Memnon home, to which, at Sheardowns, he was so liberal as to subscribe. He will discourse to you of the round table!

10 "If I stand here, I saw him."--Shakespeare, Hamlet.

11 The host of the Black Boy at Doncastor, who really pro- vided race ordinaries in no ordinary way.

~277~~

Though he was Black, yet she was fair; And sure I am that nothing there With that clear nymph could aught compare,12 Or more glad eyes employ.

But where there is, after all, but little reason in many of the scenes witnessed at the period I quote, why should I continue to rhyme about them? Let it therefore suffice, that with much of spirit there was some folly, with a good deal of splendour an alloy of dross, and, with real consequence, a good deal of that which was a.s.sumed. Like a showy drama, the players (there was a goodly company in the north), dresses (they were of all colours of the rainbow), and decorations (also various and admirable), during the time of performance, were of the first order; but that over, and the green and dressing rooms displayed many a hero sunk into native insignificance, and the trappings of Tamerlane degenerated to the hungry coat of a Jeremy Diddler (and there were plenty of "Raising the Wind" professors at Doncaster), or the materiel of the king and queen of Denmark to the dilapidated wardrobe of Mr. and Mrs.

Sylvester Daggerwood.

_Mais apropos de le drame, Monsieur L'Espion_, what is your report of our theatres? Have you seen the monkeys? Are they not, for a cla.s.sic stage, grand,

----Those happiest smiles That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence As pearls from diamonds dropt. In brief, Her room would be a rarity most beloved, If all could so become it."

Shakespeare, a little altered.

I would just say here, that if any disapprove of my picture of the lady, they may take Bernard Blackmantle's ~278~~_magnifique, et admirable_?

Do they not awake in you visions of rapturous delight, as you contrast their antics and mimicry, their grotesque and beautiful grimaces, their cunning leers, with the eye of Garrick, the stately action of Kemble, the sarcasm of Cooke, the study of Henderson, the commanding port of Siddons, the fire of Kean, the voice of Young, the tones of O'Neill?

When you see them, as the traveller Dampier has it, "dancing from tree to tree over your head," and hear them "chattering, and making a terrible noise," do you not think of Lord Chesterfield, and exclaim, "A well-governed stage is an ornament to society, an encouragement to wit and learning, and a school of virtue, modesty, and good manners?" Do you not feel, when you behold the flesh and blood punch and man-monkey of Covent Garden Theatre "twist his body into all manner of shapes," or "Monsieur Gouffe," of the Surrey, "hang himself for the benefit of Mr.

Bradley," that we may pay our money, and "see, and see, and see again, and still glean something new, something to please, and something to instruct;" and, lastly, in a fit of enthusiasm, exclaim,

"To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius and to mend the heart, To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold;"

For this great Jocko's self first leap'd the stage; For this was puffd in ev'ry well-bribed page, From evening "Courier" down to Sunday "Age!"{13}

13 It is suspicious, to say the least of it, this excess of praise to an old representation; for, after all, punch, the original punch, punch in the street, though not so loud, is ten times more to "our manner born," and much more original.

That the beings who banish legitimate performers should puff, till we grow sick, a "thing of shreds and patches!"

But "the world is still deceived by ornament."

~279~~But Charles Kemble pays well on occasions, and gold would make "Hyperion" of a "satyr." Seriously, Mr. Blackmantle, the town is overrun with monkeys; they are as busy, and as importunate, as Lady Montague's boys on May day, or the Guy Fawkes representatives on the fifth of November. They are "here, there, and every where," and the baboon monopolists of Exeter 'Change and the Tower are ruined by the importation:--a free trade in the article with the patentees of our cla.s.sic theatres, as the purchasing-merchants, has done the business for Mr. Cross and the beef-eaters. Like the Athenian audience, the "thinking people" of England are more pleased with the mimic than the real voice of nature; and the four-footed puggys of the Brazils, like the true pig of the Grecian, are cast in the shade by their reasoning imitator!

In short, not to be prosy on a subject which has awakened poetry and pa.s.sion in all, hear, as the grave-diggers say, "the truth on't."{13}

When winter triumph'd o'er the summer's flame, And C. G. opened, Punchinello came; Each odd grimace of monkey-art he drew, Exhausted postures and imagined new: The stage beheld him spurn its bounded reign, And frighten'd fiddlers sc.r.a.ped to him in vain; His seven-leagued leaps so well the fas.h.i.+on fit, That all adore him--boxes, gallery, pit,{14}

13 It is suspicious, to say the least of it, this excess of praise to an old representation; for, after all, punch, the original punch, punch in the street, though not so loud, is ten times more to "our manner born," and much more original.

That the beings who banish legitimate performers should puff, till we grow sick, a "thing of shreds and patches!"

But "the world is still deceived by ornament."

14 One Dr. Samuel Johnson has something like this, but then his lines were in praise of a "poor player," of a man who wasted much paper in writing dramas now thought nothing of.

This is his doggrel.

~280~~But I must have done. Christmas will soon be here, and "I have a journey, sirs, shortly to go" to be prepared for its delights, and to fit myself for its festivities; and yet I am unwilling, acute Bernard, merry Echo, cheerful Eglantine, correct Transit, to "shake hands and part," without tendering the coming season's congratulations; so if it like you, dear spies o' the time, I will, like the swan, go off singing.

Marching along with berried brow, And snow flakes on his "frosty pow,"

See father Christmas makes his bow, And proffers jovial cheer;

About him tripping to and fro, Picking the holly as they go, And kiss-allowing misletoe, His merry elves appear.

Then broach the barrel, fill the bowl, And let us pledge the hearty soul, Though swift the waning minutes roll, And time will stay for none;

Lads, we will have a gambo still, For though we've made the foolish feel, And shamed the sinner in his ill, Our withers are unwrung.

"When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes First rear'd the stage, immortal Skakspeare rose; Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new;

Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil'd after him in vain: His powerful strokes presiding truth impress'd, And unresisted pa.s.sion storm'd the breast."

~281~~

No poison in the cup have ye, In all your travell'd history, Pour'd for the hearty, good, and free; This will your book evince:

So "here's the King!"fill, fill for him, Then for our Country, to the brim; With it, good souls, we'll sink or swim.

Huzzah! 'tis gall'd jades wince!

But now, adieu; o'er hill and plain I scud, ere we shall meet again; Meantime, all prosp'rous be your reign, And friends attend in crowds;

Before your splendid course is o'er, And Blackmantle shall please no more, You'll know, though yet I'm doom'd to soar, Your Spirit in the Clouds.{15}"

November, 1825.

Adieu, thou facetious sprite, and may the graybeard Time tread lightly on thy buoyant spirits! Meet thee or not hereafter, thou shalt live in my remembrance a cherished name, long as memory holds her influence o'er the eccentric mind of Bernard Blackmantle. Here, too, must Transit and myself take a farewell of merry Cheltenham, ever on the wing for novelty: our sketches have been brief, but full of genuine character; nor can they, as I hope, be considered in any instance as violating our established rule--of being true to nature, without offending the ear of chast.i.ty, or exciting aught but