 | The Works of Thomas Love Peacock |  |
207
ADDRESS WRITTEN BY MR. PEACOCK AND SPOKEN BY LT. HAVERFIELD
Friends! Countrymen! judges! who, ranged in your stations,Look with critical eye on our stage decorations—
Attend to a manager's humble petition,
Who your favor demands for this night's exhibition.
We dazzle your eyes with no changes of scenery,
Triumphal processions, or magic machinery;
No thunderstorm rattles, no witch intervenes;
A flag is our curtain, and flags are our scenes.
Those flags long the storm and the battle have braved,
Those flags in the breezes of triumph oft waved,
When the Ven'rable, ever illustrious in story,
On Camperdown's billows bore Duncan to glory!
And now, if your fancy such influence carries,
As to place you with us in the centre of Paris,
Your amusement perhaps this reflection may sweeten,
That you laugh at those fops you so often have beaten.
| The Works of Thomas Love Peacock | |