Nor
will I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable disposition in
the audience of Wednesday to seize upon the words -
"And I have brought,
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon--" {26}
but I will venture to intimate to those whom I am addressing how in
my mind I mainly connect that occasion with the present. When I
looked round on the vast assemblage, and observed the huge pit
hushed into stillness on the rising of the curtain, and that mighty
surging gallery, where men in their shirt-sleeves had been striking
out their arms like strong swimmers--when I saw that. boisterous
human flood become still water in a moment, and remain so from the
opening to the end of the play, it suggested to me something
besides the trustworthiness of an English crowd, and the delusion
under which those labour who are apt to disparage and malign it:
it suggested to me that in meeting here to-night we undertook to
represent something of the all-pervading feeling of that crowd,
through all its intermediate degrees, from the full-dressed lady,
with her diamonds sparkling upon her breast in the proscenium-box,
to the half-undressed gentleman; who bides his time to take some
refreshment in the back row of the gallery. And I consider,
gentlemen, that no one who could possibly be placed in this chair
could so well head that comprehensive representation, and could so
well give the crowning grace to our festivities, as one whose
comprehensive genius has in his various works embraced them all,
and who has, in his dramatic genius, enchanted and enthralled them
all at once.
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