Part 12 (1/2)
{5} Between 1807 and 1810. The Monthly Mirror was edited by Edward Du Bois, author of ”My Pocket-Book,” and by Thomas Hill; the original Paul Pry; and the Hull of Mr. Theodore Hook's novel of ”Gilbert Gurney.”
{6} Miss Lydia White, celebrated for her lively wit and for her blue-stocking parties, unrivalled, it is said, in ”the soft realm of BLUE May Fair.” She died in 1827, and is mentioned in the diaries of Scott and Byron.
{7} See note on ”The Beautiful Incendiary,” p. 56.
{7a} ”The first piece, under the name of the loyal Mr. Fitzgerald, though as good we suppose as the original, is not very interesting.
Whether it be very like Mr. Fitzgerald or not, however, it must be allowed that the vulgarity, servility, and gross absurdity of the newspaper scribblers is well rendered.”--JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.
WILLIAM THOMAS FITZGERALD.--The annotator's first personal knowledge of this gentleman was at Harry Greville's Pic-Nic Theatre, in Tottenham-street, where he personated Zanga in a wig too small for his head. The second time of seeing him was at the table of old Lord Dudley, who familiarly called him Fitz, but forgot to name him in his will. The Viscount's son (recently deceased), however, liberally supplied the omission by a donation of five thousand pounds. The third and last time of encountering him was at an anniversary dinner of the Literary Fund, at the Freemasons' Tavern. Both parties, as two of the stewards, met their brethren in a small room about half an hour before dinner. The lampooner, out of delicacy, kept aloof from the poet. The latter, however, made up to him, when the following dialogue took place:
Fitzgerald (with good humour). ”Mr.--, I mean to recite after dinner.”
Mr. -. ”Do you?”
Fitzgerald. ”Yes: you'll have more of 'G.o.d bless the Regent and the Duke of York!'”
The whole of this imitation, after a lapse of twenty years, appears to the Authors too personal and sarcastic; but they may shelter themselves under a very broad mantle:
”Let hoa.r.s.e Fitzgerald bawl His creaking couplets in a tavern-hall.”--Byron.
Fitzgerald actually sent in an address to the Committee on the 31st of August, 1812. It was published among the other Genuine Rejected Addresses, in one volume, in that year. The following is an extract:-
”The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near, Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear.”
What a pity that, like Sterne's recording angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver's remedy?
{8} Mr. B. Wyatt, architect of Drury Lane Theatre, son of James Wyatt, architect of the Pantheon.
{9} In plain English, the Halfpenny hatch, then a footway through fields; but now, as the same bards sing elsewhere -
”St. George's Fields are fields no more, The trowel supersedes the plough; Swamps huge and inundate of yore, Are changed to civic villas now.”
{10} Covent Garden Theatre was burnt down 20th September, 1808; Drury Lane Theatre (as before stated) 24th February, 1809.
{11} The east end of St. James's Palace was destroyed by fire, 21 Jan., 1809. The wardrobe of Lady Charlotte Finch (alluded to in the next line) was burnt in the fire.
{12} Honourable William Wellesley Pole, now (1854) Earl of Mornington, married, 14th March, 1812, Catherine, daughter and heir of Sir James Tylney Long, Bart; upon which occasion he a.s.sumed the additional names of Tylney and Long.
{13} ”The author does not, in this instance, attempt to copy any of the higher attributes of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry; but has succeeded perfectly in the imitation of his mawkish affectations of childish simplicity and nursery stammering. We hope it will make him ashamed of his Alice Fell, and the greater part of his last volumes--of which it is by no means a parody, but a very fair, and indeed we think a flattering, imitation.”--JEFFERY, Edinburgh Review.
{14} Jack and Nancy, as it was afterwards remarked to the Authors, are here made to come into the world at periods not sufficiently remote. The writers were then bachelors. One of them [James], unfortunately, still continues so, as he has thus recorded in his niece's alb.u.m:
”Should I seek Hymen's tie, As a poet I die - Ye Bened.i.c.ks, mourn my distresses!
For what little fame Is annexed to my name Is derived from Rejected Addresses.”
The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations: they sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by Bishop or Braham, introduced in Love in a Village.