- "Rabida qui concitus ira
Implevit pariter ternis latratibus auras,
Et sparsit virides spumis albentibus agrot."--OVID.

MOST THINKING PEOPLE,

When persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either
in words or gesture, to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, your servant."
If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and BRUTE BEAST
enough, to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in a breath.
In the first place, you are NOT Ladies and Gentlemen, but I hope
something better, that is to say, honest men and women; and in the
next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so much
gentlemen, I am not, NOR EVER WILL BE, your humble servant. You see
me here, MOST THINKING PEOPLE, by mere chance. I have not been
within the doors of a play-house before for these ten years; nor,
till that abominable custom of taking money at the doors is
discontinued, will I ever sanction a theatre with my presence. The
stage-door is the only gate of FREEDOM in the whole edifice, and
through that I made my way from Bagshaw's {25} in Brydges Street, to
accost you. Look about you. Are you not all comfortable? Nay,
never slink, mun; speak out, if you are dissatisfied, and tell me so
before I leave town. You are now (thanks to MR. WHITBREAD) got into
a large, comfortable house. Not into a GIMCRACK-PALACE; not into a
SOLOMON'S TEMPLE; not into a frost-work of Brobdignag filigree; but
into a plain, honest, homely, industrious, wholesome, BROWN BRICK
PLAYHOUSE. You have been struggling for independence and elbow-room
these three years; and who gave it you? Who helped you out of
Lilliput? Who routed you from a rat-hole five inches by four, to
perch you in a palace? Again and again I answer, MR. WHITBREAD. You