I’ve heard our front that faces Drury Lane Much criticised; they say ’tis vulgar brick-work, A mimic manufactory of floor-cloth. One of the morning papers wish’d that front Cemented like the front in Brydges Street; As it now looks, they call it Wyatt’s Mermaid, A handsome woman with a fish’s tail. White is the steeple of St. Bride’s in Fleet Street: The Albion (as its name denotes) is white; Morgan and Saunders’ shop for chairs and tables Gleams like a snow-ball in the setting sun; White is Whitehall. But not St. Bride’s in Fleet Street, The Spotless Albion, Morgan, no, nor Saunders, Nor white Whitehall, is white as Drury’s face. Oh, Mr. Whitbread! fie upon you, sir! I think you should have built a colonnade; When tender Beauty, looking for her coach, Protrudes her gloveless hand, perceives the shower And draws the tippet closer round her throat, Perchance her coach stands half a dozen off, And, ere she mounts the step, the oozing mud Soaks through her pale kid slipper. On the morrow, She coughs at breakfast, and her gruff papa Cries, “There you go! this comes of playhouses!” To build no portico is penny wise: Heaven grant it prove not in the end pound foolish! Hail to thee, Drury! Queen of Theatres! What is the Regency in Tottenham Street, The Royal Amphitheatre of Arts, Astley’s, Olympic, or the Sans Pareil, Compared with thee? Yet when I view thee push’d Back from the narrow street that christened thee, I know not why they call thee Drury Lane. Amid the freaks that modern fashion sanctions, It grieves me much to see live animals Brought on the stage. Grimaldi has his rabbit, Laurent his cat, and Bradbury his pig; Fie on such tricks! Johnson, the machinist Of former Drury, imitated life Quite to the life. The Elephant in Blue Beard, Stuff’d by his hand, wound round his lithe proboscis, As spruce as he who roar’d in Padmanaba.[87] Nought born on earth should die. On hackney stands I reverence the coachman who cries “Gee,” And spares the lash. When I behold a spider Prey on a fly, a magpie on a worm, Or view a butcher with horn-handled knife Slaughter a tender lamb as dead as mutton, Indeed, indeed, I’m very, very sick! [_Exit hastily._ JAMES SMITH. _The Rejected Addresses._ 1812. This imitation of Coleridge cannot be considered one of the best of the _Rejected Addresses_. Lord Jeffrey remarked that, although it was unquestionably “Lakish,” he was unable to recognise in it any of the peculiar traits of the powerful genius whose name it bore. Smith probably had in his mind the following lines written by Coleridge in 1794:―― TO A YOUNG ASS. _Its mother being tethered near it._