LIFE IN IRELAND 235 



CHAPTER XX 



Dublia Theatricals — John Wilson Croker — Sir Harcourt Lees 

 — A Green-Room Scene — Non est invertis — Freedom in Love — 

 A race for the breeches — Horace Twiss, and a Pot de Chamhre 

 — Impromptu of Lady Clare — Lady Demiquaver's lines on Lady 

 Howe — A long letter, never a better — A trip to Dandrum, etc. — 

 Scenes of love, and an Irish bull bait. 



A WORD or two of the New Theatre. It is built 

 on the scite of the Old Royal Society House — 

 (i\.h, such a Society ! Grey marble, Giant's Causeway, 

 paving stone, Wicklow copper, and petrified shamrocks, 

 were all the curiosities it contained). The building in 

 itself has not any thing to recommend it, and is no orna- 

 ment to a City celebrated all over Europe for the beauty 

 of its public buildings. The proprietor, I am ashamed 

 to say, is an Englishman ; no Irishman could be found of 

 sufficient enterprise to enter upon what can scarcely be 

 called a speculation, as its success was certain, from the 

 theatrical mania which always rages in Dublin during 

 the winter season. Thus we are indebted to a foreigner 

 for an establishment calculated to improve our taste, 

 mend our morals, and enlarge our understandings. 

 Such things are, and are to be lamented. 



The late Crow Street Theatre, so long and so bar- 

 barously mismanaged by Frederick Jones, still paid, 



