In like manner, Drury
Lane is conducted now with almost a sole view to the opera and
ballet, insomuch that the statue of Shakespeare over the door
serves as emphatically to point out his grave as his bust did in
the church of Stratford-upon-Avon. How can the profession
generally hope to qualify for the Drury Lane or Covent Garden
institution, when the oldest and most distinguished members have
been driven from the boards on which they have earned their
reputations, to delight the town in theatres to which the General
Theatrical Fund alone extended?
I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to those other Funds,
with which I have had the honour of being connected at different
periods of my life. At the time those Associations were
established, an engagement at one of those theatres was almost a
matter of course, and a successful engagement would last a whole
life; but an engagement of two months' duration at Covent Garden
would be a perfect Old Parr of an engagement just now. It should
never be forgotten that when those two funds were established, the
two great theatres were protected by patent, and that at that time
the minor theatres were condemned by law to the representation of
the most preposterous nonsense, and some gentlemen whom I see
around me could no more belong to the minor theatres of that day
than they could now belong to St. Bartholomew fair.
Pages:
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230