might have sweltered in that place with the Greek name {26} till
doomsday, and neither LORD CASTLEREAGH, MR. CANNING, no, nor the
MARQUESS WELLESLEY, would have turned a trowel to help you out!
Remember that. Never forget that. Read it to your children, and to
your children's children! And now, MOST THINKING PEOPLE, cast your
eyes over my head to what the builder (I beg his pardon, the
architect) calls the proscenium. No motto, no slang, no popish
Latin, to keep the people in the dark. No veluti in speculum.
Nothing in the dead languages, properly so called, for they ought to
die, ay and be DAMNED to boot! The Covent Garden manager tried that,
and a pretty business he made of it! When a man says veluti in
speculum, he is called a man of letters. Very well, and is not a man
who cries O. P. a man of letters too? You ran your O. P. against his
veluti in speculum, and pray which beat? I prophesied that, though I
never told any body. I take it for granted, that every intelligent
man, woman, and child, to whom I address myself, has stood severally
and respectively in Little Russell Street, and cast their, his, her,
and its eyes on the outside of this building before they paid their
money to view the inside. Look at the brick-work, ENGLISH AUDIENCE!
Look at the brick-work! All plain and smooth like a quakers'
meeting. None of your Egyptian pyramids, to entomb subscribers'
capitals. No overgrown colonnades of stone, {27} like an alderman's
gouty legs in white cotton stockings, fit only to use as rammers for
paving Tottenham Court Road. This house is neither after the model
of a temple in Athens, no, nor a TEMPLE in MOORFIELDS, but it is
built to act English plays in: and, provided you have good scenery,
dresses, and decorations, I daresay you wouldn't break your hearts if
the outside were as plain as the pikestaff I used to carry when I was
a sergeant. Apropos, as the French valets say, who cut their
masters' throats {28}--apropos, a word about dresses. You must, many