Odes and Addresses to Great People By John Hamilton Reynolds: 3rd ed. |
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ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE, THE GREAT LESSEE! |
 | Odes and Addresses to Great People |  |
103
ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE, THE GREAT LESSEE!
Do you know, you villain, that I am at this moment the greatest man
living?—Wild Oats.
1
Oh! Great Lessee! Great Manager! Great Man!Oh, Lord High Elliston! Immortal Pan
Of all the pipes that play in Drury Lane!
Macready's master! Westminster's high Dane!
(As Galway Martin, in the House's walls,
Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls!)
Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring!
Magician of the lamp and prompter's ring!
Drury's Aladdin! Whipper-in of Actors!
Kicker of rebel-preface-malefactors!
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At once Great Leamington and Winston-Maker!
Dramatic Bolter of plain Bunns and Cakes!
In silken hose the most reform'd of Rakes!
Oh, Lord High Elliston! lend me an ear!
(Poole is away, and Williams shall keep clear)
While I, in little slips of prose, not verse,
Thy splendid course, as pattern-work, rehearse!
2
Bright was thy youth—thy manhood brighter still—The greatest Romeo upon Holborn Hill—
Lightest comedian of the pleasant day,
When Jordan threw her sunshine o'er a play!
When fair Thalia held a merry reign,
And Wit was at her Court in Drury Lane!
Before the day when Authors wrote, of course,
The “Entertainment not for Man but Horse.”
Yet these, though happy, were but subject times,
And no man cares for bottom-steps that climbs—
Far from my wish it is to stifle down
The hours that saw thee snatch the Surrey crown!
105
Fair was thy reign in sweet St. George's Fields.
Dibdin was Premier—and a golden age
For a short time enrich'd the subject stage.
Thou hadst, than other Kings, more peace-and-plenty;
Ours but one Bench could boast, whilst thou hadst twenty;
But the times changed—and Booth-acting no more
Drew Rulers' shillings to the gallery door.
Thou didst, with bag and baggage, wander thence,
Repentant, like thy neighbour Magdalens!
3
Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each featPractis'd, the most bewitching in Wych Street.
Charles had his royal ribaldry restor'd,
And in a downright neigh bourhood drank and whor'd;
Rochester there in dirty ways again
Revell'd—and liv'd once more in Drury Lane:
But thou, R. W.! kept'st thy moral ways,
Pit-lecturing 'twixt the farces and the plays,
106
That soil'd the benches and that made a noise:—
Rebuking,—Half a Robert, Half a Charles,—
The well bill'd Man that call'd, for promis'd Carles;
“Sir!—Have you yet to know! Hush—Hear me out!
A Man—pray silence!—may be down with gout,
Or want—or Sir!—aw!—listen!—may be fated,
Being in debt, to be incarcerated!
You,—in the back!—can scarcely hear a line!
Down from those benches—butchers—they are mine!”
5
Lastly—and thou wert built for it by nature!—Crown'd was thy head in Drury Lane Theatre!
Gentle George Robins saw that it was good,
And Renters cluck'd around thee in a brood.
King thou wert made of Drury and of Kean!
Of many a lady and of many a Quean!
With Poole and Larpent was thy reign begun—
But now thou turnest from the Dead and Dun,
107
And Colman lives to cut the damnlets out!
6
Oh, worthy of the house! the King's commission!Isn't thy condition “a most bless'd condition?”
Thou reignest over Winston, Kean, and all,
The very lofty and the very small—
Showest the plumbless Bunn the way to kick—
Keepest a Williams for thy veriest stick—
Seeest a Vestris in her sweetest moments,
Without the danger of newspaper comments—
Tellest Macready, as none dared before,
Thine open mind from the half-open door!—
(Alas! I fear he has left Melpomene's crown,
To be a Boniface in Buxton town!)—
Thou holdst the watch, as half-price people know,
And callest to them, to a moment,—“Go!”
Teachest the sapient Sapio how to sing—
Hangest a cat most oddly by the wing—
(To prove, no doubt, the endless free list ended,
And all, except the public press, suspended)
108
The pearly whiteness of a Stephens' wrist—
Kissing and pitying—tender and humane!
“By heaven she loves me! Oh, it is too plain!”
A sigh like this thy trembling passion slips,
Dimpling the warm Madeira at thy lips!
7
Go on, Lessee! Go on, and prosper well!Fear not, though forty Glass-blowers should rebel—
Shew them how thou hast long befriended them,
And teach Dubois their treason to condemn!
Go on! addressing pits in prose and worse!
Be long, be slow, be any thing but terse—
Kiss to the gallery the hand that's glov'd—
Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Belov'd,
Ask the two shilling Gods for leave to dun
With words the cheaper Deities in the One!
Kick Mr. Poole unseen from scene to scene,
Cane Williams still, and stick to Mr. Kean,
Warn from the benches all the rabble rout;
Say, those are mine—“In parliament, or out!”
109
Oh Beasley, for such pastime, plann'd the place!
Do anything!—Thy fame, thy fortune, nourish!
Laugh and grow fat! be eloquent, and flourish!
Go on—and but in this reverse the thing,
Walk backward with wax lights before the King—
Go on! Spring ever in thine eye! Go on!
Hope's favourite child! ethereal Elliston!
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