Book: Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum

J >> James and Horace Smith >> Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum



This etext was produced by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk,
from the 1879 John Murray edition.





REJECTED ADDRESSES: OR, THE NEW THEATRUM POETARUM

by James and Horace Smith




Contents:

Preface to First Edition
Preface to Eighteenth Edition
Rejected Addresses
Loyal Effusion--by W. T. F.
The Baby's Debut--by W. W.
An Address Without a Phoenix--by S. T. P.
Cui Bono?--by Lord B.
Hampshire Farmer's Address--by W. C.
The Living Lustres--by T. M.
The Rebuilding--by R. S.
Drury's Dirge--by Laura Matilda.
A Tale of Drury Lane--by W. S.
Johnson's Ghost
The Beautiful Incendiary--by the Hon. W. S.
Fire and Ale--by M. G. L.
Playhouse Musings,--by S. T. C.
Drury Lane Hustings--by a Pic-Nic Poet
Architectural Atoms--translated by Dr. B.
Theatrical Alarm-bell--by the Editor of the M. P.
The Theatre--by the Rev. G. C.
Macbeth Travestie--by Momus Medlar
Stranger Travestie--by Momus Medlar
George Barnwell Travestie--by Momus Medlar
Punch's Apotheosis--by T. H.
Footnotes and other notes



PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION



On the 14th of August, 1812, the following advertisement appeared in
most of the daily papers:-


"Rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre.

"The Committee are desirous of promoting a free and fair competition
for an Address to be spoken upon the opening of the Theatre, which
will take place on the 10th of October next. They have, therefore,
thought fit to announce to the public, that they will be glad to
receive any such compositions, addressed to their Secretary, at the
Treasury-office, in Drury Lane, on or before the 10th of September,
sealed up, with a distinguishing word, number, or motto, on the
cover, corresponding with the inscription on a separate sealed paper,
containing the name of the author, which will not be opened unless
containing the name of the successful candidate."


Upon the propriety of this plan men's minds were, as they usually are
upon matters of moment, much divided. Some thought it a fair promise
of the future intention of the Committee to abolish that phalanx of
authors who usurp the stage, to the exclusion of a large assortment
of dramatic talent blushing unseen in the background; while others
contended that the scheme would prevent men of real eminence from
descending into an amphitheatre in which all Grub Street (that is to
say, all London and Westminster) would be arrayed against them. The
event has proved both parties to be in a degree right, and in a
degree wrong. One hundred and twelve Addresses have been sent in,
each sealed and signed, and mottoed, "as per order," some written by
men of great, some by men of little, and some by men of no talent.

Many of the public prints have censured the taste of the Committee,
in thus contracting for Addresses as they would for nails--by the
gross; but it is surprising that none should have censured their
TEMERITY. One hundred and eleven of the Addresses must, of course,
be unsuccessful: to each of the authors, thus infallibly classed
with the genus irritabile, it would be very hard to deny six stanch
friends, who consider his the best of all possible Addresses, and
whose tongues will be as ready to laud him as to hiss his adversary.
These, with the potent aid of the bard himself, make seven foes per
address; and thus will be created seven hundred and seventy-seven
implacable auditors, prepared to condemn the strains of Apollo
himself--a band of adversaries which no prudent manager would think
of exasperating.

But, leaving the Committee to encounter the responsibility they have
incurred, the public have at least to thank them for ascertaining and
establishing one point, which might otherwise have admitted of
controversy. When it is considered that many amateur writers have
been discouraged from becoming competitors, and that few, if any, of
the professional authors can afford to write for nothing, and, of
course, have not been candidates for the honorary prize at Drury
Lane, we may confidently pronounce that, as far as regards NUMBER,
the present is undoubtedly the Augustan age of English poetry.
Whether or not this distinction will be extended to the QUALITY of
its productions, must be decided at the tribunal of posterity; though
the natural anxiety of our authors on this score ought to be
considerably diminished when they reflect how few will, in all
probability, be had up for judgment.

It is not necessary for the Editor to mention the manner in which he
became possessed of this "fair sample of the present state of poetry
in Great Britain." It was his first intention to publish the whole;
but a little reflection convinced him that, by so doing, he might
depress the good, without elevating the bad. He has therefore culled
what had the appearance of flowers, from what possessed the reality
of weeds, and is extremely sorry that, in so doing, he has diminished
his collection to twenty-one. Those which he has rejected may
possibly make their appearance in a separate volume, or they may be
admitted as volunteers in the files of some of the newspapers; or, at
all events, they are sure of being received among the awkward squad
of the Magazines. In general, they bear a close resemblance to each
other; thirty of them contain extravagant compliments to the immortal
Wellington and the indefatigable Whitbread; and, as the last-
mentioned gentleman is said to dislike praise in the exact proportion
in which he deserves it, these laudatory writers have probably been
only building a wall against which they might run their own heads.

The Editor here begs leave to advance a few words in behalf of that
useful and much abused bird the Phoenix; and in so doing he is
biassed by no partiality, as he assures the reader he not only never
saw one, but (mirabile dictu!) never caged one, in a simile, in the
whole course of his life. Not less than sixty-nine of the
competitors have invoked the aid of this native of Arabia; but as,
from their manner of using him after they had caught him, he does not
by any means appear to have been a native of Arabia Felix, the Editor
has left the proprietors to treat with Mr. Polito, and refused to
receive this rara avis, or black swan, into the present collection.
One exception occurs, in which the admirable treatment of this
feathered incombustible entitles the author to great praise: that
Address has been preserved, and in the ensuing pages takes the lead,
to which its dignity entitles it.

Perhaps the reason why several of the subjoined productions of the
MUSAE LONDINENSES have failed of selection, may he discovered in
their being penned in a metre unusual upon occasions of this sort,
and in their not being written with that attention to stage effect,
the want of which, like want of manners in the concerns of life, is
more prejudicial than a deficiency of talent. There is an art of
writing for the Theatre, technically called TOUCH and GO, which is
indispensable when we consider the small quantum of patience which so
motley an assemblage as a London audience can be expected to afford.
All the contributors have been very exact in sending their initials
and mottoes. Those belonging to the present collection have been
carefully preserved, and each has been affixed to its respective
poem. The letters that accompanied the Addresses having been
honourably destroyed unopened, it is impossible to state the real
authors with any certainty; but the ingenious reader, after comparing
the initials with the motto, and both with the poem, may form his own
conclusions.

The Editor does not anticipate any disapprobation from thus giving
publicity to a small portion of the Rejected Addresses; for unless he
is widely mistaken in assigning the respective authors, the fame of
each individual is established on much too firm a basis to be shaken
by so trifling and evanescent a publication as the present:


- neque ego illi detrahere ausim
Haerentem capiti multa cum laude ceronam.


Of the numerous pieces already sent to the Committee for performance,
he has only availed himself of three vocal Travesties, which he has
selected, not for their merit, but simply for their brevity. Above
one hundred spectacles, melodramas, operas, and pantomimes have been
transmitted, besides the two first acts of one legitimate comedy.
Some of these evince considerable smartness of manual dialogue, and
several brilliant repartees of chairs, tables, and other inanimate
wits; but the authors seem to have forgotten that in the new Drury
Lane the audience can hear as well as see. Of late our theatres have
been so constructed, that John Bull has been compelled to have very
long ears, or none at all; to keep them dangling about his skull like
discarded servants, while his eyes were gazing at pieballs and
elephants, or else to stretch them out to an asinine length to catch
the congenial sound of braying trumpets. An auricular revolution is,
we trust, about to take place; and as many people have been much
puzzled to define the meaning of the new era, of which we have heard
so much, we venture to pronounce that, as far as regards Drury Lane
Theatre, the new era means the reign of ears. If the past affords
any pledge for the future, we may confidently expect from the
Committee of that House every thing that can be accomplished by the
union of taste and assiduity. {0}



PREFACE TO EIGHTEENTH EDITION {1}



In the present publishing era, when books are like the multitudinous
waves of the advancing sea, some of which make no impression whatever
upon the sand, while the superficial traces left by others are
destined to be perpetually obliterated by their successors, almost as
soon as they are found, the authors of the Rejected Addresses may
well feel flattered, after a lapse of twenty years, and the sale of
seventeen large editions, in receiving an application to write a
Preface to a new and more handsome impression. In diminution,
however, of any overweening vanity which they might be disposed to
indulge on this occasion, they cannot but admit the truth of the
remark made by a particularly candid and good-natured friend, who
kindly reminded them, that if their little work has hitherto floated
upon the stream of time, while so many others of much greater weight
and value have sunk to rise no more, it has been solely indebted for
its buoyancy to that specific levity which enables feathers, straws,
and similar trifles to defer their submersion until they have become
thoroughly saturated with the waters of oblivion, when they quickly
meet the fate which they had long before merited.

Our ingenuous and ingenious friend furthermore observed, that the
demolition of Drury Lane Theatre by fire, its reconstruction under
the auspices of the celebrated Mr. Whitbread, {2} the reward offered
by the Committee for an opening address, and the public recitation of
a poem composed expressly for the occasion by Lord Byron, one of the
most popular writers of the age, formed an extraordinary concurrence
of circumstances which could not fail to insure the success of the
Rejected Addresses, while it has subsequently served to fix them in
the memory of the public, so far at least as a poor immortality of
twenty years can be said to have effected that object. In fact,
continued our impartial and affectionate monitor, your little work
owes its present obscure existence entirely to the accidents that
have surrounded and embalmed it,--even as flies, and other worthless
insects, may long survive their natural date of extinction, if they
chance to be preserved in amber, or any similar substance.


The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare -
But wonder how the devil they got there!--POPE.


With the natural affection of parents for the offspring of their own
brains, we ventured to hint that some portion of our success might
perhaps be attributable to the manner in which the different
imitations were executed; but our worthy friend protested that his
sincere regard for us, as well as for the cause of truth, compelled
him to reject our claim, and to pronounce that, when once the idea
had been conceived, all the rest followed as a matter of course, and
might have been executed by any other hands not less felicitously
than by our own.

Willingly leaving this matter to the decision of the public, since we
cannot be umpires in our own cause, we proceed to detail such
circumstances attending the writing and publication of our little
work, as may literally meet the wishes of the present proprietor of
the copyright, who has applied to us for a gossiping Preface. Were
we disposed to be grave and didactic, which is as foreign to our mood
as it was twenty years ago, we might draw the attention of the
reader, in a fine sententious paragraph, to the trifles upon which
the fate of empires, as well as a four-and-sixpenny volume of
parodies, occasionally hangs in trembling balance. No sooner was the
idea of our work conceived, than it was about to be abandoned in
embryo, from the apprehension that we had no lime to mature and bring
it forth, as it was indispensable that it should be written, printed,
and published by the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, which would only
allow us an interval of six weeks, and we had both of us other
avocations that precluded us from the full command of even that
limited period. Encouraged, however, by the conviction that the
thought was a good one, and by the hope of making a lucky hit, we set
to work con amore, our very hurry not improbably enabling us to
strike out at a heat what we might have failed to produce so well,
had we possessed time enough to hammer it into more careful and
elaborate form.

Our first difficulty, that of selection, was by no means a light one.
Some of our most eminent poets--such, for instance, as Rogers and
Campbell--presented so much beauty, harmony, and proportion in their
writings, both as to style and sentiment, that if we had attempted to
caricature them, nobody would have recognised the likeness; and if we
had endeavoured to give a servile copy of their manner, it would only
have amounted, at best, to a tame and unamusing portrait, which it
was not our object to present. Although fully aware that their names
would, in the theatrical phrase, have conferred great strength upon
our bill, we were reluctantly compelled to forego them, and to
confine ourselves to writers whose style and habit of thought, being
more marked and peculiar, was more capable of exaggeration and
distortion. To avoid politics and personality, to imitate the turn
of mind as well as the phraseology of our originals, and, at all
events, to raise a harmless laugh, were our main objects; in the
attainment of which united aims, we were sometimes hurried into
extravagance, by attaching much more importance to the last than to
the two first. In no instance were we thus betrayed into a greater
injustice than in the case of Mr. Wordsworth--the touching sentiment,
profound wisdom, and copious harmony of whose loftier writings we
left unnoticed, in the desire of burlesquing them; while we pounced
upon his popular ballads, and exerted ourselves to push their
simplicity into puerility and silliness. With pride and pleasure do
we now claim to be ranked among the most ardent admirers of this true
poet; and if he himself could see the state of his works, which are
ever at our right hand, he would, perhaps, receive the manifest
evidences they exhibit of constant reference and delighted re-
perusal, as some sort of amende honorable for the unfairness of which
we were guilty when we were less conversant with the higher
inspirations of his muse. To Mr. Coleridge, and others of our
originals, we must also do a tardy act of justice, by declaring that
our burlesque of their peculiarities has never blinded us to those
beauties and talents which are beyond the reach of all ridicule.

One of us {3} had written a genuine Address for the occasion, which
was sent to the Committee, and shared the fate it merited, in being
rejected. To swell the bulk, or rather to diminish the tenuity of
our little work, we added it to the Imitations; and prefixing the
initials of S. T. P. for the purpose of puzzling the critics, were
not a little amused, in the sequel, by the many guesses and
conjectures into which we had ensnared some of our readers. We could
even enjoy the mysticism, qualified as it was by the poor compliment,
that our carefully written Address exhibited no "very prominent trait
of absurdity," when we saw it thus noticed in the Edinburgh Review
for November 1812:- "An Address by S. T. P. we can make nothing of;
and professing our ignorance of the author designated by these
letters, we can only add, that the Address, though a little affected,
and not very full of meaning, has no very prominent trait of
absurdity, that we can detect; and might have been adopted and
spoken, so far as we can perceive, without any hazard of ridicule.
In our simplicity we consider it as a very decent, mellifluous,
occasional prologue; and do not understand how it has found its way
into its present company."

Urged forward by hurry, and trusting to chance, two very bad
coadjutors in any enterprise, we at length congratulated ourselves on
having completed our task in time to have it printed and published by
the opening of the theatre. But alas! our difficulties, so far from
being surmounted, seemed only to be beginning. Strangers to the
arcana of the booksellers' trade, and unacquainted with their almost
invincible objection to single volumes of low price, especially when
tendered by writers who have acquired no previous name, we little
anticipated that they would refuse to publish our Rejected Addresses,
even although we asked nothing for the copyright. Such, however,
proved to be the case. Our manuscript was perused and returned to us
by several of the most eminent publishers. {4} Well do we remember
betaking ourselves to one of the craft in Bond-street, whom we found
in a back parlour, with his gouty leg propped upon a cushion, in
spite of which warning he diluted his luncheon with frequent glasses
of Madeira. "What have you already written?" was his first question-
-an interrogatory to which we had been subjected in almost every
instance. "Nothing by which we can be known." "Then I am afraid to
undertake the publication." We presumed timidly to suggest that
every writer must have a beginning, and that to refuse to publish for
him until he had acquired a name, was to imitate the sapient mother
who cautioned her son against going into the water until he could
swim. "An old joke--a regular Joe!" exclaimed our companion, tossing
off another bumper. "Still older than Joe Miller," was our reply;
"for, if we mistake not, it is the very first anecdote in the
facetiae of Hierocles." "Ha, sirs!" resumed the bibliopolist, "you
are learned, are you? So, sob!--Well, leave your manuscript with me;
I will look it over to-night, and give you an answer to-morrow."
Punctual as the clock we presented ourselves at his door on the
following morning, when our papers were returned to us with the
observation--"These trifles are really not deficient in smartness;
they are well, vastly well, for beginners; but they will never do--
never. They would not pay for advertising, and without it I should
not sell fifty copies."

This was discouraging enough. If the most experienced publishers
feared to be out of pocket by the work, it was manifest, a fortiori,
that its writers ran a risk of being still more heavy losers, should
they undertake the publication on their own account. We had no
objection to raise a laugh at the expense of others; but to do it at
our own cost, uncertain as we were to what extent we might be
involved, had never entered into our contemplation. In this dilemma,
our Addresses, now in every sense rejected, might probably have never
seen the light, had not some good angel whispered us to betake
ourselves to Mr. John Miller, a dramatic publisher, then residing in
Bow Street, Covent Garden. No sooner had this gentleman looked over
our manuscript, than he immediately offered to take upon himself all
the risk of publication, and to give us half the profits, SHOULD
THERE BE ANY; a liberal proposition, with which we gladly closed. So
rapid and decided was its success, at which none were more
unfeignedly astonished than its authors, that Mr. Miller advised us
to collect some Imitations of Horace, which had appeared anonymously
in the Monthly Mirror, {5} offering to publish them upon the same
terms. We did so accordingly; and as new editions of the Rejected
Addresses were called for in quick succession, we were shortly
enabled to sell our half copyright in the two works to Mr. Miller for
one thousand pounds! We have entered into this unimportant detail,
not to gratify any vanity of our own, but to encourage such literary
beginners as may be placed in similar circumstances; as well as to
impress upon publishers the propriety of giving more consideration to
the possible merit of the works submitted to them, than to the mere
magic of a name.

To the credit of the genus irritabile be it recorded, that not one of
those whom we had parodied or burlesqued ever betrayed the least
soreness on the occasion, or refused to join in the laugh that we had
occasioned. With most of them we subsequently formed
acquaintanceship; while some honoured us with an intimacy which still
continues, where it has not been severed by the rude hand of Death.
Alas! it is painful to reflect, that of the twelve writers whom we
presumed to imitate, five are now no more; the list of the deceased
being unhappily swelled by the most illustrious of all, the clarum et
venerabile nomen of Sir Walter Scott! From that distinguished
writer, whose transcendent talents were only to be equalled by his
virtues and his amiability, we received favours and notice, both
public and private, which it will be difficult to forget, because we
had not the smallest claim upon his kindness. "I certainly must have
written this myself!" said that fine-tempered man to one of the
authors, pointing to the description of the Fire, "although I forget
upon what occasion." Lydia White, {6} a literary lady who was prone
to feed the lions of the day, invited one of us to dinner; but,
recollecting afterwards that William Spencer {7} formed one of the
party, wrote to the latter to put him off, telling him that a man was
to be at her table whom he "would not like to meet." "Pray, who is
this whom I should not like to meet?" inquired the poet. "O!"
answered the lady, "one of those men who have made that shameful
attack upon you!" "The very man upon earth I should like to know!"
rejoined the lively and careless bard. The two individuals
accordingly met, and have continued fast friends ever since. Lord
Byron, too, wrote thus to Mr. Murray from Italy--"Tell him I forgive
him, were he twenty times over our satirist."

It may not be amiss to notice, in this place, one criticism of a
Leicestershire clergyman, which may be pronounced unique: "I do not
see why they should have been rejected," observed the matter-of-fact
annotator; "I think some of them very good!" Upon the whole, few
have been the instances, in the acrimonious history of literature,
where a malicious pleasantry like the Rejected Addresses--which the
parties ridiculed might well consider more annoying than a direct
satire--instead of being met by querulous bitterness or petulant
retaliation, has procured for its authors the acquaintance, or
conciliated the good-will, of those whom they had the most
audaciously burlesqued.

In commenting on a work, however trifling, which has survived the
lapse of twenty years, an author may almost claim the privileged
garrulity of age; yet even in a professedly gossiping Preface, we
begin to fear that we are exceeding our commission, and abusing the
patience of the reader. If we are doing so, we might urge
extenuating circumstances, which will explain, though they may not
excuse, our diffuseness. To one of us the totally unexpected success
of this little work proved an important event, since it mainly
decided him, some years afterwards, to embark in the literary career
which the continued favour of that novel-reading world has rendered
both pleasant and profitable to him. This is the first, as it will
probably be the last, occasion upon which we shall ever intrude
ourselves personally on the public notice; and we trust that our now
doing so will stand excused by the reasons we have adduced.

LONDON, March, 1833



REJECTED ADDRESSES



LOYAL EFFUSION by W. T. F. {7a}



Quicquid dicunt, lando: id rursum si negant,
Lando id quoque." TERENCE.

Hail, glorious edifice, stupendous work!
God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!
Ye Muses! by whose aid I cried down Fox,
Grant me in Drury Lane a private box,
Where I may loll, cry Bravo! and profess
The boundless powers of England's glorious press;
While Afric's sons exclaim, from shore to shore,
"Quashee ma boo!"--the slave-trade is no more!
In fair Arabia (happy once, now stony,
Since ruined by that arch apostate Boney),
A Phoenix late was caught: the Arab host
Long ponder'd--part would boil it, part would roast,
But while they ponder, up the pot-lid flies,
Fledged, beak'd, and claw'd, alive they see him rise
To heaven, and caw defiance in the skies.
So Drury, first in roasting flames consumed,
Then by old renters to hot water doom'd,
By Wyatt's {8} trowel patted, plump and sleek,
Soars without wings, and caws without a beak.
Gallia's stern despot shall in vain advance
From Paris, the metropolis of France;
By this day month the monster shall not gain
A foot of land in Portugal or Spain.
See Wellington in Salamanca's field
Forces his favourite general to yield,
Breaks through his lines, and leaves his boasted Marmont
Expiring on the plain without his arm on;
Madrid he enters at the cannon's mouth,
And then the villages still further south.
Base Buonaparte, fill'd with deadly ire,
Sets, one by one, our playhouses on fire.
Some years ago he pounced with deadly glee on
The Opera House, then burnt down the Pantheon;
Nay, still unsated, in a coat of flames,
Next at Millbank he cross'd the river Thames;
Thy hatch, O Halfpenny! {9} pass'd in a trice,
Boil'd some black pitch, and burnt down Astley's twice;
Then buzzing on through ether with a vile hum,
Turn'd to the left hand, fronting the Asylum,
And burnt the Royal Circus in a hurry -
('Twas call'd the Circus then, but now the Surrey).
Who burnt (confound his soul!) the houses twain
Of Covent Garden and of Drury Lane? {10}
Who, while the British squadron lay off Cork,
(God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!)
With a foul earthquake ravaged the Caraccas,
And raised the price of dry goods and tobaccos?
Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise?
Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies?
Who thought in flames St. James's court to pinch? {11}
Who burnt the wardrobe of poor Lady Finch? -
Why he, who, forging for this isle a yoke,
Reminds me of a line I lately spoke,
"The tree of freedom is the British oak."
Bless every man possess'd of aught to give;
Long may Long Tylney Wellesley Long Pole live; {12}
God bless the Army, bless their coats of scarlet,
God bless the Navy, bless the Princess Charlotte;
God bless the Guards, though worsted Gallia scoff;
God bless their pig-tails, though they're now cut off;
And, oh! in Downing Street should Old Nick revel,
England's prime minister, then bless the devil!

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