English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: l8l2. Rebuilding Of Urury Lane Theatre. CHAPTER III. MISCELLANEOUS CARICATURES AND SUBJECTS OF CARICATURE, 1812-1819. Drury Lane Theatre, which was burnt down in iSn, was rebuilt the following year, and the committee, anxious to celebrate the opening by an address of merit corresponding to the occasion,...
More Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: l8l2. Rebuilding Of Urury Lane Theatre. CHAPTER III. MISCELLANEOUS CARICATURES AND SUBJECTS OF CARICATURE, 1812-1819. Drury Lane Theatre, which was burnt down in iSn, was rebuilt the following year, and the committee, anxious to celebrate the opening by an address of merit corresponding to the occasion, advertised in the papers for such a composition. Theatrical addresses, however, as we all know by reference to a recent occasion, are not always up to the mark; and whether the result of their appeal was unsatisfactory, or whether?as appears not un- likely?they were appalled by the number of competitors, which is said to have been upwards of one hundred, not one was accepted, the advertisers preferring to seek the assistance of Lord Byron, who wrote the actual address which was spoken at the opening on the ioth of October, 1812. Among the competitors was a Dr. Busby, living in Queen Anne Street, who apparently unable to realize the fact that competent men could have the effrontery to reject his monologue, refused to accept the verdict of the committee. A few evenings afterwards, the audience and the company were electrified by an unexpected sensation. Busby and his son sat in one of the stage boxes; and the latter, to the amazement of the audience, stepped at the end of the play from his box upon the stage, and began to recile his father's nonsense, as follows: ? When energizing objects men pursue, What are the prodigies they cannot do? The question remained unanswered; for Raymond, the stage The new Alhambra. chapter{{Section 4DR. BUSBY. 35 manager, walked at this moment upon the stage accompanied by Dr. Busby's ', ., T . monologue. a constable, and gave the amateur performer into custody. It is said that his father, not conten...