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 Theaters! What is the Regency in Tottenham-street, The Royal Amphitheater of Arts, Astley's, Olympic, or the Sans Pareil, Compared with thee? Yet when I view thee pushed 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, Stuffed by his hand, wound round his lithe proboscis As spruce as he who roared in Padmanaba. [Footnote: "Padmanaba," viz., in a pantomime called Harlequin in Padmanaba. This elephant, some years afterward, was exhibited over Exeter 'Change, where it was found necessary to destroy the poor animal by discharges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the pantomime above-mentioned, Johnson, the machinist of the rival house, exclaimed, "I should be very sorry if I could not make a better elephant than that!"] Naught 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.] THE THEATER. [Footnote: "'The Theater,' by the Rev. G. Crabbe, we rather think, is the best piece in the collection. It is an exquisite and most masterly imitation, not only of the peculiar style, but of the taste, temper, and manner of description of that most original author. * * * It does not aim, of course, at any shadow of his pathos or moral sublimity, but seems to us to be a singularly faithful copy of his passages of mere description."--Edinburg Review.] [A BURLESQUE IMITATION OF CEABBE.--REJECTED ADDRESSES.] JAMES SMITH.