Rejected Addresses; Or, The New Theatrum PoetarumSmith, James
General
Rejected Addresses; Or, The New Theatrum Poetarum
Smith, James
Parodies
Our ingenuous and ingenious friend furthermore observed, that the
demolition of Drury Lane Theatre by fire, its reconstruction under the
auspices of the celebrated Mr. Whitbread, {0c} the reward offered by the
Committee for an opening address, and the public recitation of a poem
composed expressly for the occasion by Lord Byron, one of the most
popular writers of the age, formed an extraordinary concurrence of
circumstances which could not fail to insure the success of the _Rejected
Addresses_, while it has subsequently served to fix them in the memory of
the public, so far at least as a poor immortality of twenty years can be
said to have effected that object. In fact, continued our impartial and
affectionate monitor, your little work owes its present obscure existence
entirely to the accidents that have surrounded and embalmed it,—even as
flies, and other worthless insects, may long survive their natural date
of extinction, if they chance to be preserved in amber, or any similar
substance.
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare—
But wonder how the devil they got there!—POPE.
With the natural affection of parents for the offspring of their own
brains, we ventured to hint that some portion of our success might
perhaps be attributable to the manner in which the different imitations
were executed; but our worthy friend protested that his sincere regard
for us, as well as for the cause of truth, compelled him to reject our
claim, and to pronounce that, when once the idea had been conceived, all
the rest followed as a matter of course, and might have been executed by
any other hands not less felicitously than by our own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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