"Thus far," added the great Tragedian, rolling up the papers into a bundle and tossing them over to Mr. Titlepage, "the Autobiography of Bonassus! From Smithfield we march to the Metropolitans. 'The Garden' is sadly in want of a fine high comedy figure at a low one; and Drury, of a Tragedy Queen who can do Dollallolla. I smother a new debutante, Miss Barbara Bug-gins; beat Liston * hollow in Moll Flaggon; and put out of joint the noses of all preceding Mac-beths. The Tumbletuzzy opens in Queen Katherine (which she plays quite in a different style to Siddons)."
* Of an actor so extensively popular, let us indulge a few reminiscenees. We remember his first entrée upon the boards of old Covent Garden, in Jacob Gawky; but his present amplitude of face and rotundity of person were then wanting to heighten the picture; and flesh, like wine, does wonders. His voice, too, has Avaxed more fat and unctuous; and broader (like his figure) has grown his fun. The stage became possessed of a new character, such as humourist had never before conceived, or player played--Mr. Liston!--The town roared with laughter; actors split their sides at his deepening gravity; caricaturists, in despair, cast off invention, and trusted solely to his unique lineaments; our signs bore aloft his physiognomical wonders; and walking- sticks, tobacco-stoppers, snuff-boxes, owned the queer impeachment.
Liston! the Knight of the comieal countenance, where Momus sits enthroned in every dimple, crying aloof to the sons of care and melancholy! He is the very individual oddity described in the epigram--
"Here, Hermes" says Jove, who with nectar was mellow,
"Go, fetch me some clay, I will make an odd fellow."
And forth sprang Liston, a figure of fun! Not for the amusement of gods, but of men!
To Suett Ave owe our first impression of drollery, but his glimmering spark was soon extinct. The sun of Liston has been before us from its rising to its setting. We hailed its grotesque ascension, basked in its-broad meridian, and now (when time has somewhat sobered down its comet-like eccentricities) sorrowfully contemplate its going down.
Liston's last season! and the cruel old boy looks so provokingly hale and comical! What years of future laughter are in his face, scored over with quips and cranks! drawn up in farcical festoons! furrowed with fun!