328 THINGS THEATRICAL. 



a feeble and passing popularity ; and it is only to Andrew Ducrow, 

 Esq., the Circus-man, the wine-flaggon, kill-dragon, rider from 

 Astley's that Drury-lane owes the return of its prosperity, and the 

 manager the replenishment of his coffers. 



" This is none of your Macready jobs," said that enlightened 

 tamer of horses, " where half a pint of pyson serves for five acts;" 

 and, in truth, he was right, Birnam-wood might move to Dunsinane 

 every night and not fifty persons would collect to behold the won- 

 der ; but when Ducrovises saddles his four and forty steeds, and 

 slaughters his canvass dragon, the galleries are filled to suffocation, 

 and the pit is crammed to bursting ; the free-list returns to the boxes, 

 and again the gilded saloon teems with its fair temptations. 



However, there is, as the bills say, something national in the sub- 

 ject of St. George, and certainly something noble in the horses at 

 least, if not in the riders, who figure in the piece ; then there is Mr. 

 Stanfield's diorama which not a soul admires, but which contains a 

 number of pictures magnificiently imagined and executed, such as 

 would set the French, who understand these things, half mad with 

 admiration. 



There is no great harm in all this, nor as we can see, any very 

 glaring departure from the regular drama ; St. George contains no 

 more clap-traps than Pizarro ; and Sheridan would have made his 

 piece as fine as Ducrow's, had he known how, and Kemble did not 

 disdain to act a part in it. 



The attractions at the other theatre, under the Bunnian adminis- 

 tration, are of a more equivocal kind. A piece has been produced 

 which has run for sixty nights or more, and which yet appears to 

 possess but small claims to popularity. Gustavus, as an opera, is 

 light and sprightly, one can say nothing more for it ; the dialogue is 

 small and weak to a degree ; the whole interest lies in the adjuncts 

 of the scene-painter, the property-man, and the person who so 

 abundantly provides that dainty material nightly exhibited in pet- 

 ticoatees. 



This latter officer has performed his duty with wonderful faithful- 

 ness ; young women of all statures and complexions, in dresses of 

 varied colours, but of equal and undeviating scantiness, figure in the 

 last magnificent scene, which, as all the world knows, represents a 

 masked ball at Stockholm. The fair creatures shew their shapes to 

 the admiring pit and the eager boxes ; and, further, to a host of 

 persons who are admitted behind the scenes, such as young officers 

 of the Guards, creditors of the managers, Jews, bailiffs, slang noble- 

 men, and other persons who admire beauty and chastity, or are 

 honoured with the acquaintance of the chief theatrical authorities. 



But the supper, to celebrate the fiftieth representation of Gustavus, 

 has been the finest piece of generalship, the most brilliant exhibition, 

 that has taken place since the famous supper of Versailles. 



The manager in a coat, which had formerly belonged to a king,* 

 (oh, rare satire on kings and managers !) was supported on one side 



* It is a fact, which historians will record with pleasure, and philosophers will 

 remark with complacency, that the coat, which on this important occasion, 

 adorned the manly figure" of Bunn, in former days set off the slim proportions 

 of George IV. 



