Classic Poem

Since theatres so oft in this our time
Are launched upon the town with solemn rhyme,
Thoughts ready-made, to fit the theme, are found,
Like last year's tunes on barrel-organs ground;
And poets furbish, in the bathos style,
Old tropes and figures for the new-built pile.
The sock and buskin named, the Muses follow;
The opera, always prefaced with Apollo.
But Architecture's claims when we enforce,
Vitruvius and Palladio come of course;
Till after a long dance through Greece and Rome,
To Dryden, Otway, Congreve, getting home,
We end with Shakspeare's ghost, still hovering on our dome!
Alas! how vainly will our modern fry
Strive with the old Leviathans to vie!
How foolishly comparison provoke,
With lines that Johnson writ and Garrick spoke.
Abandon we a strain without more fuss,
Which when attempted has abandoned us;
And let us guiltless be, however dull,
Of murdering the " sublime and beautiful. "
Thus then, — our manager, who scouts the fears
Of pulling an old house about his ears,
Has spared of our late edifice's pride,
The outward walls, and little else beside;
Anxious has been that labour to complete,
Which makes magnificence and comfort meet;
Anxious that multitudes may sit at ease,
And scantier numbers in no desert freeze;
That ample space may mark the liberal plan,
But never strain the eyes or ears of man.
Look round and judge; his efforts all are waste
Unless you stamp them as a work of taste;
Nor blame him for transporting from his floors
Those old offenders here, the two stage-doors;
Doors which have oft with burnished panels stood,
And golden knockers glittering in a wood;
Which on their posts through every change remained,
Fast as Bray's Vicar, whosoever reigned;
That served for palace, cottage, street, or hall,
Used for each place, and out of place in all;
Stationed like watchmen, who in lamp-light sit,
For all the business of the night unfit.
So much for visual sense. What follows next
Is chiefly on the histrionic text:
And our adventurer has toiled to store
His list of favourites with some favourites more —
Sought planets roving from their former sphere,
And fixed as stars the brilliant wanderers here;
To Drury's luminaries added light,
And made his sky with constellations bright.
Rich the repast — and may, we trust, insure
The custom of the scenic epicure.
E'en I, although among the last and least,
May pass perhaps as garnish to the feast.

As for our living dramatists — if now
The genuine bays disdain to deck their brow,
Still they can please; and as they're dull or clever,
You patronize or damn the same as ever;
For each degree of talent, after all,
Must here , by your decision, rise or fall.