What was the use of Sir Hugh Middleton bringing the New River to a "head,"
or of King Jamie buying shares in the speculation on purpose to supply
Sadler's Wells with real water, if it is to be drained off from under the
stage to make way for horses? Shade of Dibdin! ghost of Grimaldi! what
would you have said in your day? To be sure ye were guilty of pony races:
they took place _outside_ the theatre, but within the walls, in the very
_cella_ of the aquatic temple, till now, never! We wonder ye do not rise up
and "pluck bright Honner from the vasty deep" of his own tank.
Sawdust at Sadler's Wells! What next, Mr. Merriman?
[Illustration: A JUDGE GOING THE CIRCUIT.]
If Macready had been engaged for Clown, and set down to sing "hot codlins;"
were Palmerston "secured" for Pierrot, or Lord Monteagle for Jim Crow, who
would have wondered? But to saddle "The Wells" with horses--profanity
unparalleled!
Spitefully predicting failure from this terrible declension of the drama,
we went, in a mood intensely ill-natured, to witness how the "Horse of the
Pyrenees" would behave himself at Sadler's Wells. From the piece so called
we anticipated no amusement; we thought the regular company would make but
sorry equestrians, and, like the King of Westphalia's hussars, would prove
totally inefficient, from not being habituated to mount on horseback.
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