1832.J The, Drama. 481 



nance, to afford them his most illustrious protection. Some say that it was the 

 only way he had of distinguishing himself from the herd of vulgar Balls that 

 infested the skirts of literature ; mere sheep-skin bails, stuffed with worsted ; 

 or cotton balls, only fit for mantua-makers ; or bladder balls, puffed out with 

 wind, and patted about by ladies in a drawing-room ; or your true foot-ball, 

 to be kicked about by men. Our Fitz-Bai\l is none of these : he is as much 

 above them, and as ornamental as the superb gilded ball that you see stuck a-top 

 of churches, under the weather-cock, to shew which way the wind is ; and as 

 for utility, he may vie with that ingenious instrument, the ball-cock of a cistern. 

 There is a fact which has been frequently advanced, that illegitimate children 

 generally turn out clever men ; then, by Heaven, we will, at sword-point, 

 maintain the legitimacy of our author, and break a lance in defence of his mo- 

 ther's virtue. We merely sentence him to beat hemp for a month at the House 

 of Correction. 



Der Alchymist ; or, the Last of the Soporifics. Such was the title of a soi- 

 disant opera which was damned at Drury-Lane. Bless me but I have said 

 all this before : well, then, to proceed with others. 



The qualities of good and generous wine everybody knows to be highly fa- 

 vourable to the development of our comical faculties. Sheridan never wrote or 

 said such witty things as when a bottle of Burgundy was within his reach ; and 

 we, though, alas ! no Sheridan, should write none the worse were we slightly 

 mind, we only say slightly under the influence of such an inspiring fount. 

 We question whether a draught from the fount of Helicon itself, in all its 

 purity and freshness, would suit our constitution half so well. But this is idle 

 talking ; we are never likely to taste one or the other. This, then, leads us to 

 the point. 



A comic actor, of all men in the world, should never appear before the indul- 

 gent public without this necessary preliminary ; and actors are so well paid, 

 that they can afford to drink nectar if they knew where it was to be bought. 

 They are not like we poor devils of scribes, who are obliged to content ourselves 

 with whisky toddy ; and very little of that, too. But actors they are kings ! 

 they can drink when they like, and what they like ; they are happy dogs -they 

 can lie in a gutter all day long, if they please, and then at night reel upon the 

 stage and damn poor authors' pieces. It is rather hard on authors, but, poor 

 devils ! they are born to suffer. An actor must not be restrained in his innocent 

 recreations ; you might just as well expect him to come before the audience 

 without his glass, as a fiddler without his resin. 



These ideas were suggested by the impertinent complaints of Mr. Poole, the 

 dramatist, who says, that when his farce of the Young Hopeful came out, at 

 the Olympic, Mr. Listen was so extremely elevated, that he damned the piece. 

 In other words, we blush to write it, that he was very drank indeed. Shameful 

 aspersion ! just as though Mr. Listen ever was drunk. Indeed, how could he ? 

 for to our certain knowledge he is chairman to a branch Temperance Societ)% 

 held at the Pig and Tooth- ache, Brompton, and is the bosom friend of Lord 

 Gambier. These facts speak volumes. Let Mr. Poole deny this if he can. 



Mr. Buckstone is one of the champions of the minors an unflinching re- 

 former, a staunch anti-monopolist ; by the way, we suppose that is the reason 

 he keeps the Adelphi stage entirely to himself : no other pieces than those of 

 the purveyor-general being marketable commodities at the Adelphi. We do not 

 so much find fault with his original French pieces everybody has a right to get 

 as much money as he can, and in the easiest way, always supposing honestly ; 

 but that which raises our ire is, that the moment a man of genius breaks through 

 the system of translation, and embodies an idea successfully, then the purveyor- 

 general, at the head of a crowd of starvelling wits, rushes forward, seizes the bread 

 out of his very mouth, and the mob, like famished cannibals, devour it before his 

 face. To speak more plainly, the moment Jerrold's " Rent Day" appeared, the 



M.M. AV/r Series. -VoL. XIII. No. 76. 2 K 



