It has thus served a regular apprenticeship, but I
trust that we shall establish to-night that its time is out, and
that henceforth the Fund will enter upon a flourishing and
brilliant career.
I have no doubt that you are all aware that there are, and were
when this institution was founded, two other institutions existing
of a similar nature--Covent Garden and Drury Lane--both of long
standing, both richly endowed. It cannot, however, be too
distinctly understood, that the present Institution is not in any
way adverse to those. How can it be when it is only a wide and
broad extension of all that is most excellent in the principles on
which they are founded? That such an extension was absolutely
necessary was sufficiently proved by the fact that the great body
of the dramatic corps were excluded from the benefits conferred by
a membership of either of these institutions; for it was essential,
in order to become a member of the Drury Lane Society, that the
applicant, either he or she, should have been engaged for three
consecutive seasons as a performer. This was afterwards reduced,
in the case of Covent Garden, to a period of two years, but it
really is as exclusive one way as the other, for I need not tell
you that Covent Garden is now but a vision of the past. You might
play the bottle conjuror with its dramatic company and put them all
into a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely heard within its
walls save in connexion with corn, or the ambidextrous
prestidigitation of the Wizard of the North.
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