Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/386

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344
ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.

Oh! Sheridan! if aught can move thy pen,580
Let Comedy assume her throne again;[1]
Abjure the mummery of German schools;
Leave new Pizarros to translating fools;[2]
Give, as thy last memorial to the age,
One classic drama, and reform the stage.
Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head,
Where Garrick trod, and Siddons lives to tread?[3][4]
On those shall Farce display Buffoonery's mask,
And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask?[5]

Shall sapient managers new scenes produce590

    wrote poetry, plays, novels, classical translations, and works of religious controversy. He was successively Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and secretary to the Board of Trade. His best known plays are The West Indian, The Wheel of Fortune, and The Jew. He published his Memoirs in 1806-7.]

  1. Resume her throne again.—[MS. British Bards. First to Fourth Editions.]
  2. [Sheridan's translation of Pizarro, by Kotzebue, was first played at Drury Lane, 1799. Southey wrote of it, "It is impossible to sink below Pizarro. Kotzebue's play might have passed for the worst possible if Sheridan had not proved the possibility of making it worse" (Southey's Letters, i. 87). Gifford alludes to it in a note to The Mæviad as "the translation so maliciously attributed to Sheridan."]
  3. —— and Kemble lives to tread.—[British Bards. First to Fourth Editions.]
  4. [In all editions, previous to the fifth, it was, "Kemble lives to tread." Byron used to say, that, of actors, Cooke was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural, Kean the medium between the two; but that Mrs. Siddons was worth them all put together." Such effect, however, had Kean's acting on his mind, that once, on seeing him play Sir Giles Overreach, he was seized with a fit.]
  5. [See supra, line 562.]