236 The Theatres. [ Marcu, 
seemed to him to involve his own with the manager, fled. from, the theatre 
and threw himself upon his bed in despair. He was roused by Harris’s 
arrival shortly after, who cheered him, talked of the disaster asa mere 
accident owing to the haste with which his production was urged ; and 
ended, by pouring out the six hundred guineas onthe table. i 
The man who could do this, deserved to have the best ability of able 
men at his command, and he had it. The theatre never was in so 
flourishing a state since the days of Garrick. Covent Garden, with 
its comedies, anda comic company (though that was first-rate) fought 
and conquered the grand dramatic army of Drury Lane, with the 
Kembles and’ Siddons at its head, and with only, at least, the name of 
Sheridan to make it the centre of fashion, and the centre of wit together. 
Still Harris vigorously fought his battle, and when he retired from the 
management through age, he retired with 80,0007. 
But there was in his conduct more than the mere official drudgery of 
a manager. He cultivated society at home. He felt that he might take 
rank among his fellow men by his personal merits, and his house received 
with honourable and accomplished hospitality a large suecession of 
individuals fitted to give distinction to any rank. He thus at once made 
his profession popular, and acquired for himself the active civilities and 
‘polished intercourse of the learned, the witty, and the influential. Six 
Joshua Reynolds had done this before him, and found its advantages in 
the best sense of the word, in the cultivation of his own understanding, 
in the pleasant opportunity of bringing intelligent and valuable men 
together, who, but for that casual intercourse might never have met, and 
in the added information and personal pleasure to be found in manly 
and highly instructed minds. 
But who does this now? Sir Thomas Lawrence, at the head of his 
profession, and with the duty incumbent on him of promoting and 
keeping it in public honour, sees the example of Sir Joshua pass away, 
without an attempt to emulate it. The lives of all the other headsof 
professions are strictly, almost sullenly, private ; from the highest rank 
to the most common, all in this point, are the same. Yet this is impolitie. 
Those chiefs of the staff, those leaders of the intellectual forces of the 
country, should feel that their situation imposes on them the duty of 
publicity, and that the most natural way of ennobling a profession, is to 
bring its professors into frequent contact with able men ; at. present, all 
those leaders are obscure, from a love of keeping in the back ground. 
Not one man out of a thousand knows any thing of their existence, and 
of course, their own opportunities are equally narrowed. Mr. Davies 
Gilbert is known among the Royal Society as the gentleman who sits in 
their chair, and there ends the knowledge. Sir Henry Halford has too 
many pulses to press in an evening, to trouble himself with calling his 
equals about him. Sir Astley Cooper, by nature a jovial fellow, yields 
to the force of custom, and shuts himself up by his fire-side. A solemn 
dinner once a year, or an evening levee, at which he preposterously 
orders his visitors to appear in bags and swords, satisfies the Chancellor’s 
duties in this point ; and so goes on the round, dull and undelighted, — 
beggarly and obscure, until painters, poets, lawyers, and physicians, sink 
into the common dust, to be not more forgotten in the churchyard, — 
than they were in society. : 
The principal novelty of the season has been “ The Nymph of ‘the 
Grotto,” written by Mr. Diamond, and composed by Liverati and Lee. 
We give this, ‘as it is given by the papers, but the originality of 
