So much for the amusement which our "Companion" may yield to the
Londoner: his utility as a cicerone or guide will be more obvious to our
country friends, who flock in thousands to see and hear comedy and
tragedy at this play-going season. A young girl comes to town to see
"the lions," and, with her "cousin," goes to the opera, where _one
guinea_ is paid for their admission, or even more if they be
_installed_. Two Londoners would buy their tickets during the day,
and thus pay but 17_s_. Another party are dying to hear Braham
sing, or Paton warble her nightingale notes among the canvass groves and
hollyhock gardens of Drury Lane and Covent Garden; or to sup on the
frowning woes of tragedy, the intrigues of an interlude dished up as an
_entremet_, or a melodrama for a ragout; or the wit and waggery of
a farce, sweet and soft-flowing like a _petit-verre_, to finish the
repast. They go, and between the acts try to count the wax and gas, the
feet, and foot lights till they are purblind; they return home and dream
of Desdemona, sing themselves to sleep with the notes of the last song,
are haunted with the odd physiognomy of Liston, and repeat the
farce-laugh till the dream is broken. Next day it is mighty pleasant to
read how many hundred people the theatre will hold, how many pounds they
all paid to get there; and how the splendid pile of Drury Lane rose on
the area of a cockpit: and how Garrick played Macbeth in a court suit,
and John Kemble enacted the sufferings of Hamlet in _powdered_
hair.
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