to allow my theatres to be the medium of so doing, and to pay you for your labour.

Your obedient servant,

A. BUNN."

To Mr. John Barnett."

What may have been Mr. Barnett's opinion since this period, I know not; but it gratifies me to say that I subsequently had the pleasure of introducing his masterly opera of Fair Rosamond, and his lighter, but charming one of Farinelli, to an audience of his countrymen; and it will be long, in my humble opinion, before any works of equal (certainly of greater) beauties are introduced to them.

The first effects of the GRAND JUNCTION were now about to be realized; the resources of both theatres in opera and ballet being brought to bear upon the representation of Gustavus the Third, which appeared on the 16th of November, with a degree of success seldom witnessed, and calculated to silence, in a great measure, the murmurs of the few, from the approbation it elicited at the hands of the many. It certainly operated as a violent check to the proceedings of the dissatisfied; and furnishes further testimony of the truth of the old adage, that when you are hitting your adversary a rap over the knuckles, you may as well hit him a good one.

141

CHAPTER VIII.

Ambassadors-foreign and otherwise-Advantages of a tout ensemblethe decline of Pantomime, the cause, and the loss supplied—A humorous instance of stage direction-Gustavus and St. George— Ducrow's parrot, and the Hebrew Melodies-Count D'Orsay and Mr. Kenney-Mr. Farren and Prince Talleyrand-Cabinets of St. James's and the Tuileries-The case of a wig-The best way to cut a play-Alarm at the prospect of war allayed-William Godwin -Sardanapalus-Lord Byron, Mrs. Mardyn-Mr. Moore-Mister William Dimond.

GUSTAVUS THE THIRD, and the glories of its Masked Ball, set the Cockneys in a complete fever; the town became literally Gustave-mad; and that grand desideratum in managerial matters, vix. its being unfashionable not to have seen any particular piece, was achieved. To such a pitch of fashion had the attendance to this opera reached, that I have seen on the stage, during the masquerade in the last act, between thirty and forty Peers of an evening, and have more than once numbered amongst them three foreign ambassadors.* This species of entertainment was almost the only field open at the time, which had

* I take this opportunity of mentioning a diplomatic anecdote, though not in connection with any of these real SIMON PURES! A

not been hackneyed, and for the successful prosecution of which the TALENT was to be procured. Tragedy and comedy were then, as they are now, nearly defunct -for one great reason, that the order of talent which could have sustained them is no where to be found. In the absence of such, the flashes of genius which used to keep the stage alive are lost; and thus connoisseurs became disappointed, and the ignorant bored to death. It ceases, then, to be a matter of surprise, that a more signal success attended this representation than the stage had for many years witnessed, by the mere effect of a tout-ensemble. In the production of this piece, no particular reliance was placed upon the peculiar advantage of any one performer's acting; consequently no loss could be sustained by the introduction of any unnecessary airs or extraneous dignity, which too often arises from such causes; there were no exorbitant salaries paid to any

Noble Lord, with whose friendship I have been honoured for many years, entered the green-room on one of these evenings, and seeing an apparently distinguished foreigner on a settee, asked Lord William Lennox, "Who he was?" His Lordship, up to the joke, replied, "The Turkish Ambassador: shall I introduce you?" Up they accordingly came, when the former asked his Highness's opinion of Le bal masqué. The ambassador spoke highly of it; but when the Noble Lord, who had long been a resident in the French capital, observed, "Oui, oui, mais ce n'est pas si bien monté qu'à Paris ;" his Highness, with a sudden change of accent and language, replied, "That's all gammon, Toм!" The effect was ludicrous enough, and the familiarity only pardonable, from the Noble Lord (GRAVES) having more than once told the ambassador (BUNN) he would cut his acquaintance, if he ever called him by any other name than Tom!

histrio employed in its personation, and the outlay therefore was useful to the tradesmen, and beneficial to the magazins, of the theatre. Neither the illness, nor the insolence of any one could stop its career, nor in any respect mar its perfection: the result was necessarily of the highest importance to the scheme.

The good fortune thus flowing in, in Bow-street, was shortly afterwards followed up by the introduction of a different kind of novelty, in Great Russellstreet. The The rage for pantomime having considerably subsided since the retirement of the master spirit; its wand in fact having been broken with the broken health of its magician, Grimaldi; there seemed to be but little hope of successfully sustaining two pantomimes which, from their peculiar construction, and from the peculiar period of the year, MUST, despite the harmony of the combatants employed in them, be played in opposition to each other. There could be no objection, for it was the groundwork of the coalition, to pit tragedy, comedy, and farce, at the one house, against opera, ballet, and melodrama at the other; but pantomime against pantomime was unnatural and absurd, in an estate where no longer any rivalry existed. I therefore entered into an arrangement with Mr. Ducrow, for the introduction of himself, his company, and his equestrian establishment, in a spectacle to be entitled St. George and the Dragon, the outline of which was submitted to his practised judgment, and under his guidance was eventually moulded into a most effective piece of

pageantry. This innovation upon the customary amusements of the laughter-loving part of creation, which flock into London at this period of the year, was hailed with infinite delight, and rewarded with receipts such as no pantomime in that building, if in any other, had ever produced. The performance of Ducrow, as the renowned St. George, will be coeval with the recollection of his name; nor were his exertions confined to the simple representation of the principal character, but devoted with all the fag of industry and exuberance of taste, to perfect the production of the piece.

Those who have merely known this extraordinary artiste in the pre-eminence of horsemanship, have yet to be acquainted with his display of natural acquirements, such as fall to the lot of few individuals. The observations on human nature by which he has pro. fited are astonishing; and the excellent common sense by which he arrives at the drift of any argument is infinitely superior to the rhetoric employed by most of those with whom he argues. His knowledge of the stage is extensive-his own movements on it are graceful in the extreme-his disposition of others invariably effective and though he occasionally carries his measures in a somewhat diverting manner*—still he does carry them.

* At one of the rehearsals of St. George and the Dragon, an instance of this occurred. The second act opens with the celebration of the nuptials of the Emperor's daughter-the ceremony of which is interrupted by the entrance of a neatherd, in great dismay, who announces the