ot remember any
litigation of my own. I used to protect Miss Smith, because she was like
Lady Jane Harley in the face, and likenesses go a great way with me.
Indeed, in general, I left such things to my more bustling colleagues,
who used to reprove me seriously for not being able to take such things
in hand without buffooning with the histrions, or throwing things into
confusion by treating light matters with levity.

"Then the Committee!--then the Sub-Committee!--we were but few, but
never agreed. There was Peter Moore who contradicted Kinnaird, and
Kinnaird who contradicted every body: then our two managers, Rae and
Dibdin; and our secretary, Ward! and yet we were all very zealous and
in earnest to do good and so forth. * * * * furnished us with prologues
to our revived old English plays; but was not pleased with me for
complimenting him as 'the Upton' of our theatre (Mr. Upton is or was the
poet who writes the songs for Astley's), and almost gave up prologuing
in consequence.

"In the pantomime of 1815-16 there was a representation of the
masquerade of 1814 given by 'us youth' of Watier's Club to Wellington
and Co. Douglas Kinnaird and one or two others, with myself, put on
masks, and went on the stage with the [Greek: hoi polloi], to see the
effect of a theatre from the stage:--it is very grand. Douglas danced
among the figuranti too, and they were puzzled to find out who we were,
as being more than their number. It was odd enough that Douglas Kinnaird
and I should have been both at the _real_ masquerade, and afterwards in
the mimic one of the same, on the stage of Drury Lane theatre."

[Footnote 87: A correspondent of one of the monthly Miscellanies gives
the following account of this incident:--

"During Lord Byron's administration, a ballet was invented by the elder
Byrne, in which Miss Smith (since Mrs. Oscar Byrne) had a _pas seul_.
This the lady wished to remove to a later period in the ballet. The
ballet-master refused, and the lady swore she would not dance it at all.
The music incidental to the dance began to play, and the lady walked off
the stage. Both parties flounced into the green-room to lay the case
before Lord Byron, who happened to be the only person in that apartment.
The noble committee-man made an award in favour of Miss Smith, and both
complainants rushed angrily out of the room at the instant of my
entering it. 'If you had come a minute sooner,' said Lord Byron, 'you
would have heard a cur