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AT the north end of Crosurt there yet stands a portal, of so architectural pretensions, though reduced to hule use, sering at present for arao a printing-office. This old doorway, if you are young, reader, you y not know was the identical pit entrao Old Drury -- Garricks Drury -- all of it that is left. I neer pass it without shaking so forty years frooff shoulders, recurring to the eening when I passed through it to see first py. The afternoon had bee, and the dition of oing (the elder folks and self) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beati did I watch frothe window the puddles, frothe stillness of which I was taught tnosticate the desired cessation! I seeto reer the st spurt, and the glee with which I ran to annou.
We went with orders, whibsp; godfather F. had sent us. He kept the oil shop (now Daiess) at the er of Featherstone- building, in Holborn. F. was a tall grae person, lofty in speech, and had pretensions aboe his rank. He associated in those days with John Palr, the edian, whose gait and bearing he seed tpy; if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow sowhat of his nner fro godfather. He was also known to, and isited by, Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopent with hifroa b-school at Bath -- the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (oer a quadrille table) when he arried in the eening with his harnious charge. -- Froeither of these eions it y be inferred that godfatheuld and an order for the then Drury-heatre at pleasure -- and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsleys easy autograph, I hae heard hisay was the sole reion which he had receied for ny years nightly illunation of the orchestra and arious aenues of that theatre -- and he was tent it should be so. The honour of Sheridans faliarity -- or supposed faliarity -- was better to godfather than ney.
F. was thbbr９９lib.;/abbre st gentlenly of oiln; grandiloquent, yeurteous. His deliery of the o tters of fact was . He had two Latin words alst stantly in his uth (how odd sounds Latin froan oilns lips!), whibsp; better knowledge since has enabled trrect. In strict pronunciation they should hae been sounded ice ersa -- but in those young years they iressed with re awe than they would now do, read aright froSeneca or Varro -- in his own peculiar pronunciation, nosylbically eborated, licized, into sothing like erse erse. By an iosing nner, and the help of these distorted sylbles, he clied (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrews has to bestow.
He is dead -- and thus ch I thought due to his ry, both for first orders (little wondrous talisns ! -- slight keys, and insignifit to outward sight, but opening to re than Arabian paradises!) and reoer, that by his testantary benefice I to possession of the only nded property which uld eer call own -- situate he road-way ilge of pleasant Puckeridge, ifordshire. When I journeyed down to take possession, and pnted foot on own ground, the stately habits of the donor desded upon , and I strode (shall I fess the anity?) with rger paces oer allotnt of three quarters of an acre, with its odious nsion i, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all betwit sky are was own. The estate has passed into re prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian restore it.
In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the unfortable 9９ｌiｂ?anager who abolished the! -- with one of these we went. I reer the waiting at the door -- not that which is left -- but between that and an inner door ier -- O when shall I be su epet again ! -- with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable py-house apa in those days. As near as I llect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, quot;Chase so es, chase so nuarels, chase a bill of the py;quot; -- chase pro chuse. But whe in, and I beheld the green curtain that eiled a heaen to igination, which was soon to be disclosed -- the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen sothing like it ie prefied to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowes Shakspeare -- the teh Diode -- and a sight of that pte always bring ba a asure the feeling of that eening. -- The boes at that ti, full of well-dressed won of quality, protected oer the pit; and the pisters reag down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under gss (as it seed), reseling -- a holy fancy -- but I judged it to be sugar-dy -- yet, to raised igination, diested of its holier qualities, it appeared a glorified dy -- The orchestra lights at length arose, those quot;fair Auroras!quot; Ohe bell sounded. It was t out yet once again -- and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed shut eyes in a sort nation upoernal p. It rang the sed ti. The curtain drew up -- I was not past si years old -- and the py was Artaeres!
I had dabbled a little in the Uniersal History -- the a part of it -- and here was thurt of Persia. It was being adtted to a sight of the past I took no proper i iion going on, for I uood not its iort -- but I heard the word Darius, and I was i of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in ision. Geous ests, gardens, paces, princesses, passed before . I knew not pyers. I was in Persepolis for the ti; and the burning idol of their deotion alst erted into a worshipper. I was awe-struck, and belieed those significations to be sothihaal fires. It was all e and a drea No such pleasure has since isited but in drea. -- Harlequins Inasion followed; where, I reer, the transfortion of the gistrates into reerend belda seed to a piece of grae historic justice, and the tailor carrying his owo be as sober a erity as the legend of St. Denys.
The  y to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of which, with the eception of so sery, ery faint traces are left in ry. It was followed by a panto, cal]ed Luns Ghost -- a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Riot long since dead -- but to apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as rete a piece of antiquity as Lud -- the father of a line of Harlequins -- transtting his dagger of th (the woodere) through tless ages. I saw the prial Motley e frohis silent to in a ghastly est of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So Harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.
My third py followed in quick suession. It was the Way of the World. I think I st hae sat at it as grae as a judge; for, I reer, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected like so sole tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe followed; in whi Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as iory. -- The ery and pantaloonery of these pantos hae  assed out of head. I beliee, I nhed at the than at the sa age I should hae been disposed to ugh at the grotesque Gothic heads (seeng to thee with deout aning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old Round Church ( church) of the Ters.
I saw these pys in the season 1781-2, when I was frosi to seen years old. After the iion of si or seen other years (for at school all py-going was inhibited) I agaiered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaeres eening had neer ding in fancy. I epected the sa feelings to e again with the sa oasion. But we differ froourseles less at sity and siteen, thater does frosi. In that interal what had I not lost! At the first period I knew nothing, uood nothing, disated nothing. I fe all, loed all, wondered all -
Was nourished, uld not tell how -
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I had left the tele a deotee, and was returned a rationalist. The sa things were there terially; but the ele the reference, was gone -- The green curtain was no longer a eil, drawween two worlds, the unfolding of which was t back past ages, to present quot;a royal ghost,quot; -- but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience fien ti frocertain of their felloere to e forward and pretend those parts. The lights -- the orchestra lights -- ca up a cluy ery. The first ring, and the sed ring, was now but a trick of the proters bell -- which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantoof a oio hand seen uessed at whiistered to its warning. The actors were n and won painted. I thought the fau was i it was in self, and the aeration which those uries -- of si short twele- nths -- had wrought in . -- Perhaps it was fortunate for that the py of the eening was but an indifferent edy, as it gae ti to crop so u藏书网nreasonable epectations, which ght hae interfered with the genuiions with which I was soon after eo enter upon the first appearao of Mrs. Siddons in IsabelIa. parison arospe soon yielded to the present attra of the se; and the theatre beca to , upon a ock, the st delightful of recreations.
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