Not a laugh was heard, not a topical joke, As its corpse to oblivion we hurried, Not a paper a word in its favour spoke On the pantomime going to be buried. We buried it after the Boxing night, The folks from our galleries turning, For we knew that it scarcely would pay for the light Of the star in the last act burning. No useless play-bill put forth a puff, How splendid the public had found it. But it lay like a piece that had been call'd "Stuff," With a very wet blanket round it. Stoutly and long all the audience hiss'd, When they found neither sense nor reason; But we steadfastly dwelt on the points we had miss'd And we bitterly thought of next season. We thought, when we felt it was really dead, As we pass'd old Covent Garden, That Opera and Ballet would take up its place, And we not be worth half a farden. Loudly old gentlemen still will prate, As they always do, of past actors; But we know that poor Mathews' and Howell's fate Was as bad as a malefactors. Slowly and sadly we laid it down, For we knew that we couldn't make bad well, And we felt that the _prestige_ was vanish'd at last, But we drank to the health of poor Bradwell. _The Man in the Moon_, Volume 1. * * * * * THE BURIAL OF PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE. (_Princess's Theatre_). Not a house was drawn--not a five-pound-note-- So his run to its closing we hurried; Not a listener could follow his hazy plot, So the dreary abortion we buried. We buried him, sadly, one Friday night, For our hopes were gone past returning; And the manager's pangs were a moving sight, By the foot-lights dimly burning. All bare and exposed to the critics lash, On that luckless stage we found him-- On that stage where he deemed he should cut such a dash, With armour and mobs around him. Few were the words which the manager said, To soothe the tragedian's sorrow; But they glared at each other with looks which made Us hope they would fight on the morrow. They doubtless thought, though their tongues they held, That of all the dreadful messes, A sadder than Philip Van Artevelde, Had never disgraced the Princess's. Loudly the manager told what he spent-- And he said that Macready had made him-- Ah! little attention the "Eminent" paid, But coolly let Maddox upbraid him. But now was our dreary duty done-- Our sleep-moving drama retiring, From the distant jeer and the cutting pun, Which the foe were constantly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid it down That a poem, which is famed in story, Be it writ in a book, be it carved on a stone, Should be left there alone in its glory. _The Man in the Moon_, Volume 3. * * * * *