1826. ] A Dog-Day. 163 
monstrance by a middle-aged Mr. Simpson, who tosses her on to a spare 
haycock, and seems in no hurry to let her rise again, till she is sufficiently 
suffocated with hay and smothered with kisses; and Irish hay-makers seem 
very indignant, but are pacifiable by penny subscriptions for the havoe 
made. | Now’a thermometer, if taken into a summer theatre, stands ‘at 
130° during the first piece, and at 160° during the farce, which is no 
joke—and play-goers are to be pitied for their infatuation: and now the 
Tritons and New-river Neptunes, when they plunge into the tank’ at 
Sadler’s Wells theatre, hiss like so many bars of hot iron thrown out of 
an iron foundry ; and the gods in the gallery cry out “ Throw him over!” 
taking the noise to be the sibilation of a hypercritical one-shilling critic, 
and o’ the instant some harmless innocent individual, Jones or Jenkins; 
is tossed into the pit, to the smashing of one chandelier, and the break- 
ing of two necks which have no connexion with the Swan in Lad-lane : 
wherefore the manager is called for, and Tom Dibdin advances to the 
foot-lights, makes his speech, bows, withdraws as he bows, and plumps 
backwards into the “ real water” for which that theatre is famous, and 
the curtain drops amidst-considerable applause. Now the Lyceum 
shrubbery cannot deceive one for a moment into the expectation of cool- 
ness, if one observes the stewed dandies and greens which make up the 
show of that half-price paradise for ‘prentice-boys; and Mr. Arnold, if 
he really wishes to keep his theatre open, instead of introducing Scotch 
and Irish airs into his operas, would find \it more to his interest to intro- 
duce the azrs of heaven. Now amateur-laureates, having birth-day odes 
and epithalamia to produce, go mad by dozens; and I, who only at- 
tempted a solitary sonnet yesterday, found myself stuck fast at the thir- 
teenth line, in a profuse perspiration ; and as the twine-merchant passed 
under my window, crying “ Buy a line, felt inclined to make a bargain 
with him, in imitation of my particular poetical friend, the late Leather-lane 
lyrical, when in similar circumstances of despair; for he, poor fellow, made 
use of that “last /ine of all that ends this woeful tragedy,” in a very unlyri- 
cal manner, and tied himself up by it to his tester, suicidally dying of an 
unfinishable sonnet in the dog-days : an awful warning to all rash rhyme- 
sters not to attempt bringing down a sonnet till September, when sonnets 
are’ in season, and bring-downable. And now another poet, who begins 
an Ode to the Dog-star somewhat i’ this fashion :— 
B10) What, ho! red dog-star—sultry ranger 
ys 2 Of summer skies—thou dog in manger, 
fe) That cannot this green world enjoy, 
And those who would dost half destroy— 
Art a volcano, where young comets gorge? 
Or Vulcan’s foundry, where fierce Jove doth forge 
‘ His thunderbolts? or a burning-glass—a hole 
im Burning right through this earth, to melt that Pole 
Which Captain Parry finds he cannot pierce, 
oy sb With all his skill in naval carte and tierce, 
eTaytl And make a passage, when he next shall venture, 
Not by the old way, but plump -through the centre? fs 
(oem) ys |) Or dost thou mean to burn earth to a cinder, 
vievouoe ov cAnd make its firmament’s festoons thy tinder ? it 48 
finds ‘such. fiery thoughts “very tolerable and not to be endured,” and’ 
that:his inkstand and brain are both dry as “ remainder biscuit,” and’ 
f 32 
resigns himself tohis-obscure destiny and the dog-days. 
2 
yupeeae! | Y "CL Wii 
A. sical . 
ipet > 
= ’ ‘ 
