1627.] 



Monthly Theatrical Report. 



lady's levee ; butchers in full costume ap- 

 proached her presence, confectioners paid 

 their annual respects, and the dealers in 

 made-wines were invited to leave their 

 cards. Beef in all its forms was submitted 

 to the most accurate inspection ; sentence 

 of death was passed upon turkies, and ale 

 was put under the most rigorous confine- 

 ment capable by cask and bottle, until the 

 general jail-delivery of all similar captives, 

 that was to take place on or before Twelfth- 

 day. 



Was not this enough, and more than 

 enough, to keep every man and woman at 

 home ? The householder, male and female, 

 who was seen much even in the streets was at 

 such times suspected of being either verging 

 on bankruptcy or bad dinners, and men shun- 

 ned them by a prophetic instinct of debt and 

 famine. They were abroad, because they 

 had nothing to do at home. The con- 

 clusion was natural ; and a man might in 

 our gentle days run away with his neigh- 

 bour s wife, embezzle the national money, 

 ruin some tons weight of old maids and 

 country squires, by shareholding in a bubble, 

 with more popularity, to say nothing of 

 more character, than he might then have 

 been seen frequenting houses of amusement 

 in the month of December. As for the 

 nobility, they were all keeping Christmas 

 in grand style at their palaces in the country. 

 In such days, of course, the audience con- 

 sisted chiefly of amateurs behind the scenes ; 

 or a few gentlemen of those light and easy 

 habits to which the play-house, the watch- 

 house, and the high-way, were only pro- 

 fessional varieties ; or a few young Tem- 

 plars, of whom mankind in general were 

 cautious, by a natural horror of their future 

 trade ; or a few country visitors, who, after 

 having spent their morning in Smithficld, 

 came to doze out their evening at some de- 

 cent distance from their own beeves. The 

 theatres knew their men, gave them en- 

 tertainment fitted for such guests, and dis- 

 tairied to supply with novelties an audience 

 to which dulness was congenial, or plunder 

 was the much pleasanter play. 



But what an alteration has taken place 

 since ! Who now makes any difference 

 between one month and another ? What 

 man, above the brains of a parish-clerk, 

 / knows any thing about Christmas but its 

 fog ? What noble family knows more 

 about it than that it is just, of all seasons, 

 the most inconvenient to be seen in, 

 either in country or in town the former 

 being a bore inexpressible, and clogged 

 with feasts to the neighbouring gentry 

 civilities to the dowdy wives and daugh- 

 ters of voters in the past election rug- 

 cloaks to old women, and food and firing to 

 the cottagers, that expect it as "due as the 

 Turk's tribute." Town is not less a bore 

 for the name of the thing. The "durance 

 vile" of that season in which visiting is not 

 quite, etiquette, and St. James's is deserted 

 for Windsor. Yet in London they are at 



this hour; or all arc, who cannot escape 

 to hide their heads at Brighton or Rams- 

 gate, or some outlying comer of the earth, 

 where the peerage goes for what the peerage 

 is worth, and a man with a star or a title is 

 not sunk into the utter invisibility into 

 which noble persons of moderate faculties 

 and high pretensions go plump down in the 

 unceremonious multitude of London. We 

 will venture to lay our critical laurels that 

 nine-tenths of the human noblesse of the 

 Grosvenor and Portman Squares world ; the 

 very exclusives of the earth that superfine 

 and sublime portion of man and woman- 

 kind which respire high blood, and think 

 that every coach without a coronet is to be 

 hired for a shilling; the' very celestials of 

 society ; and at this hour closeted up in 

 their mansions in as much dread of being 

 recognised in Town as any insolvent that 

 ever wore moustaches in Bond-street. The 

 playhouses, we will allow, can expect but 

 little now from their " supremacies." But 

 from those, the playhouse generally gets 

 as little as any other claimant, public or 

 private. But let them recollect the mul- 

 titude ; the abiding million of London 

 itself; the locomotory host, the rotatory 

 tens of thousands that come in daily from 

 the ends of England and the earth, on the 

 tops and bottoms of stage coaches ; the 

 endless tide of idlers who will go any where 

 for tolerable amusement ; the new genera- 

 tion of officiels, who after three o'clock 

 have nothing to do but to sleep, or hunt for 

 amusement. The natural play-loving spirit 

 of the people, " Merry England," as it was 

 of old, and merry as it would be anew, if 

 the masters of public pleasantry would take 

 the trouble to give them something worth 

 their shillings and their smiles. We should 

 think that of all months in the year, De- 

 cember was the very best for the national 

 theatres. But managers will not take our 

 advice, and they will therefore have the re- 

 ward due to those who despise the Oracle. 

 They will play bad pieces to empty benches, 

 and when people ask why, they will 

 answer : " because London, fifty years ago, 

 had riot a fifth part of the population of 

 London now." So will they speak, act, 

 weep, and sigh over an empty treasury, and 

 die in their sins. 



The Opera House has made the bold 

 experiment of opening before Christmas. 

 But this our oracle would have discouraged, 

 if the manager had the precaution to ask 

 humbly what we thought about the matter. 

 The Opera House is not democratic. The 

 haut ton, or by whatever silly name it de- 

 lights to be called, are its food, its shew, its 

 subscription, its five senses. But in this 

 season the people of the "exclusive world," 

 are, like the sparrows, hid in their own 

 nooks, as dead and buried. There is 

 neither song nor supper among them till 

 spring. The casual call of parliament fop 

 a week was not enough. The few who 

 ventured out have slunk in again, and nv 



