The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous ProseLamb, Charles
General
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous Prose
Lamb, Charles
English literature
This Theatre, fitted up with new and tasteful decorations, opened on
Monday with a burletta founded upon a pleasant extravagance recorded of
Wilmot the "mad Lord" of Rochester. The house, in its renovated
condition, is just what play-houses should be, and once were, from its
size admirably adapted for seeing and hearing, and only perhaps rather
too well lit up. Light is a good thing, but to preserve the eyes is
still better. Elliston and Mrs. Edwin personated a reigning wit and
beauty of the Court of Charles the Second to the life. But the charm of
the evening to us, we confess, was the acting of Mrs. T. Gould (late
Miss Burrell) in the burlesque _Don Giovanni_ which followed. This
admirable piece of foolery takes up our hero just where the legitimate
drama leaves him, on the "burning marl." We are presented with a fair
map of Tartarus, the triple-headed cur, the Furies, the Tormentors, and
the Don, prostrate, thunder-smitten. But there is an elasticity in the
original make of this _strange man_, as Richardson would have called
him. He is not one of those who change with the change of climate. He
brings with him to his new habitation _ardours_ as glowing and constant
as any which he finds there. No sooner is he recovered from his first
surprise, than he falls to his old trade, is caught "ogling
_Proserpine_," and coquets with two she devils at once, till he makes
the house _too hot to hold him_; and _Pluto_ (in whom a wise jealousy
seems to produce the effects of kindness) turns him neck and heels out
of his dominions,--much to the satisfaction of _Giovanni_, who stealing
a boat from Charon, and a pair of light heels from _Mercury_, or (as he
familiarly terms him) _Murky_, sets off with flying colours, conveying
to the world above the souls of three damsels, just eloped from Styx, to
comfort his tender and new-born spiritualities on the journey. Arrived
upon earth (with a new body, we are to suppose, but his old habits) he
lights a-propos upon a tavern in London, at the door of which three
merry weavers, widowers, are trouling a catch in triumph over their
deceased spouses--
They lie in yonder church-yard
At rest--and so are we.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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