The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/To E. Simpson, Esq. (3)
TO E. SIMPSON, ESQ.,
MANAGER OF THE PARK THEATRE.57
ear Simpson, since the day is near
Destined to close your late campaign,
’Tis well to greet the coming year,
And learn how best you may appear
Before the public eye again.
One thing, at least, whate’er you do,
For Heaven’s sake give us something new!
For though your actors have not lost
One lightning-flash of Thespian fire,
Yet beauties that delight us most,
The wearied eye, in time, will tire.
’Tis thus the sated gaze of taste
Holland’s58 drop-curtain heedless passes;
And thus the schoolboy loathes at last
His sugar-candy and molasses.
Now, if you will but take advice,
Bank-notes shall fall like summer rain,
And next year you and Mr. Price
May cut your cider for champagne.
Just hand your present corps down-stairs,
Disband them all, and then create
Another army from the Players
That figure on the stage of State.
A better set there cannot be
For clap-trap and stage trickery,
And they’ll be well content to quit
Their present posts for higher pay;
For if they but good salaries get,
It matters not what parts they play.
You’ll have no quarelling about
The characters you deal them out;
Their public acts too well have shown
They care but little for their own.
How nicely would Judge Spencer fit
For “Overreach” and “Bajazet;”
Van Buren, nimble, sly, and thin,
Would make a noble “Harlequin;”
Clinton would play “King Dick the Surly,”
The learned “Pangloss” and grave “Lord Burleigh;”
Woodworth (whose name the Muse shall hallow)
Is quite at home in “Justice Shallow;”
And slippery, smooth-faced Tallmadge stands
A “Joseph Surface” at your hands.
Lo! where the acting Council sits,
A grand triumvirate of wits,
Cut out express by Nature’s chisel
For “Noodle, Doodle, and Lord Grizzle;”
The Members who contrived to fill
The State purse from the steamboat-till,
Dressed out in turbans and white sleeves,
Would figure in the “Forty Thieves.”
We’ll linger with delighted grin
To see old Root in “Nipperkin,”
And gaze with reverential wonder
On Skinner’s sapient face in “Ponder!”
While Peter R——, the jovial soul,
Will toss off Jobson’s “brimming bowl,”
Fit for a Senator to swim in;
And bravos rung from half the town,
Would tell the fame of Walter Bowne,
In “Cacafogo” and old women.
Our City Aldermen, you know,
Are conjurors, ex officio;
And, with the Mayor in his silk breeches,
Would do for “Hecate and the witches.”
Christian and Warner, long the scourges
Of Bucks and other “vagrom men,”
Would find in “Dogberry and Verges”
Their very selves restored again.
Buckmaster, fat, and full of glee,
Might rival Cooke in “Jack Falstaff;”
“Pistol” and “Bobadil” would be
Revived once more in Captain Haff.
To classic Meigs, who soon, thank Heaven!
In Congress, will illume the age,
The brightest wages should be given,
To trim the lamps and light the stage.
Van Wyck will play the “Giant Wife,”
And “Death” in “Blue Beard” to the life;
And surly German do, at least,
For “Bear” in “Beauty and the Beast.”
Maxwell and Gardenier, you’ll fix
With strong indentures, by all means;
They’re used to shifting politics,
And soon would learn to shift the scenes.
Bacon might bustle on in “Meddler,”
Gilbert play new tricks in “Diddler,”
Good honest Peter H. Wendover
In “Vortex” read his one speech over,
While Pell would strike the critics dumb,
A perfect miniature “Tom Thumb;”
And Mitchill, as in all the past,
Talk Science, and cut corns in “Last.”