I should expatiate more largely on the other advantages of the glorious constitution of these by-the-whole-of-Europe-envied realms, but I am called away to take an account of the ladies, and other artificial flowers, at a fashionable rout, of which a full and particular account will hereafter appear. For the present, my fashionable intelligence is scanty, on account of the opening of Drury Lane; and the ladies and gentlemen who honour me with their attention, will not be surprised if they find nothing under my usual head! THE THEATRE. BY THE REV. G. C. Nil intentatum nostri liquôre poetæ, Nec minimum meruère decus, vestigia Græca Ausi desesere, et celebrare domestica facta.--HORAT. A PREFACE OF APOLOGIES. If the following poem should be fortunate enough to be selected for the opening Address, a few words of explanation may be deemed necessary, on my part, to avert invidious misrepresentation. The animadversion I have thought it right to make on the noise created by tuning the orchestra, will, I hope, give no lasting remorse to any of the gentlemen employed in the band. It is to be desired that they would keep their instruments ready tuned, and strike off at once. This would be an accommodation to many well-meaning persons who frequent the theatre, who not being blest with the ear of St. Cecilia, mistake the tuning for the overture, and think the latter concluded before it is begun. "one fiddle will Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still--" was originally written "one hautboy will," but having providentially been informed, when this poem was upon the point of being sent off, that there is but one hautboy in the band, I averted the storm of popular and managerial indignation from the head of its blower; as it now stands, "one fiddle" among many, the faulty individual will, I hope, escape detection. The story of the flying playbill is calculated to expose a practice, much too common, of pinning playbills to the cushions, insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all. If these lines save one playbill only from the fate I have recorded, I shall not deem my labour ill employed. The concluding episode of Patrick Jennings, glances at the boorish fashion of wearing the hat in the one-shilling gallery. Had Jennings thrust his between his feet at the commencement of the play, he might have leaned forward with impunity, and the catastrophe I relate would not have occurred. The line of handkerchiefs formed to enable him to recover his loss, is purposely so crossed in texture and materials, as to mislead the reader in respect of the real owner of any one of them. For, in the satirical view of life and manners, which I occasionally present, my clerical profession has taught me how extremely improper it would be by any allusion, however slight, to give any uneasiness, however trivial, to any individual, however foolish or wicked. G. C. THE THEATRE.