Punch (12.1847)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

163

DRURY LANE FUND DINNER.

" On Friday, the 23rd of April," says our friend the Observer, " ' the
annual feast' for the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund takes place." We

dawns he will not ask in vain for his hunch of carrots, and, haply, his
oranges on feast-days and Sundays ? And then our own Jenny Lind
—for since the poet Bonn could not have the Beauty herself, he was
determined to hare the Beast—when her youth is past, will she not,
from the hounty of the fund, have her daily mouthful of clover, with,
haply, her pound of soft sugar moistened, like the sugar of Mrs. Gamp,

have been favoured with a copy of the speech to be delivered by Mr. \ with the leetlest drop of gin ? (Much Laughter.)
Hablet, the efficient and eloquent master. It is as follows:— " When the camels, those quadruped Dukes of Gloucester, have ceased

" May it please your Royal Highness, and Gentlemen,—It is again my j to draw, will they not have, from your liberality, the pensionary truss
pleasurable duty to play upon your heartstrings, to arrive at your 1 of hay—and the horses, will not they too enjoy their cosey paddocks,
pockets; and I trust I may without vanity observe, that, like a fiddler,: their warm stables, and their daily feed of Fund beans and oats ? Can
the longer I plav the more delicate I consider the fin serin g. jt be forgotten what the stage owes to horses ? For what, I ask, would

» The Drury Lane Fund was established by that great creature and J*£Tt^^ ^ T®"** ^ four-in'-hand to draw his cart withal ?
bigamist, David Garrick. When I say bigamist, I mean that he had ^ "

two wives, Tragedy and Comedy (laughter); and, what was more " I am reminded that this is the birth-day of that great creature the
extraordinary, was equally master of them both. Their portraits were , Swan of Avon ; Deed I say, Shakspeare ? Let his large humanity fill
painted by another great creature—need I add the name of Sir Joshua 1 and elevate you ! Let him, who could feel for ' the poor beetle,' touch
Reynolds, Knight ? j Four sympathies in the right place—need I observe, your pockets—for

"David Garrick projected our fund for the relief of the poor the elephants ! Let him who could sing about ' the small gilded fly,
player. It was established under the patronage of-of-one of the f^ike at your hearts m the cause of the camels ! And, m conclusion
Georges, ancestor of tbe illustrious Prince, our president. For, et could PaiQt ,the armfd rhinoceros or the Hyrcan tiger,'

perhaps, even in this presence, it may be permitted me to say that the ^Permitted to succeed when he pleads to your inmost souls the cause
brightest leaf in the umbrageous garland of the Guelfhs is their love of EnS1lsh Piebalds and Burmese pomes.

of the drama ! A leaf i may I not say a hundred leaves ?—witness _

her Majesty's annual subscription—and every leaf a one pound Bank of
England note ! (Cheers.)

"At the risk of'being tedious, (Cries of ^o,'), allow me, for the forty DECORATIONS (LITERALLY) FOR THE MILLION,
seventh time, to deliver my yearly lecture on the affecting uses of the
Drury Lane Fund. In the morniDg of life the young actor quits, it
may be, the paternal residence, to tread the thorny path that leads to
fame ; but hops is strong, and he feels not the hindrances that fester in
his wray. Even as the traveller, with nocturnal shades closing round
him, is cheered by the t winkling of the distant taper, so is the young
actor supported by the far-off brightness of a Loodon audience. His
hope, his aim, is the thought of Drury Lane, and Drury's most bene-
ficent and philanthropic fund. Alas ! (may it please your Royal High-
ness, and Ladies and Gentlemen) alas ! what is the reward of the genius
of the actor ? Oblivion, (sensation) ; yes, oblivion! The sculptor
lives in stone ; the painter, stretching his canvas to the gale, floats i
down to posterity ; the musician enshrines the bubble reputation in
nightingale notes, and the fame of a Mozart may be said never to j
know a minim rest., (Laughter.) With the actor it is pathetically
otherwise !

"Even as the rouge that lights the actor's cheek is swept by his own
* defacing fingers' ere he hies him to his humble but contented pallet,
so is the recollection of the actor's genius wiped from the memory of
the world. It is the luck of a Shakspeare to live for ever ; whilst a

Garrick is relentlessly doomed to be the creature of, so to speak, one y?E see that there has been in the Chamber of Deputies the demand
generation ! (Applause.) j for an additional grant of 50,000 francs for the Legion of Honour. This

"I will not dwell upon the gratitude of those who are at the present. further supply must be to provide for the increase of the population
moment tbe thankful recipients of the bounty of the fund ; but, with ! during the past six months, for it is nonsense to suppose there was a
your permission, I will be awhile discursive on the number and con- single person undecorated in France this time last year. The Statistical
dition of those whose old age, it is not improbable, may be solaced by Society would have given any money for the proof of such an extra-
what you will graciously subscribe this day. ordinary fact. The cross is such a certainty now in France, that the

"It has been tauntingly said of us that there are no actors at Drury best physicians in Paris are in the habit of including it amongst
Lane ; that this our annual appeal is, if I may be allowed to use the the diseases incident to humanity. lliey maintain, that, like the small-
word in such an august presence, is—a humbug !-(' Very right-very pox, every one is luble to be attacked with it at some period or other of
proper; from the Duke of Cambridge). Thus encouraged, 1 fearlessly bis life. They deplore, in eloquent terms, that science has discovered
repeat the word-humbug ! It has been said that as Drury Lane en> as J'et no cure for tbe Legion of Honour ; but they recommend every
ploys no actors, and is not likely to employ any, the fund will ulti- Frenchman who is seized with it, to take it as kindly as possible, and
mately be scrambled for by a fortunate few ! To be sure, it has been br"'e the consequences of his becoming a " marked man.
most indecorouslv suggested that it should merge in the General i We wonder there is no opposition in the Chamber to these annual
Theatrical Fund" instituted for the illegitimate actors of illegitimate £rants for decorations ; for we beheve that in real truth there is
.pieces at illegitimate minor theatres. (Cries of ' Shame !') I nothing which goes more agaimt a Frenchman s bosom than the

,tX-, . . -p. t , -r, „ ■ v, , Cross of the Legion of Honour. In England we have now and then a

£Bo actor at Drury Lane ! But the press-the all-powerful press- ^ f f " in India tl are subJected about 0nce a year to a
rebuts and utterly falsifies the venal accusation. I have only to remind °f f locgus s other couyntries arJe astonished occasionally with

this distinguished audience of our new mammoth company ; I have : ^ of Btoneg' but iQ France a Bhower of cr0sses is so frequent,
&l° T^\t° ! y.ecoll(f 10nf °f, at! enlightened public; so recently **™ eM } Cfa ed t0 be a phenomcno„. We suppose it is something
^^ frA^ in the dtmateffor we believe "that an Englishman has only to stop a

manager, and gentleman, whom a sense of delicacy permits me not
further to particularise, being prevented by Swedish business from
taking his rightful place upon the elephant's back.

" No actors ! Have we not, I ask ir, two elephants, male and female ?
Have we not our Jenny Lind ? And when the he-elephant—our
greatest living actor, I may be allowed to call him—shall have worn
himself out in the service of an enlightened public, will he not, as an
actor of Drury Lane, have the best of right to Drury Lane's Fund ?
And oh ! your Royal Highness, and Ladies and Gentlemen, when the
player-elephant, like a veteran actor of the heavy business, shall
have nothing left him but a shabby trunk, with not a single tooth in
his head, will it not be a delightful consolation to you all, waking up
in the middle of the night, to know that that elephant (the actor of the

month at Boulogne, and he is sure to be decorated.

The Bronze Horse.

It is rumoured, that, in opposition to the attraction of the wild beasts
at Drury Laue, the proprietors of Covent Garden have engaged the
Monster Statue at Hyde Park. It will be previously drawn by six-
and-twenty horses through London, going down the Strand and Fleet
Street, and return by Holborn Hill. A Smiihfield Market-Day will be
chosen, in order that the droves of bulls and oxen may swell the
procession. It is expected that the Monster Horse will make his first
olden time) is housed by your bounty ?—that when the morning appearance in the Statue scene in Don Giovanni.