[ 556 ] [Nov. 



THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE. N. I. THE MODERN TANTALUS; 



OR, THE DEMON OF DRURY-LANE. 



" There are more things in Prury-lane, Sir Walter, than are dreamt of in your Demonology. 1 ' 



COURTEOUS READER, Has it pardon, we pray thee, the abruptness 

 of the query has it ever been your fate to visit what is called the pri- 

 vilege-office of Drury-lane theatre ? We do not ask if you are a renter, 

 or a translator of two-act atrocities ; but have you ever, by any chance, 

 found yourself in the box-lobby of that temple of Melpomene, music, 

 and melo-drama, without having performed the customary ceremony of 

 depositing seven shillings~at the doors ? If such has been your lot, you 

 must inevitably have encountered a quiet, broad, short, shrewd-looking, 

 elderly gentleman ; who, sitting in a nook that fits him like a great-coat, 

 with his hat drawn a little over his eyes, to shade them from the glare of 

 the lamp beside him : has received your credentials, or presented a book 

 for your lawful signature. You may possibly have observed the calm, 

 scrutinizing air with which he has surveyed your free-admission ticket, 

 or the inquisitive glance which he has directed to the flourish that accom- 

 panies your autograph. If you are an author, you must have seen him 

 put a mark of honour opposite your name, to distinguish you from the 

 rest of his visitors. (Our friend has a taste for literature, and he thus 

 evinces it most delicately in conferring distinctions upon its professors). 

 But you are little aware, probably, that there is a circumstance connected 

 with the history of that individual, which is entitled to a place in a more 

 imperishable register than the short memories of the few to whom the 

 fact may be familiar. 



We are convinced that men may pick up, in a morning's walk, a good 

 many village Quixotes and mute inglorious Sanchos, simply by adhering 

 to an old practice which half the world seems to have abandoned that 

 of having their eyes open. To be sure we had paid several visits to the 

 subject of this sketch before we discovered anything that particularly 

 distinguished him from the rest of his fraternity or it might with jus- 

 tice have been said, of his countrymen nay, of mankind. But at last, 

 when he became sufficiently acquainted with our visage to recognize it 

 at a glance, the fixed, placid, sculptured sort of smile which invariably 

 tempers the business-like serenity of his features, began to relax into 

 something cordial and communicative. He greeted us with a good even- 

 ing, and entered gradually upon a gossip. It turned naturally enough 

 upon theatres and their affairs and here it was that we first felt startled 

 by the extraordinary stock of knowledge displayed by our new acquain- 

 tance. He did not attempt to immolate us on the altar of antiquity ; he 

 did not, like other elderly people, regale us with a reminiscence of Gar- 

 rick, first printed in the old " Town and Country Magazine/' or illumine 

 us with a learned treatise on John Palmer's shoe-buckles. We were 

 neither initiated into the* mysteries of Pritchard's hoop, nor elevated by 

 an apostrophe to Jordan's gipsey-hat and red ribands. Her very eye- 

 brow, as far as he was concerned, was hidden in oblivion ; and her ankle 

 was permitted to rest quietly in its grave. No, he astonished us by the 

 novelty, the newness of his information. The events he communicated 

 had just transpired ; the account of them had not yet gone to press. 

 His notes were all in manuscript, and the ink was scarcely dry. But it 

 was this particular fact that made the marvel : he mentioned circum- 



