The Theatrical Fund Dinner - Page 2

the cottage; and whenever a
soldier was the theme, his name was never far distant. But it
was chiefly in connection with the business of this meeting,
which his late Royal Highness had condescended in a particular
manner to patronize, that they were called on to drink his
health. To that charity he had often sacrificed his time, and
had given up the little leisure which he had from important
business. He was always ready to attend on every occasion of
this kind, and it was in that view that he proposed to drink to
the memory of his late Royal Highness the Duke of York.--Drunk in
solemn silence.

The CHAIRMAN then requested that gentlemen would fill a bumper as
full as it would hold, while he would say only a few words. He
was in the habit of hearing speeches, and he knew the feeling
with which long ones were regarded. He was sure that it was
perfectly unnecessary for him to enter into any vindication of
the dramatic art, which they had come here to support. This,
however, he considered to be the proper time and proper occasion
for him to say a few words on that love of representation which
was an innate feeling in human nature. It was the first
amusement that the child had. It grew greater as he grew up; and
even in the decline of life nothing amuses so much as when a
common tale is told with appropriate personification. The first
thing a child does is to ape his schoolmaster by flogging a
chair. The assuming a character ourselves, or the seeing others
assume an imaginary character, is an enjoyment natural to
humanity. It was implanted in our very nature to take pleasure
from such representations, at proper times and on proper
occasions. In all ages the theatrical art had kept pace with the
improvement of mankind, and with the progress of letters and the
fine arts. As man has advanced from the ruder stages of society,
the love of dramatic representations has increased, and all works
of this nature have keen improved in character and in structure.
They had only to turn their eyes to the history of ancient
Greece, although he did not pretend to be very deeply versed in
its ancient drama. Its first tragic poet commanded a body of
troops at the battle of Marathon. Sophocles and Euripides were
men of rank in Athens when Athens was in its highest renown.
They shook Athens with their discourses, as their theatrical
works shook the theatre itself. If they turned to France in the
time of Louis the Fourteenth--that era which is the classical
history of that country--they would find that it was referred to
by all Frenchmen as the golden age of the drama there. And also
in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth the drama was at its
highest pitch, when the nation began to mingle deeply and wisely