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AT the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at present for arao a printing-office. This old doorway, if you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrao Old Drury -- Garricks Drury -- all of it that is left. I never pass it without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see my first play. The afternoon had bee, and the dition of oing (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beati did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught tnosticate the desired cessation! I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to annou.We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the oil shop (now Daviess) at the er of Featherstone- building, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John Palmer, the edian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopement with him from a b-school at Bath -- the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious charge. -- From either of these exions it may be inferred that my godfather could and an order for the then Drury-laheatre at pleasure -- and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsleys easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole remuion which he had received for many years nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that theatre -- and he was tent it should be so. The honour of Sheridans familiarity -- or supposed familiarity -- was better to my godfather than money.
F. was thbbr>９９lib.</abbr>e most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of the o matters of fact was Ciian. He had two Latin words almost stantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin from an oilmans lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded vice versa -- but in those young years they impressed me with more awe than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro -- in his own peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, licized, into something like verse verse. By an imposing manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrews has to bestow.
He is dead -- and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my first orders (little wondrous talismans ! -- slight keys, and insignifit to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary benefice I came into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my own -- situate he road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, ifordshire. When I journeyed down to take possession, and planted foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor desded upon me, and I strode (shall I fess the vanity?) with larger paces over my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its odious mansion in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all betwixt sky are was my own. The estate has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian restore it.
In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the unfortable m.9９ｌiｂ?anager who abolished them ! -- with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door -- not that which is left -- but between that and an inner door ier -- O when shall I be su expet again ! -- with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house apa in those days. As near as I recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, "Chase some es, chase some numparels, chase a bill of the play;" -- chase pro chuse. But whe in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed -- the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowes Shakspeare -- the tent se with Diomede -- and a sight of that plate always bring ba a measure the feeling of that evening. -- The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, protected over the pit; and the pilasters reag down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling -- a homely fancy -- but I judged it to be sugar-dy -- yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified dy -- The orchestra lights at length arose, those "fair Auroras!" Ohe bell sounded. It was t out yet once again -- and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort nation upoernal lap. It rang the sed time. The curtain drew up -- I was not past six years old -- and the play was Artaxerxes!
I had dabbled a little in the Universal History -- the a part of it -- and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past I took no proper i iion going on, for I uood not its import -- but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Geous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol of their devotion almost verted me into a worshipper. I was awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more thaal fires. It was all entment and a dream. No such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams. -- Harlequins Invasion followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his owo be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys.
The play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of which, with the exception of some sery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, cal]ed Luns Ghost -- a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Riot long since dead -- but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of antiquity as Lud -- the father of a line of Harlequins -- transmitting his dagger of lath (the woodere) through tless ages. I saw the primeval Motley e from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So Harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.
My third play followed in quick succession. It was the Way of the World. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe followed; in which an Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as iory. -- The ery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have passed out of my head. I believe, I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me thee with devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old Round Church (my church) of the Templars.
I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I agaiered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never ding in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to e again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, thater does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first period I knew nothing, uood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all -
Was nourished, I could not tell how -
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I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, was gone -- The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawween two worlds, the unfolding of which was t back past ages, to present "a royal ghost," -- but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience fiven time from certain of their fellow-men who were to e forward and pretend those parts. The lights -- the orchestra lights -- came up a clumsy maery. The first ring, and the sed ring, was now but a trick of the prompters bell -- which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voio hand seen uessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those mauries -- of six short twelve- months -- had wrought in me. -- Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent edy, as it gave me time to crop some u藏书网nreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuiions with which I was soon after eo enter upon the first appearao me of Mrs. Siddons in IsabelIa. parison arospe soon yielded to the present attra of the se; and the theatre became to me, upon a ock, the most delightful of recreations.
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