Interior of a theatre described.--Pit gradually fills.--The check-taker.--Pit full.--The orchestra tuned.--One fiddle rather dilatory.--Is reproved--and repents.--Evolutions of a playbill.--Its final settlement on the spikes.--The gods taken to task--and why.--Motley group of playgoers.--Holywell Street, St. Pancras.--Emanuel Jennings binds his son apprentice.--Not in London--and why.--Episode of the hat. 'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six, Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks, Touch'd by the lamplighter's Promethean art, Start into light and make the lighter start; To see red Phoebus through the gallery pane Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane, While gradual parties fill our widen'd pit, And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit. At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease, Distant or near, they settle where they please; But when the multitude contracts the span, And seats are rare, they settle where they can. Now the full benches, to late comers, doom No room for standing, miscall'd _standing-room_. Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks, And bawling "Pit full," gives the check he takes; Yet onward still, the gathering numbers cram, Contending crowders shout the frequent damn, And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, jam. See to their desks Apollo's sons repair; Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair; In unison their various tones to tune Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon; In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute, Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp; Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Attunes to order the chaotic din. Now all seems hush'd--but no, one fiddle will Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still; Foil'd in his crash, the leader of the clan Reproves with frowns the dilatory man; Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow, Nods a new signal, and away they go. Perchance, while pit and gallery cry, "Hats off," And awed Consumption checks his chided cough, Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love Drops, reft of pin, her playbill from above; Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap, Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap; But, wiser far than he, combustion fears, And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers; Till sinking gradual, with repeated twirl, It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl; Who from his powder'd pate the intruder strikes, And, for mere malice, sticks it on the spikes. Say, why these Babel strains from Babel tongues? Who's that calls "Silence" with such leathern lungs? He who, in quest of quiet, "silence" hoots, Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes.