University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

The Park. Evening. Moonlight. Theatre lighted up. Music in Peale's Museum.
Enter Euterpe, Thalia, and Clio.
Eut.
Where hast thou been, sister, say?

Tha.
Strolling up and down Broadway,
Stripping vice of its disguise,
Shooting folly as it flies:
Paulding now demands my aid,
That 's a call I can 't evade.
Halleck asks no favors, bless him!
All the sisters so caress him.
Cox, you know, in Albion's isle,
Waits for my inspiring smile;
Thither, in a shell I'll sail,
Bannered with a peacock's tail;
He will folly's emblem view,
And then he'll do, he'll do, he'll do!

Eut.
I'll give thee a favoring wind.

Tha.
Thank thee sister,thou art kind.

Clio.
I'll supply thee with another.

Tha.
I myself have all the other.
Where hast thou been with thy flute?

Eut.
Austen's voice has kept it mute;
For I can not wake such tones
As Cinderella breathes with Jones.
Brichta, Gillingham, and Knight,
Fill their hearers with delight;
Feron, George, and tuneful Poole,
Pupils of a Sterling school,
All have won such high repute,
I 've a mind to break my flute!
All that I can now pretend,
Is their sweetest airs to blend,
Copied weekly from the stage,
For the Mirror's music page.

Tha.
Where hast thou been, sister Clio?

Clio.
In the classic isle of Scio,
Gathering facts to form a story
Of Moslem hate and Grecian glory;
Present times and foreign ages,
Fit to grace the Mirror's pages;
Buried archives, deep and loamy—
Look what I have—

Tha.
Show me! show me!

Clio.
Here I have Minerva's thumb,
Dug from Herculaneum.

Eut.
Be dumb! be mum! our sisters come!

Enter Polhyminia, Erato, and Terpsichore. All join hands and sing in chorus.
Aonian sisters, hand in hand,
Thus shall bless Columbia's land,
When they go about, about,
Inviting native talent out.

Pol.
Volume eighth its course has run—

Era.
Volume NINE—

Terps.
Has just begun

Enter Melpomene, Calliope, and Urania.
Eut.
Thrice to thine,

Cal.
And thrice to mine,

All.
To make up NINE.

Clio.
Peace! the charm's wound up.

Enter 1st and 2d Editors, reading communications by moonlight.
1st Ed.
Here let us halt a moment on the green.
So foul and fair a scroll I have not seen.

2d Ed.
How far is 't called to Flushing? What are these,
So strange in their attire, yet formed to please;
That look not like the belles of gay Broadway,
And yet are near it? Ladies, if I may
So far presume, I beg that you'll command me
In anything. You seem to understand me!
Mortal or not, you know what I am saying,
By each at once her taper finger laying
Upon her lips. As females you appear,
And yet your silence baffles that idea.

1st Ed.
Speak if you can! What are you? Why demur?

Clio.
All hail the Mirror's senior editor!

Tha.
All hail to thee, whose fame shall long exist!

Eut.
A thousand names are added to thy list!

Mel.
All hail to thee, who shall be rich as Crœsus!

2d Ed.
Why do you start, good sir, at what should please us?
[To the Muses.]
Are ye fantastical, I fain would know?
Or that indeed which outwardly ye show?
You greet my partner, here, with present fee,
And great prediction: why not speak to me,
Who neither beg nor fear your love or hate?

All.
Hail! lesser than thy partner, yet more great!

Clio.
Thou shalt have fame that ne'er can fade nor fail,

All.
So all hail Morris, Fay, and Willis, hail!

1st Ed.
Stay, ye imperfect speakers! tell me more.
I know that I am senior editor;
But as to fame, and wealth, and all the rest,
The thousand names which you have just expressed,
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be rich as Lydia's chief.
How know you this? or why here, after dark,
Stop you our way in this triangled Park,
With such prophetic greeting in our path?

[They vanish.
2d Ed.
The earth hath bubbles, as the water hath,
And these are of them. Whither did they fly?

1st Ed.
Into the air, or theatre, just by;
Would they had staid, and told their story out.

2d Ed.
Were such things here, as we do speak about?
Or have we breathed exhilarating gas,
And merely dreamed that such things came to pass?

1st Ed.
Thy fame shall still increase.

2d Ed.
Thy wealth shall grow.

1st Ed.
And reputation: went it not so?

2d Ed.
To the self-same tune and words. Whom have we here?

Enter Collector, in haste.
Col.
The news of my success will charm thine ear;
One thousand new subscribers swell our list,
Which still increases, and they all insist
On paying in advance. There 's the amount,
Which you will find correct, sir, if you count.

2d Ed.
What! can their words be true?

[Aside.
1st Ed.
Sir, you are kind.
[Musing.
Thanks for your pains—the greatest is behind.
Wealthy as Crœsus! the hope within me stirs,
Our children's children may be editors!
Two truths are told—the one a golden fact—
As happy prologues to the swelling act.

2d Ed.
Look, how our partner's rapt!

1st Ed.
Come what, come may,
Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

[Exeunt.