of time, during which they are fortunate if they can provide the
means of comfort in the decline of life. That comes late, and
lasts but a short time; after which they are left dependent.
Their limbs fail--their teeth are loosened--their voice is lost
and they are left, after giving happiness to others, in a most
disconsolate state. The public were liberal and generous to
those deserving their protection. It was a sad thing to be
dependent on the favour, or, he might say, in plain terms, on the
caprice, of the public; and this more particularly for a class of
persons of whom extreme prudence is not the character. There
might be instances of opportunities being neglected. But let
each gentleman tax himself, and consider the opportunities THEY
had neglected, and the sums of money THEY had wasted; let every
gentleman look into his own bosom, and say whether these were
circumstances which would soften his own feelings, were he to be
plunged into distress. He put it to every generous bosom--to
every better feeling--to say what consolation was it to old age
to be told that you might have made provision at a time which had
been neglected--(loud cheers)--and to find it objected, that if
you had pleased you might have been wealthy. He had hitherto
been speaking of what, in theatrical language, was called STARS;
but they were sometimes falling ones. There was another class of
sufferers naturally and necessarily connected with the theatre,
without whom it was impossible to go on. The sailors have a
saying, Every man cannot be a boatswain. If there must be a
great actor to act Hamlet, there must also be people to act
Laertes, the King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, otherwise a
drama cannot go on. If even Garrick himself were to rise from
the dead, he could not act Hamlet alone. There must be generals,
colonels, commanding-officers, subalterns. But what are the