, or the body to the tender mercies of the
novel mode of ventilation. I find the theatres much more amusing, not
from the excellence of the dramatic performances, but from their sheer
and gross absurdity, which, without actual experience, is almost too
monstrous for belief. The fact is, that a new Cockney school has arisen,
ten times more twaddling and impotent than the ancient academy of that
name. The old professors, for whom I always had a sneaking kindness,
affected a sort of solitary grandeur, deported themselves with the
conscious swagger of genius, read Tooke's Pantheon, and prated of the
Heathen gods. This was very harmless and innocent pastime; tiresome, to
be sure, yet laughable withal; nor did it call for any further rebuke
than an occasional tap upon the cranium of some blockhead who forsook
his legitimate sphere, thrust himself in your way, and became
unsufferably blatant. Now the spirit of the times has changed. The
literary youth of London are all in the facetious line. They have
regular clubs, at which they meet to collate the gathered slang and
pilfered witticisms of the week; periodical compotations to work these
materials into something like a readable shape; and hebdomadal journals,
by means of which their choice productions are issued to a wondering
world. Now, though a single gnat can give you very little annoyance in
the course of a summer's night, the evil becomes serious when you are
surrounded with whole scores of these diminutive vermin, singing in your
ears, buzzing in your hair, and lighting incessantly on your face. In
vain you turn aside, in hopes to get rid of the nuisance. Go where you
will, a perfect cloud of midges keeps hovering round your head, each
tiny bloodsucker sounding his diminutive horn, in the full and perfect
belief that he discourses most excellent music. Even so, in London, are
you surrounded with these philosophers of the Cider-cellar. Their works
stare you every where in the face; the magazines abound with their wit;
their songs, consisting for the most part of prurient parodies, are
resonant throughout the purlieus of Covent Garden. What is worse than
all, they have wriggled themselves into a sort of monopoly of the
theatres, persuaded the public to cashier Shakespeare, who is now
utterly out of date, and to instal in his place a certain Mr J.R.
Planche as the leading swan of the Thames. In giving him this prominent
place, I merely echo the opinions of his compeers, who