ateful pride of your
good opinion which you have given me the right to cherish, for any favor
or advancement that the more privileged in station could receive. [Great
cheering.]

I really am too much oppressed, too much overcome to attempt to detain
you long; but with the reflection and under the conviction that our
drama, the noblest in the world, can never lose its place from our
stage while the English language lasts, I will venture to express one
parting hope--that the rising actors may keep the loftiest look, may
hold the most elevated views of the duties of their calling. ["Hear!
Hear!" and cheers.] I would also hope that they will strive to elevate
their art, and also to raise themselves above the level of the player's
easy life, to public regard and distinction by a faithful ministry to
the genius of our incomparable Shakespeare. [Cheers.] To effect this
creditable purpose, they must bring resolute energy and unfaltering
labor to their work; they must be content "to scorn delights, and live
laborious days;" they must remember that whate'er is excellent in art
must spring from labor and endurance:--

"Deep the oak,
Must sink in stubborn earth its roots obscure
That hopes to lift its branches to the sky."

This, gentlemen, I can assure you, was the doctrine of our own Siddons,
and of the great Talma; and this is the faith I have ever held as one of
their humblest disciples. [Applause.]

Of my direction of the two patent theatres on which my friend has so
kindly dilated, I wish to say but little. The preamble of their patents
recites as a condition of their grant, that the theatres shall be
instituted for the promotion of virtue and to be instructive to the
human race. I think those are the words. I can only say that it was my
ambition to the best of my ability to obey that injunction ["Hear!
Hear!"] and believing in the principle that property has its duties as
well as its rights, I conceived that the proprietors should co-operate
with me. [General cries of "Hear!"] They thought otherwise, and I was
reluctantly compelled to relinquish on disadvantageous terms my
half-achieved enterprise. Others will take up this uncompleted work, and
if inquiry were set on foot for one best qualified to undertake the task
I should seek him in the theatre which, by eight years' labor, he has
from the most degraded condition raised high in public estimation, not
only as regards the intelligence