Liston's last season!--Why should he retire? Are not the times sad enough?--How will the world wag, wanting its merriest one?
To this the satirical nosed gentleman nodded assent.
"With fifteen new readings to electrify the diurnal critics of Petticoat Alley and Blow-bladder Lane!"
Mr. Bubangrub guaranteed for the brethren. One new reading he would take the liberty of suggesting to Mr. Bigstick. John Kemble had entirely mistaken Shakspere's meaning. "Birnam Wood" comes not to "Dunsinane" a town; but to "Dunce inane" Macbeth! who was blockhead enough to put his trust in the witches. The great Tragedian danced with ecstasy at this "palpable hit," and promised pipes and purl for the critical party after the performance.
"Egg-hot," said he, "is not my ordinary tipple; but on this occasion (pardon egotism!) I will be an egg-hot-ist! And now, to the Queen's Arms for a supper, and then to Somnus's for a snooze!"
With a patronising air he conducted us down the ladder. To Uncle Timothy he said a few words in private, and our ears deceived us, if "gratitude" was not among the number.
We fancied that the jovial spirit of the good Prior, on a three days' furlough from Elysium, hovered over the holiday scene; and that a shadowy black robe and cowl, half concealing his portly figure and ruddy features, flitted in the moonlight, and disappeared under the antique low-arched door that leads to his mausoleum!
** Each of the monks that kneel beside the effigy of Rahere has a Bible before him, open at the fifty-first chapter of Isaiah. The third verse is peculiarly applicable to his holy work. And as it was the Star that guided him to convert an unhealthy marsh, "dunge and fenny" on the only dry part of which was erected "the gallows of thieves," into a temple and a "garden of the Lord so it was his divine assurance that he would live to see, in his own case, the prophecy fulfilled; and hear the "voice of melody" echo through the sacred walls his piety had raised.
"The Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody."